exhausted from the voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending on the charity of their ship-master for a draught of beer on board, drinking nothing but water on shore, without shelter, without means, surrounded by hostile tribes.

Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, on any principle of human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers? Tell me, man of military science, in how many months they were all swept off by the thirty savage tribes enumerated within the boundaries of New England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures of other times, and find the parallel of this. Was it the winter storm, beating upon the houseless head of women and children? was it hard labor and spare meals? was it disease? was it the tomahawk? was it the deep malady of the blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, and a broken heart, aching in its last moments at the recolwas it some lections of the loved and left, beyond the sea? or all of them united that hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate? And is it possible, that neither of these causes, that all combined, were able to blast this bud of hope! Is it possible, that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, a reality so important, a promise yet to be fulfilled so glorious!

THE PILGRIM FATHERS.

BY JOHN PIERPONT.

THE Pilgrim Fathers,-where are they?
The waves that brought them o'er
Still roll in the bay, and throw their spray
As they break along the shore:
Still roll in the bay, as they roll'd that day
When the Mayflower moor'd below,
When the sea around was black with storms,
And white the shore with snow.

The mists, that wrapp'd the Pilgrim's sleep,
Still brood upon the tide;

And his rocks yet keep their watch by the deep,

To stay its waves of pride.

But the snow-white sail, that he gave to the gale
When the heavens look'd dark is gone ;—
As an angel's wing, through an opening cloud,
Is seen, and then withdrawn.

The Pilgrim exile,-sainted name'

The hill, whose icy brow

Rejoiced, when he came, in the morning's flame, In the morning's flame burns now.

And the moon's cold light, as it lay that night

On the hill-side and the sea,

Still lies where he laid his houseless head;

But the Pilgrim,-where is he?

The Pilgrim Fathers are at rest;

When summer's throned on high,

And the world's warm breast is in verdure dress'd, Go, stand on the hill where they lie.

The earliest ray of the golden day

On that hallow'd spot is cast;

And the evening sun, as it leaves the world,
Looks kindly on that spot last.

The Pilgrim spirit has not fled;

It walks in noon's broad light;

And it watches the bed of the glorious dead,
With their holy stars, by night.

It watches the bed of the brave who have bled,
And shall guard this ice-bound shore,

Till the waves of the bay, where the Mayflower lay,
Shall foam and freeze no more.

THE MEMORY OF OUR FATHERS.

BY DR. BEECHER

WE are called upon to cherish with high veneration and grateful recollections, the memory of our fathers. Both the ties of nature and the dictates of policy, demand this. And surely, no nation had ever less occasion to be ashamed of its ancestry, or more occasion for gratulation in that respect; for, while most nations trace their origin to barbarians, the foundations of our nation were laid by civilized men-by Christians. Many of them were men of distinguished families, of powerful talents, of great learning, and of pre-eminent wisdom, of decision of character, and of most inflexible integrity. And yet, not unfrequently, they have been treated as if they had no virtues; while their sins and follies have been sedulously immortalized in satirical anecdote.

The influence of such treatment of our fathers is too manifest. It creates, and lets loose upon their institutions, the vandal spirit of innovation and overthrow; for, after the memory of our fathers shall have been rendered contemptible, who will appreciate and sustain their institutions? The memory

of our fathers, should be the watchword of liberty throughout the land for, imperfect as they were, the world before had not seen their like, nor will it soon, we fear, behold their like

again. Such models of moral excellence, such apostles of civil and religious liberty, such shades of the illustrious dead, looking down upon their descendants with approbation or reproof, according as they follow or depart from the good way, constitute a censorship inferior only to the eye of God; and to ridicule them is national suicide.

The doctrines of our fathers have been represented as gloomy, superstitious, severe, irrational, and of a licentious tendency. But when other systems shall have produced a piety as devoted, a morality as pure, a patriotism as disinterested, and a state of society as happy, as have prevailed where their doctrines have been most prevalent, it may be in season to seek an answer to this objection.

The persecutions instituted by our fathers, have been the occasion of ceaseless obloquy upon their fair fame. And truly, it was a fault of no ordinary magnitude, that sometimes they did persecute. But let him whose ancestors were not ten times more guilty cast the first stone, and the ashes of our fathers will no more be disturbed. Theirs was the fault of the, age and it will be easy to show, that no class of men had, at that time, approximated so nearly to just apprehensions of religious liberty; and that it is to them that the world is now indebted, for the more just and definite views which now prevail.

The superstition and bigotry of our fathers, are themes on which some of their descendants, themselves far enough from superstition if not from bigotry, have delighted to dwell.