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J) ;^ '; -> >> >^> 2> '3^ 3 )»)■>> > > 1 r \iy^ ' ^ 1 i A N DISCOURSE DELIVERED IN rLYMOUTlI AT THE CUSHMAN FESTIVAL, AUGUST 15, 18 55. « ijrauutli's %ntl: ^'■The rock whence "vve tcere hewn." A DISCOURSE DELIVERED IN PLYMOUTH AT THE CUSHMAN FESTIVAL, August 15tli, 1855, THE OOXXXVTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE EMBARKATION OF THE PILGRIMS FOR AMERICA. •0. ROBERT W. ClISniAN, OF BOSTON . n.5,A, ^.)] .^■J BOSTON: J. M. HE WES, PKINTER, 81 CORN HILL. 1855. ^ -J?6(^^ DISCOURSE. FAl'HEtis and motliers, brothets atid sisters, kindred all, we bid you welcome home ! We have come to talk of the olden time. We have come to honor the dead ; and to bear away with us, if we may, some benefit from such filial homage for ourselves and for our children. How unwonted our emotions : strangers looking upon each other for the first time, yet one family! As Ave think of home and childhood, our memories fly over the broad continent ; to alight, some, among the wintry hills of New Hampshire, and others amid the savannahs of the sunny South ; some on the banks of the Kennebec, and others where the father of waters rolls the tribute of a thousand rivers to the sea. Yet the time was when the blood which flows in our veins was centered in a single household near the spot where we are now gathered. And when the Sabbath called them from the domestic to the public altar, they worshiped where we stand. It is fitting that, on the occasion which has brought us to visit the old family homestead and the old family tomb, we should gather where they gathered. It is fitting that our first act in this re-union should be a solemn recognition of our fathers' God, and an acknow- ledgment of our obligation to Him for the blessings which we enjoy as the fruit of their piety and sacrifices. And now that we have joined in worship, before we go up to press around the time-worn graves of our earliest dead, let us open the old Pilgrim Bible and seek, as they were wont to seek on all public occasions, a channel for our thoughts from the word of God. And, as we have come to talk of family affairs, the text that may, per- haps, most fitly guide us is that of the command in the first and second verses of the fifty-first chapter of Isaiah. " Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of tiie pit whence ye are digged. Look unto Abraham, your father, and to Sarah that bear you : for I called him alone and blessed him and increased him." On an ordinary occasion of religious instruction, a freer scope might be indulged on the subject matter of this text than time will permit on this. We may remark, however, that we are happily not in the condition of those to whom it was addressed. They were about to pass through the calamities which are involved in the loss of country and freedom. These, even they "who followed after righteousness" were to suffer, in the chastisement that was to be visited on the nation's sins. The providence of God is not so discriminating in national visitations as to rescue the innocent from the calamities of the guilty. If locust and canker-worm, if blasting and mildew cover a land, or earthquakes upheave and tornadoes sweep it ; if pestilence thin its people, if famine waste its strength ; or if despotism triumph and liberty fall, the righteous must suffer with the wicked. But then it is their privi- lege to recognize the Hand that holds the rod, and to hear a voice assuring them that they are not forgotten. 5 In the case of the rigliteoiis, to whom the prophet spoke, there was a special ground of hope. Sinful as their nation was, — " a people laden with iniquity," — it had a destiny to fulfil which forbade its extinction. Chastised it must he, hut not destroyed, for there was a blessing wrapped up in its nationality for the rest of mankind. When, therefore, the predicted calamity should overtake them, and they should be driven out from their own land into exile and bondage, and the dark cloud of judgment be shutting down on their future, the pious were directed to look to the past. They might thus re-assure their hopes by the circumstances of their nation's origin ; and by the promises made to their pro- genitor by One who " is not a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that He should repent." Although, happily, we have no such cause to look away from the future to the past as they had, such retro- spection to-day may not be without its benefit, if not for strength to meet apprehended trials, yet for incitement to the more diligent discharge of awaiting duties. The people whom the prophet was addressing had this advantage, as a nation, over us ; that they all knew who their ancestors were. Every individual fjimily had a perfect and reliable record of its pedigree. An Israelite of a thousand years' descent could tell you his genealogy through all his fathers back to the beginning of his nation, — to the common progenitor of all its liimilies. And wherever he met a fellow-countryman he felt that he was with his kindred. Whatever advantages might be derived from the contemplation of ancestral virtues and the ties of kindred, tliey had in their largest mea- sure ; and how much they gloried in them is often seen in their history. In this respect the American people form a perfect contrast to them ; and not only the American people at large, but even the descendants of the first settlers of New England. There is no people on earth, probably, who concern themselves so little about their ancestry as the people of this country ; or who, after the first degree, feel so little interest in consanguinity. How often do you hear, in reply to the question ; Whether such a one is a relative, the negative given, because he is only a second cousin. If you ask a man who was his grandfather, he may be able to tell you. But if you ask where he came from, (that he came from somewhere is taken for granted,) it is more likely than not that you will be answered in some such dubious and traditionary form as the following : — " I have heard my ftither say that his father