vil and divine, the dignity of man, the worth of the soul and
right conduct in life. [Applause.] Believe me, gentlemen, the Puritan
clergy did a great work for New England. Our whole country feels yet the
impulse and movement given it by those stern preachers of righteousness,
who had Abrahamic eyes under their foreheads and the stuff of Elijah in
their souls. [Applause.] I know it's the fashion now to poke fun at the
Puritans, to use the "Blue Laws" as a weapon against them, to sneer at
them as hard, narrow, and intolerant. Yes, alas! we do not breathe
through their lungs any more. The wheel has gone round, and we have come
back to the very things the Puritans fled from in hatred and in horror.

We pride ourselves these days on our "sweetness and light," on our
culture and manners. The soul of the age is hospitable and entertains,
like an inn, "God or the devil on equal terms," as George Eliot says.
Alas! the Puritan chart has failed us in the sea through which we are
passing; the old stars have ceased to shine; too many of us know neither
our course nor destination; "authority is mute;" the "Thus saith the
Lord" of the Puritan is not enough now for our guidance. For the age is
in all things not one of reason or of faith, but of speculation not only
in the business of the world, but in all moral and spiritual questions
as well. Well, we shall see what we shall see. But for one, I admire
with all my soul a man who knows just what he was put into this world
for, what his chief end in it is, what he believes, must do and must be,
and in the ways thereof is willing to inflict or to suffer death.
[Applause.] The Puritan divine was such a man. He sowed your rocky
coasts and sterile hills with conscience and God. You are living on the
virtue that came out of the hem of his garment; he is our bulwark still
in this land against superstition on the one hand and infidelity on the
other. [Applause.] Grand man he was, the old Puritan; once arrived he
was always arrived; while other men hesitated he acted; while others
debated he declared; fearing God, he was lifted above every other fear;
and though he has passed away for a time--only for a time, remember: the
wheel is still turning, we can't stand on air--he will come back again,
but in the meantime he is still a "preacher of righteousness" to our
souls as effective in death as in life. [Applause.]

In your presence I greet with my warmest admiration, I salute with my
profound rev