erence, the old Puritan divines of New England who had a
scorn for all base uses of life, who were true to duty as they saw it,
who had convictions for which they would kill or die, who formed their
characters and guided their lives by the law of righteousness in human
conduct. To these men under God we largely owe our liberties and our
laws in this land. I take off my hat to his ghost, and salute him as
greater than he who has taken a city, for the Puritan divine conquered
himself. He was an Isaac, not an Ishmael; he was a Jacob, not an Esau; a
God-born man who knew what his soul did wear. Great man he was, hard,
stern, and intolerant. Yes, but what would you have, gentlemen? The
Puritan was not a pretty head carved on a cherry-stone, but a Colossus
cut from the rock, huge, grim, but awe-inspiring, fortifying to the soul
if not warming to the heart. [Applause.]

Well, would he know you to-night, I wonder, his own sons, if he came in
upon you now, in circumstances so different and with manners and
customs so changed? Would he gaze at you with sad, sad eyes, and weep
over you as the degenerate sons of noble sires? [Laughter.] No, no; you
are worthy, I think. The sons will keep what the fathers won. After all,
you are still one with the Puritan in all essential things. [Applause.]
You clasp hands with him in devotion to the same principle, in obedience
to the same God. True, the man between doublet and skin plays many
parts; fashions come and go, never long the same, but "clothe me as you
will I am Sancho Panza still." So you are Puritans still. Back of your
Unitarianism, back of your Episcopalianism, back of your
Transcendentalism, back of all your isms, conceits, vagaries--and there
is no end to them--back of them all there beats in you the Puritan
heart. Blood will tell. Scratch a child of sweetness and light on Beacon
Hill to-day and you will find a Puritan. [Laughter.] Scratch your
Emerson, your Bellows, your Lowell, your Longfellow, your Wendell
Phillips, your Phillips Brooks, and you find the Puritan. [Applause.] In
intellectual conclusions vastly different, in heart, at bottom, you're
all one in love of liberty, in fear of God, contempt for shams, and
scorn of all things base and mean. [Applause.]

So, ye ghosts of old Puritan divines, ye cannot look down on your sons
to-night with sad and reproachful eyes. For the sons have not wasted
what the fathers gained, nor failed in any critical emergency, nor yet
forsake