came from the eastward ; or, ' from the old country ;' " or, " he was born somewhere in New England ;" or some other answer equally in- structive. This ignorance is, of course, the result of indifference. And the indifference itself has probably been fostered by the contempt in which, as a people, we have been nursed^ for hereditary distinctions ; and by the importance we attach, very justly, to individual character. It is also, without doubt, in some degree the result of that earnest- ness with which the attention of men in this country has ever been directed to the opening future. So earnest has been the spirit of anticipation, that one might sup- pose us to be born with the nature of partridges. We are so eager to be off in pursuit of our destinyj that we do not wait to drop our shells. Children spring into manhood ; and it is well with their fathers only because the land is wide ; otherwise they would be jostled off the stage by their filial rivals. Let us rejoice that this indifTercnce to the men and things of the past, in New England, is beginning to be corrected. No people under heaven have so great rea- son to value their descent as those whose ancestors aban- doned the blessings of a civilized land, and encountered the hardships and perils of unfrequented seas, and the savage wilds of the new-found continent, for the benefit of coming generations. The names of such men should not be forgotten, nor remain unhonored. If these remarks be just, of the early settlers and their descendants gemrally, how emphatically true are they of the little band of pioneers who, two hundred and thirty- five years ago this day, bade adieu to the England of the old world, to raise up another in the new ; and with what reverence should their names and deeds and suffer- ings be cherished by those who inherit their blood. Uneducated they may, most of them, have been ; rus- tic, and bigoted if you will, with the sectarism of the times ; and intolerant, too, from the circumstances in which they had lived. Yet for all that, they were no common men ; they were of a higher order than the titled ; they were more even than nature's noblemen. They were men of whom the world was not then worthy; and if ever mortals deserved apotheosis, as heroes of the loftiest type, and seats as demigods among the stars, it was the men — aye, and the women too, of that pilgrim band ; and shame to the degenerate son who could stoop and pry and peep among the ashes of their funeral pyres for proof that they were but men ! Cherishing these sentiments, it was with unwonted pleasure that the speaker saw the movement set on foot to honor the Pilgrim, whose memory is uppermost in all minds here to-day. 8 For the first half century after the settlement of this place, his name and services were cherished in the colo- ny with the most ardent affection. But owing to the circumstance that he was not an actual settler, subse- quent generations, confining their attention to those, whose " sepulchres were wdth them," in a great measure lost sight of him ; and the histories of the early settle- ment of this country, mostly contenting themselves with beginning at the commencement of the settlement, have taken but little notice of him, except to record his name as one of those who were employed in the negotiations which opened the way for the emigration. It is to be regretted that the indifference to genealogy and to ancestry, of which w^e have spoken, so far influ- enced the first settlers themselves, that they neglected to preserve and transmit to us any memorials by which we might either ascertain their natal homes, or learn the conditions of life from which they came. Could they have foreseen the magnitude of that destiny, for their posterity and for mankind, the germs of which they were planting, they Avould probably have taken more care to preserve the means of gratifying our filial curiosity. As it is, we must be content, for the most part, with mere conjecture ; and we may as well indulge our fancy as task our research. If the question of origin might be settled by a name, the Winslows came from Bucks, and the Billingtons from Lancashire. If the Bradfords dis- pute whether they originated in the town (so called) in Yorkshire, or in that on the banks of the Avon, they may at least agree that they came from the banks of one of Britain's fordable rivers, and, perhaps, from some one of her Avons. The Eatons may possibly be assisted in determining the place of their ancestral home by the aid of 9 orthography ; though in tliose times, by the way, orthog- raphy Avas a very precarious test. There is an Eaton near Bedford, and an Eton near Windsor. By a simihir license the Chiltons may hail from the chalk hills of Buck- ingham ; and so the Leisters may have been denizens of the city of stockings on the banks of the Soare. They who bear the name of English, if perplexed as to the whereabouts of their origin, may at least have the cer- tainty that their progenitor, though he may have dwelt in Leyden, was not a Dutchman. If we are thrown upon conjecture as to tlieir homes, we are not less so as to their cmploymmts and professions. The Priests and the Clarks, though they may have claimed to be Puritans, must have belonged to the Estab- lishment ; and however they may have preached and scolded about church-rates, the runaways were, without doubt, men of tithe and stipend. The Carvers, the Turners, and the Tinkers need not be told that they have descended from mechanics. The Gardiners may be assured that their progenitor was, at least to some small extent, a tiller of the ground ; and the Cooks, that the business of theirs was within doors. If the Crackstons should be shy of this method of sup- plying the lack of history, from the idea of any thing penal, let them be reminded that macadamizing by con- vict labor is a recent invention. And the pride of the Fletchers may take refuge in an antiquity when arrow- making was not a puerile employment, as arrow-using was no " child's play." If the Goodmans can infer nothing positive either as to the origin or the station of their