deeds not only at home, but starting an influence
under which Robert Burns wrote "A man's a man for a' that," and sending
across the Atlantic a thunder of indignation against oppression of which
the American Declaration of Independence, and Yorktown and Bunker Hill,
and Monmouth and Gettysburg, are only the echoes!

As I look across the ocean to-night, I say: England for manufactories,
Germany for scholarship, France for manners, Italy for pictures--but
Holland for liberty and for God! And leaving to other gentlemen to tell
that story--for they can tell it better than I can--I can to-night get
but little further than our own immediate Dutch ancestors, most of whom
have already taken the sacrament of the dust. Ah, what a glorious race
of old folks they were! May our right hand forget its cunning, and our
tongue cleave to the roof of the mouth, if we forget to honor their
memories! What good advice they gave us; and when they went away
forever--well, our emotions were a little different as we stood over the
silent forms of the two old folks. In one case I think the dominant
emotion was reverence. In the other case I think it was tenderness, and
a wish that we could go with her.--

"Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight;
Make me a child again, just for to-night!
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart as of yore;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;
Over my slumbers a loving watch keep;--
Rock me to sleep, mother--rock me to sleep!"

My, my! doesn't the old Dutch home come back to us, and don't we see the
plain cap, and the large round spectacles, and the shoulders that stoop
from carrying our burden! Was there ever any other hand like hers to
wipe away a tear, or to bind up a wound; for when she put the
far-sighted spectacles clear up on her forehead, so that her eyes might
the nearer look at the wound, it felt better right away! And have we
ever since heard any music like that which she hushed us to sleep
with--could any prima donna sing as she could! And could any other face
so fill a room with light and comfort and peace!

Mr. President, Dutch blood is good blood. We do not propose to
antagonize any other to-night; but at our public dinners, about December
21st, we are very apt to get into the Mayflower and sail around the New
England coast. I think it will be good for us to-night to take another
boat qui