IT

X.

THE MEN OF THE "MAYFLOWER."

-T may be safely affirmed that there is nothing so interesting to man as man. There is no force so tal and so mighty as the force of sympathy. Our interest can gather about a thing, or about a truth; but the thing must have been realized, and the truth embodied, if our hearts are to go out after them in attachment or desire.

We can kindle into enthusiasm about a place; but it is because the subtle law of association links it with some tender memory, or reminds us that on that spot some man of like passions with ourselves has felt or done sublimely. It is a law of our existence, and we cannot reverse it, for God has wisely and kindly made it so, that the strongest affection, as well as the proper study, of mankind, is man. In our study of the lives and deeds of the world's great men, there are two mistakes into which we are sometimes apt to fall: the one is, to fasten our admiration upon those whose greatness we cannot approach, because we have not the original gifts by whose improvement their greatness came; the other is, to shrink back when models which we can really imitate are presented, and from false humility, or from real idleness, to imagine that they are beyond our reach. Thus we envy the chil

dren of genius-the poet, whose harp is a nation's heart, and whose song is therefore woven into the familiar speech of the free; the philosopher, who, like a deeper seer, comes forward when common soothsayers are dumb, and reads the writing upon the walls of God's beautiful house of life; the artist, who pays dream-visits to the spirit-land, and brings down to our grosser sense its archetypes of ideal beauty. But all these forms of excellence are above us and beyond us, unless we are especially gifted to write, or to paint, or to discover.

But there is a higher greatness than that of intellect higher, because commoner, more influential, more abiding. It is what may be called greatness of soul. The greatest great men of the world are not always canonized in song or story. They may have no rent-roll of wealth, nor bead-roll of fame. They may be busied in coarse handicraft, and clad in mean apparel; but wherever there is one who basks in the light for the love of it, and reflects it for the love of others; who, amid the glare of the flattering sun and the heat of the persecuting fire, seeks simply for the right, and having found it, follows it to the last; who sets before him the maintenance of a great principle, or the attainment of a spiritual end, and, through scoffing and slander, counts all things but loss that he may uphold or compass that; who, in heroic sacrifice of self, does his duty, though it rends his heart a martyr who gains no credit for his martyrdom ;-find such an one where you will, I tell you, kings may doff their crowns to that man, and wise men may be silent in his presence, for he

has achieved a greatness to which the pomp of office and the pride of knowledge are but as the dross which burneth-a greatness which shall abide for ever.

Of such type of greatness, moral rather than intellectual, and therefore imitable by any of us, were the men of whom we speak to-day

"The men who gave a nation birth,

The Pilgrims of the sunset wave;
Who won at first this virgin earth,
And freedom with the soil they gave."

Let us see where they landed. "Westward the course of empire takes its way," even in America; and so Plymouth finds but little favour among the devotees of dollar and dividend. It has shared the fate of many of the smaller New England towns, and is forsaken by the enterprising, and looked down upon somewhat as if it lagged behind the age. Be it so it is all the better fitted for the memories which it preserves and embalms. With its rows of stately elms, which suggest poetry while they contribute shade, and its quiet streets, sloping shily downward in a modest welcome of the sea, it is a meet spot for a tranquil spirit to dwell in. Passing beneath the elms in the main street, and turning down a rather steep descent to the left, we are on the way to "Forefathers" Rock," where first, by immemorial tradition, it is asserted that "they, the truehearted, came." To the right is an abrupt ridge, called Cole's Hill, from which a flight of steps is cut to the rock beneath. This hill formerly overhung the beach, and immediately underneath it was the cove in which the shallop grounded, and the projecting boulder which received the first tread of

freedom. To realize the scene more vividly, however, Plymouth as it is must disappear, and you must picture the country as it once was-unbroken forest, and inhospitable shore; serpents writhing in the swamp, and deer bounding on the hills; an ocean innocent of ships, and a land without dwellers, save where some lordly Indian trapped his game in the wild wood; all nature in her wintry shroud, the earth ice-bound, and the sky leaden and dreary;-thus it was when the little vessel neared the coast, and there leaped ashore the exploring party of the pilgrims, hardy pioneers from whom a nation sprang. By a series of testimony, reaching back to the days of the forefathers, the "Rock" is declared to be the identical one on which their feet first trod; so that when you stand beneath the canopy of Quiney granite, and place your feet on the piece of rock about two feet square, which is all that, for fear of the sacrilegious, dare be left exposed, you may be sure that you stand where stood the conditores imperiorum-the founders of empire, to whom Lord Bacon assigns the highest meed of earthly fame, and who deserve yet higher eulogy, because they planted not for dominion or renown, but for freedom, and conscience, and God.

You have seen where the pilgrims landed; let us visit the God's acre where they lie. During the mortality of the first sad winter, Cole's Hill was the burial-place. It is covered with dwellings now, with neither stone nor memorial. Re-ascending from the

rock into Leyden Street, so called from the city of their shelter in the Old World, we climb the steep pathway to Burial Hill, one hundred and sixty-five

feet above the sea. Stand here awhile, for from this elevation all the places made sacred by the Pilgrims are visible. Down below, a little to the east, is the harbour where the vessel was guided by a skill more prescient than that of the bewildered pilot at the helm. Far in the distance, indistinctly seen through the haze, is Cape Cod, the scene of waiting for five weary weeks of life. Within the bay, to the south-east, is the Manomet Ridge, crested with pines, by which the pilot guided his bark to the place where he wished to land. To the north is Clark's Island, where the first Sabbath was spent, and where

"Amid the storm they sang,

And the stars heard, and the sea.

On the north-east is the green hill of Duxbury, where Standish made his home; and where, linking gloriously ancient heroism and modern progress, the French Atlantic cable takes possession of American soil. The place teems with pilgrim memories, and to the eye and heart of those who are in sympathy with their cause, each spot is hallowed ground. On the hill itself, though it is a populous city of the dead, we look in vain for the forefathers' graves. Their descendants are here. There is quaint Puritanism upon the tombstones, which read as if they deemed it a sin to choose a Christian name that was not found within Bible bindings. The old names are perpetuated, but you can find no grave in which the men of the Mayflower lie. It may be that some of the mosscovered old stones, just peeping above the soil, cover the dust of heroes-but we cannot tell. The Pilgrims