ancestor from his namc^ they will at least be satisfied as to his character ; while the Soules will be 2 10 sure that theirs was a man of spirit. As to the Cush- mans : some suppose our name to be Hebrew, with an English termination. Others think it to be a corrup- tion or a softening from Coachman. In favor of the latter derivation there is at least one instance of record. If that is to be considered authoritative, we shall be allowed to felicitate ourselves that our progenitor held a commanding position in his day ; that he was looked up to by men of all ranks ; and that he ' ' drove his car- riage and pair." In sober truth, however, if the Pilgrim's name was Coachman, he could not have been the original owner of it, and he could not have been very near to the ancestry whose employment had fixed it on them, as we shall see reason to believe in the sequel. As to locality ; the only thing which the Speaker has been able to find on which to found any probable conjecture as to that of our own English home, is an allusion to an excursion which our ancestor took while engaged in the negotiations at London. It would be very natural, certainly, for a man, when preparing to bid a final adieu to his native land, to embrace such an opportunity of leisure as he must have had, pending the tardy progress of the object of his mission, to revisit the scenes of his childhood, if within his reach. If he was one of the original emigrants to Holland, he had now been many years beyond reach of those scenes. Mr. Eobinson and his people left England in 1609. Eight years at least, therefore, had probably passed since he had had an opportunity of seeing them. And now, that he was in England once more, not to be hunted by the blood-hounds of religious persecution, as before his exile, but as the representative of a people, and engaged in 11 negotiations with the Government for the achievement of an object of high national and philanthropic interest, nothing coukl be more natural than such a visit. The only record extant, however, of such visit, if it took place, is found in the allusion above referred to. That would place his family home in Kent or Sussex — in the extreme south of England. INIr. Robinson and his church, indeed, originated in the north. But this does not invalidate our conclusion ; for Bradford, as quoted by Prince, says : " About this time, (December, 1610,) and the following years, many come to his church from divers parts of England." But if we are left to conjecture as to the place of his birth, we are in no uncertainty as to his social position and character. These will be apparent as we trace the trusts co?nmitted to him, and the services he rendered in the founding of Plymouth colony. And, in forming our estimate of his character and standing before the world, we must take into considera- tion the circumstances of the people by whom he was employed, and the delicacy and difiiculty of the mission which was intrusted. The Pilgrims were virtually an outlawed people. They were accounted rebels by the Government of their native land, and were refugees from their sovereign's displeasure. They were now entering on endeavors to obtain the favoring ear of that sovereign for a petition which was vital to all their hopes, for them- selves and their posterity. And this w^as to be gained, if gained at all, not by confessions, recantations, and sub- mission, but by frank avowal of non-conformity to his demands, and the demands of the church of which he claimed to be the Head. The very petition itself was an expression of preference for exile to a wilderness before 12 submission to those demands. They were to ask the favor of being let alone by Bishops' Courts and Star Chambers while worshiping God in another hemisphere. They were to seek leave to find an asylum from their hatred, their prisons and their confiscations, among sav- ages. They were to win the Government to their wishes by the hope they could awaken of new dominions for his Majesty in the wilds of America ; and were to inspire him with confidence in their loyalty despite their insub- ordination in matters of religion ; and with confidence in their capability despite their present humble condition, and their inexperience in matters of such arduous enter- prise. This was the errand for which they were to select their men. But when this object should be gained, if gained it should be, there still remained all the business arrange- ments of location, and of title to territory, to be settled with a mercenary corporation, under whose patent they should make their home ; and all the details of trans- portation, and the means of settlement, Avith wary mer- chants and money-lenders. Whom, in such exigency, would they employ ? whom but those most distinguished among them for intelligence, for prudence, for integrity, for acquaintance with the world and familiarity with the details of business ; and Avhose social position and cultivation might best serve them for access to those in power ? For this delicate, and", to them, vitally important service, they selected " Mr. — The prefix was never used among the Pilgrims except as a title of honor — Mr. Ro- bert Cushman and Mr. John Carver." In the Avords of their record, these men were appointed " to treat with 18 the Virginia Company ; and see if the King would give them libcrtij of conscience there.'' In forwarding these objects, it appears they continued in London some three months or more ; when Mr. Cushman returned to IIol- hind, and left Mr. Carver at London. It probably became necessary, in the progress of the negotiations, to communicate the state of things to the people at Leyden more freely and fully than could well be done by letters; and that Mr. Cushman went over for that purpose. A high commendation was bestowed on them both by Sir Edward Sandys, a prominent member of the Virginia Company, and afterwards its Governor, for the manner in which they had managed the business committed to them. Three months after their appointment, and prob- ably on the return of Mr. Carver to Leyden, Sir Edwin wrote thus concerning them : " Your agents have carried themselves with that discretion as is both to their own credit and theirs from whom they come ; and the seven articles subscribed with your names have given the gen- tlemen of the Council for Virginia that satisftxction which has carried them on to a resolution to forward your de- sire in the best sort that may be for your own and the public good." Mr. Carver, having received the more explicit written statement of the principles and aims of the Pilgrims, desired by the Company, returned to Lon- don in the month of December, accompanied by some individual of consideration among them, whose name is not given, but who is designated as "a gentleman of our Company." The agents had managed their business so well, it appears, as to gain the good will of the king, and the promise of his protection in the enjoyment of their reli- srion : and so well as even to obtain the consent of the 14 bishops. So said Sir John Worstenholme, in the Feb- ruary following, when a statement was sent him, by Mr. Robinson, of the tenets and usages of the Leyden church, to be communicated to the king's Privy Council, with the view of removing ill impressions which their enemies had made on the Council. Those enemies, however, were but too successful ; for, in May, Bradford says: "Though the agents of Mr. Robinson's people find the Virginia Company very de- sirous of their going to their West India territory, (as their grant in North America was then called,) and wil- ling to grant them a patent with as ample privileges as they could grant to any ; and some of the chiefs of the Company doubted not to obtain their suit of the king for liberty in religion, and to have it under the broad seal, as was desired ; yet they find it a harder piece of work than they expected. For though many means were used, and diverse of worth, with Sir Robert Nanton, chief Sec- retary of State, labored with the king to obtain it, and others wrought with the archbishop to give way thereto ; yet all in vain. They indeed prevail so far as that the king would connive at them, and not molest them pro- vided they carry peaceably ; but to tolerate them by his public authority, under his seal, would not be granted. Upon which the agents," says Bradford, " return to Leyden." Thus ended their first mission, in which they had been employed from August, 1617, to the follow- ing May. But, although they failed of the object of their ap- pointment, they had so conducted the negotiations con- fided to them as to retain the confidence of those in whose behalf they acted. The best evidence of this, in Mr. Cushman's case, is his re-appointment. The little com- 15 pany of exiles, notvnthstanding the great discouragement they had met from the king, resolve, after the lapse of about a year, to cast themselves on the care of Provi- dence, and emigrate on the best terms tliey might win from the civil and ecclesiastical powers. With this view they send Mr. Cushman again to London. But instead of Mr. Carver, they associate with him, this time, " Elder Brewster." On their arrival in London they found a new obstacle. The Virginia Company, on whose influ- ence they had relied, and under whose patent they were hoping to settle, was rent wath factions. " Sir T. Smith having desired," says Mr. Cushman, in a letter dated May 8th, 1619, " to be eased of his office of Treasurer and Governor of the Virginia Company, Sir Edwin Sandys was chosen ; but Sir Thomas repenting, and op- posing Sir Edwin, great disturbance and factions are raised in said Company, that no business could well go forward." How long the agents were embarrassed and detained by these dissensions does not clearly appear ; probably from April till near the close of the year. It was while waiting in London for the Company to come to a temper for business, that Mr. Cushman ven- tured on an absence of fourteen days to go into Kent to visit his childhood's home and take leave of his friends, as we have supposed, in view -of a final adieu to his native land. " After long attendance," to use the words of Brad- ford, " having obtained the desired patent from the Vir- ginia Company, Mr. Cushman returned to Holland." But after all the labor and the delay the Pilgrims had suffered, they were doomed yet to disappointment. The patent was taken out in the name of a gentleman who, 16 after it was obtained, relinquished the idea of embarking in the enterprise. The only thing now left them was to make the best terms they could luith such merchants in London as could be induced, by their selling themselves to their mercenary interests, to furnish them with the means of transportation. In this last resort Mr. Cush- man for the third time is called upon, and sent to London to make terms with the " Merchant Adventurers ;" and effect the necessary preparations for their departure. Mr. Carver is this time associated with him, and sent to Southampton to attend to the outfit at that port. The terms exacted, and to which the poor people at Leyden had been prepared by their sufferings and by hope long deferred to assent, were sufficiently severe. But the Adventurers, taking advantage of their necessi- ties, altered them in two most important points after they had been fairly settled. It is probable, after all the delays and discouragements they had suffered, that this last aggravation would have led to the abandonment of the idea of emigration alto- gether but for the influence of Mr. Cushman. He be- lieved that the project of American colonization was a practicable one ; and that his associates were the men to succeed. He had a faith that could pierce the cloud which enwrapped them ; a faith which saw a new empire rising in the new hemisphere, where the oppressed people of God might be free to worship according to the dictates of their conscience ; and he urged them to press forward to the work of laying the foundations of a New England more glorious than the old ; where, peradventure, they might yet have " A Church -without a bishop, and a State without a king." 17 That we do not over-estimate his forecast of the issues of the enterprise to which he had given himself, is ap- parent from the language of encouragement which he held to his fellow pilgrims ; and from the efforts which he made to enlist the people of England in the work of colonization ; and especially from the defences of liberty which he secured in the charter that, in connection with Winslow, he obtained for the first settlement in Massa- chusetts Bay ; a charter which really contains the germs of our free institutions. In that remarkable discourse, — the first that ever came from the press as a specimen of American preaching, — delivered by him to the Pilgrims near the spot where we are now assembled, on " The Sin and Danger of Self- Love," and in his prefiice to it, addressed " To his loving Friends, the Adventurers for New England, together With all Well-Willers and Well-Wishers thereunto," we have at once the most satisfactory CAddence of his appre- ciation of the enterprise, — of its difficulties, its exigen- cies, and its issues, — and of his faith, his fortitude, and his philanthropy ; and of the moral power which his character and standing gave him with his cotemporaries. In enforcing the precept of his text : " Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth," after reminding his suffering brethren that " the country Avas yet new, the land untitled, the cities not builded ;" and that they Avere " compassed about with a helpless people, — the natives of the country, — who could not help them;" and adverting to the dreadful mortality which had already, Avithin the first year, swept one half their number to the grave, he asks : "Is this a time for men to begin to seek themselves ? Paul saith that 3 18 men in ' the last days ' shall be lovers of them- selves ; but it is here yet but the first clays, and, as it were, the dawning of this new world ! It is now, therefore, no time for men to look to get riches, brave clothes, dainty fare ; but to look to present necessities. It is now no time to pamper the flesh, live at ease, snatch, catch, scrape, and pill and hoard up, but rather to open the doors, the chests and vessels ; and say : Brother, neighbor, friend, what want ye ? any thing that I have ? Make bold with it ; it is yours to command, to do you good, to comfort and cherish you ; and glad I am that I have it for you. Lay away, then, all thought of former things and forget them, and think upon the things that are. Look not gapingly one upon another, pleading your goodness, your birth, your life you lived ; your means you had, and might have had. Here you are by God's providence under difficulties ; be thankful to God it is no worse, and take in good part that which is, and lift not up yourselves because of former privi- leges. When Job ivas brought to the dunghill he sat doivn upon it ! Consider, therefore, what you are now, and Avhose you are. Say not : I could have lived thus and thus ; but say : Thus and thus I must live ; for God and natural necessity require, if your difficulties be great you had need to cleave the faster together, and comfort and cheer up one another, laboring to make each other's burdens lighter. There is no grief so tedious as a churl- ish companion ; and nothing makes sorrows easy more than cheerful associates. Bear ye, therefore, one ano- ther's burthen, and be not a burthen one to another. Avoid all factions, frowardness, singularity, and with- drawings ; and cleave fast to the Lord, and to one another continually. So shall you be a notable pres- 1!> ident* to these poor heathens whose eyes are upon you, and who very brutishly do daily eat and consume one another through their emulations nnd contentions. Be you, therefore, ashamed of it, and win them to peace both with yourselves and one another by your peaceable examples. So also shall you be an encouragement to many of your Christian friends in your native country, to come to you when they hear of your peace and love and kindness that is amongst you. But above all it shall go well with your souls Avhen that God of peace and unity shall come to visit you with death, as he hath done many of your associates, — you, being found of Him not in murmur- ings, discontent and jars, but in brotherly love and peace, may be translated from this wandering wilderness unto that joyful and heavenly Canaan." From these tones of authority and love — of mingling thunder and music — with which the discourse closes, we turn to its preface, written, it would appear, after his return to England. It was addressed to the English public in reference to the enterprise, and to the company of " Adventurers" by whose pecuniary aid the work had been begun : — " It pertaineth not to my purpose," said he, in ad- dressing the former, " to speak any thing either in praise or dispraise of the country ; so it is by God's providence that a few of us are there planted to our content, and have, with great Charge and difficulty, attained quiet and competent dwellings there. Thus much I will say for the satisfaction of such as have any thought of going hither to inhabit : that, for men who look after great riches, ease, pleasures, dainties and jollity in this Avorld, * Ciuardian power. 20 I would not advise them to come there, for, as yet, the country will afford no such matters. But if there be any who are content to lay out their Estates, spend their time, labors and endeavors for the benejit of them that shall come after, and in desire to further ihe gospel among these poor Heathens, quietly contenting themselves with such hardships and difficulties as by God's providence shall fall upon them, being young and in their strength, such men I would advise and encourage to go, for their ends cannot fail them.'' He then turns to those who had embarked their prop- erty in the undertaking, and who were revolving the question of continued support. And with a tact which, for its knowledge of human nature and its display of Christian spirit, reminds one of Paul winning his way to the hearts of Festusand Agrippa, (Acts 26 : 26 et scq.,) he proceeds : " And you, my loving Friends, the Ad- venturers to this Plantation ; as your care has been, first to settle religion here, before either profit or popu- larity, so I pray you go on to do it much more ; and be careful to send godly men though they (should) want some of that worldly policy which this world hath in her own generation. I rejoice greatly in your free and ready minds, to your powers, yea, and beyond your powers, to further this work ; that you thus honor God with your riches ; and I trust you shall be repaid again, double and treble, in this world : yea, and the memory of this action shall never die. Be not, therefore, discouraged ; for no labor is lost, nor money spent which is bestowed for God. Your ends were good, your success is good : and your profit is coming even in this life ; and in the life to come much more. "And what shall I say now ? A word to men of understanding sufticeth. 21 Pardon, I pray you, my boldness ; road over the en- suing treatise, and judge wisely of the poor weakling. And the Lord, the God of sea and land stretch out his arm of protection over you and us, and over all our lawful and good enterprises either (in) this or any other way." The poor weakling, as he calls the discourse in which he had sought to reconcile the colonists to the conditions to wdiich they had been obliged to submit in their en- gagement with the Adventurers, and to cheer them on- ward amid their discouragements, is, without doubt, one of the ablest discussions of the subject to be found from any pen. But partly because his modesty led him to fear it might be judged too rude and unlearned for that " curious age," and partly because he would have noth- ing esteemed by names, he gave -it to the world anony- mously, and merely as from one of the members of the .colony. " If any good or profit arise to thee, (address- ing his reader,) in the receiving of it give God the praise ; and esteem me as a son of Adam subject to all such frailties as other men :" " I seek no name.'' Such, my kindred, was the character, and such were the services of the " Pilgrim " who was our common father. His life was spent, even to its close, in the cause of American colonization ; and especially in the service of the colony here planted, to which he had given his earliest labors. And if any thing were wanting to complete the demonstration of his absorbing interest in it, and his unfaltering confidence in its success despite the appalling discouragements which attended its begin- ning, it would be supplied in the fact that after his sur- vey of the actual condition of things here, and on his return to England, as required, to make report to the 99 "Adventurers," he left beliind him his only son — his " Isaac'' — then of the tender age of fourteen years, in the guardianship of the colony, as a pledge of his confi- dence in its eventual prosperity, and as a hostage of his OAvn return to share with his brethren the difiiculties with which it was struggling. His expectation, however, was not realized. He died at the post of sentry, watching over its interests near the seats of power, and found his grave in the land of his birth. The news of his death reached this place by the same conveyance that brought the tidings of the decease of the loved and venerated pastor, Robinson ; and they seem to have been equally mourned. " Instead of the fathers shall be the children." The son whom he left behind him became his representative among the Pilgrims, and inherited, through a long life, the alfection they had bestowed on his father. His name was Thomas. He married Mary, the daugh- ter of Isaac Allerton, one of the most influential and honored of the Pilgrims. She herself was one of the emigrants of the May-Flower. Thomas Cushman and Mary Allerton, then, so far as actual residence in this country is concerned, are the " Abraham " and the " Sarah " of our race. Their lives, from their youth, were passed amid the scenes on which we look to-day ; and their mortal relics slumber, side by side, on yonder hill. During the long period of nearly forty-three years, he held the honorable post of Elder in this church, with the enviable reputation of a " precious servant of God." All that is known of her sustains the tradition that she was worthy of being the wife of such a man, and the mother of our " Israel." Four sons and four dau2;hters 23 inherited the treasure — the best they had to leave — of their pious example.* The sons all lived to become the heads of families. Their names were, Thomas, Isaac, Elkanah, and Eleazer. From these have sprung twenty- four Cushmans in the fourth generation ; ninety-eight in the Jifth ; two hundred and eighty-six in the sixth ; seven hundred and fifty-eight in the seventh ; one thou- sand three hundred and eighty-four in the eighth, most of whom are now living ; seven hundred and fifty-seven in the ninth, which is doing well its part in fulfilling the primitive command ; and the probation of nineteen of the tenth generation had begun when the book of our census was closed. Leaving each of you to trace your several pedigrees in the volume which has been prepared, your Speaker will simply say that he himself belongs to the eighth genera- tion : being the son of Job, who was the son of Robert, who was the son of Robert, who was the son of Robert, who was the son of Thomas, who was the son of Thomas, who was the son of the Pilgrim. Thus, Fathers and Brethren, have we "looked to the rock whence we were hewn." And who of us is not proud of the quarry 1 What better marble did Pares or Pentelicus ever yield ? We have " looked to the hole of the pit whence we were digged." Who of us would exchange his origin from that humble pilgrim for one of noble or of royal blood ? W^e have ' * looked to Abraham our father ;" and we have seen onr patriarch, when he was " called to go out into a place that he should after receive for an inheritance, obeying by faith, and going * Of the daughters, all lived to marry but one. Sarah married John Hawks of Lynn ; Lydia married William Harlow, Jr. ; Mary married a Hutchinson, of Lynn. Fear (" Ffeare") died young. 24 out not knowing whither he went." We have seen him, in that faith, offering up his Isaac, and " dying, not having received the promises." " But, having seen them afar off, he was persuaded of them, and embraced them ; and confessed that he was a stranger and a pilgrim on the earth." And, verily, we have seen that God blessed and in- creased him. How greatly He has increased him, the glad multitudes, who to-day throng the spot where, two hundred and thirty-four years since, stood the tabernacle in ivhich he sojourned in the land of promise as a strange country, may partly show ; and the many thousands written in this ' ' book of the Chronicles ' ' will more am- ply declare. But to what purpose have we taken this retrospect ? It is an impressive thought that though the fathers die, and the connexion of intercourse is severed, yet the connexion of influence remains ; so that they may be said to live and move and have their being among their descendants. And though the living may not reciprocate that influence to affect their well-being in the spirit land, yet they may go back and gather life and strength from the dust of what they were. So per- vading and strong is the pressure of the past on the present — the dead on the living — that if we were to be deprived of what they have ministered and do minister, we should have but little left of character or power. The trees that lift their glories to the summer sky are nursed by what is given from the earth ; the roots that give us our verdure spread beneath the sod. The correctness of this observation is seen in science, and art ; in religion, and manners ; and even in the very judgment and conscience, in which truth and reason 25 might be supposed to be sufficient to the existing gener- ation without so much reference to what has been : and the New EngUxnd character is at once a proof and illus- tration of it. Our pilgrim ancestors were, in a high degree, a homogeneous people ; blending, no doubt, the traits of the general English character, and the element of a common faith, with provincial peculiarities and with their own individualities : so that they might be said to have had their type somewhat after the uniformity that marked the dress of the time. The generation that succeeded them grew up in their likeness. And so, each succeeding one taking, now and then, some modification from some new incident element introduced from abroad or rising in its midst, has inher- ited and transmitted the elements of the original charac- ter ; and thus the old Puritan is still seen blushing through the features that mark the eighth generation of his posterity. And what is true of the Puritanic descent, as a whole, must be often forcibly so with regard to particular pedi- grees. As the peculiarity of using the left hand instead of the right, by one of the tribes of Israel, was the inher- itance of a usage originally marking one family ; as par- ticular forms of speech become, by family imitation, the dialect of particular localities which are socially isolated ; so are moral habitudes reproduced, and moral estimates flow down from common parental sources, and mingle in all the waters of the augmenting and widening streams of succeeding generations. One of the topics of enquiry most interesting to us, therefore, would be to ascertain how far the traits of character which gave individuality to our common ances- tor have marked those who have inherited his blood. 26 We have not time here to pursue the enquiry. The means for such an investigation, both among the dead and the living, will be furnished to a gratifying extent, we are happy to say, in the Historical Geneology. If we do not mistake, the features we have noticed in what has come to us from the old Pilgrim's pen, will be recog- nized in the productions of living representatives ; while it will be seen that his social and moral traits have been almost universally the traits of his posterity. We have had occasion to remark upon his unobtrusive- ness. Though he was a leader among his people, it was not of his seeking ; he rather shrank from the public eye than courted it. In an " action," the memory of which he believed would never die, he "sought no name." " If any profit shall arise to thee, give God the praise." Whether his posterity have been more fortunate than himself in reference to the occupancy of leading positions may admit of debate ; but certainly they have never been distinguished as office-seekei'S. Who ever heard of a Cushman that was a demagogue ? So far from it, I doubt if ever one was found with brass enough for an auctioneer. Whatever may be true of the generation now on the stage, those who have gone before us were certainly an unobtrusive, sober-minded people, who were more anx- ious to deserve the suffrage of their contemporaries than to possess it ; and were content to obtain, by their in- dustry, the share they sought of this world's good things, rather than by office, place, and power. The great body of them, for successive generations, were tillers of the soil : the son going out, after the example of the father, to take new land and subdue it. The song of the plow- man mingled with the sound of the axe ringing out from 27 primeval forests. Their evening hymn went up from homes amid solitiules ; and Avhon the story, often re- hearsed, of the sufferings and the virtues of their fathers had been repeated to their chiklren, and all commended to the care of Heaven, they sought, contented and thank- ful, the Aveary husbandman's early repose. " Far from the madd'ning crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learned to stray ; Along the cool, sequestered vale of life They held the noiseless tenor of their way." But the wilderness and the solitary place icerc glad for them ; and the desert rejoiced and blossomed as the rose. If the name has not been distinguished by the workings of ambition, it is much to us that it has never been made infamous by crime ; if it lias been seldom emblazoned on those heights reserved for political aspirants to reach, it is matter for congratulation that it has been sought for, throughout its generations, in vain among the records of the fallen. A solitary instance only, I believe, has been found in which, for some minor offence, it has been con- nected with the violation of the laws. And surely, my kindred, it is better for us than honors or estates, that they have left us an unsullied name. But they have left us more : there is value in their example. Their industry, their frugality, their content- ment, their piety, were virtues we cannot too often con- template ; too much admire ; or, too earnestly emulate. Though their lives, then, may have been " unknown to fame," still let their memories be cherished by us for the benefit of their ancestral example. By others let them be forgot. But the world must not forget the Pilgrim. We lift our voice aoainst such wrong ; and we have come here 28 to-day to protest against the injustice of history, and to do Avhat we can to repair it. We protest against the in- gratitude which has left his name to die out of the land ; and we have come to do what we may, with filial love and patriotic gratitude, to give him that position, in the eye of coming generations, which his virtues and his ser- vices deserve. As we have before said, the histories, — especially the later histories of our country, — have hardly given a place for the solitary inscription of his name. It stands, in- deed, in some of them as having been borne by one of the men employed in the initial movements of the church at Leyden towards a settlement in America ; and that is all : — unless we except the implication in some of them that timidity rather than necessity withheld him from the number who were passengers in the May-Flower ! But verily there is some palliation for this curt dis- missal by the historian after the oblivion in which our pa- triotism has left him. We sometimes speak of the " ca- prices of fortune ; " and may we not speak of the caprices o^famc ? For caprice it has been, or accident rather than design. But how strange, — how passing strange that the man who Avas the chief instrument in the first settlement of New England, as is clear from his having been the uni- formly appointed agent of the Pilgrims whoever else was associated with him ; — the man whom, at his death. Governor Bradford acknowledsjed to have been the colo- ny's " right hand ;" — the man who first vindicated the enterprise to the world through the Press, and made the first public appeal that was made to the Protestant Chris- tians of England in behalf of the religious interests of the Aborio-ines of America ; — the man who, to save the 29 colony from the perils to which he saw it exposed, wrote and delivered, — though neither Minister nor Elder, — the first sermon ever published from a New England man, and the first ever written on New England soil ; — the man whose devotion to the safety and comfort of the first company of emigrants led him to forego a passage for himself and his family in the vessel which he had himself provided, — the May-Flower, — and take his own passage in the rickety Speedwell ; and after her third failure, to disembark to look after and share the fate of those who must be left behind ; and who, after he had reached the colony consented to spend year after year, not only sepa- rate from his brethren, but separate from his only child that he might be their "right hand" with the Adven- turers, and watch over their interests near a jealous and intolerant throne, — how, strange, I say, that such a man should have been so little honored, and now so little known among the people who have enjoyed the fruits of his sacrifices and toils ! While Carver and Brewster, successively his associates in negotiation ; — while Brad- ford, and Winslow, and Standish, and Hopkins, and I know not how many others of his fellow-laborers have been remembered and honored in the names of towns and counties ; — while the pilot, even, the benefit of whose skill he surrendered for the safety of others, has been immortalized in the name of yonder island ; — while even the very loafer, Billington, who " slipped in" among the Pilgrims at Southampton and " was of no benefit to the colony," has been saved from merited oblivion by yonder " Sea ;" — while History and Poetry, and Sculpture and Painting have been vying with each other in homage to " the fathers of the nation ;" and while hardly a fourth rate politician has risen to bluster about " liberty" and 30 the " glory of America," whose name has not been per- petuated as the appellation of some portion of its terri- tory, — that name, to which New England and the country owe more, if we speak of generative influence, than to almost any other on the page of her history or the map of her soil, is, to this day, nnborne by any county, or town, or island, or mountain, or river, or rill in America ! The only monument yet found, from ocean to ocean of her wide domain, is in the hearts of his children. And shall it be so forever ? Forbid it, gratitude ; for- bid it, patriotism ; forbid it. Heaven ! Forbid it, ye who now bear that name ; forbid it ye, of whatever name, wdiose hearts now throb with the Pilgrim's blood ; forbid it, ye living ; forbid it, ye unborn ! AVe disinter from the dust of ages a name that was not born to perish : protect it, ye living, from its past unmerited doom. Raise high on yonder hill, Avhere the ashes of his fomily rest, — his own ye may not reach, — the monumental stone that shall speak his worth to coming times, and show that ye were not ungrateful. And you. Posterity, we commit the vestal charge of his fame to you ! AVe go — we go, to rest with the fathers. And when the places that now know us shall know us no more, ye shall realize "the benefits of them that shall come after," in the faith of Avhich the Pilgrim died. The time shall come, it shall come, — though centuries intervene, though nations perish to prepare its way, — when Truth shall vanquish error ; when Justice shall preside at seats of power ; when Ambition shall ask for her laurels at the hand of Virtue. And then shall Fame, having learned new lessons on greatness and glory, re-arrange the orna- ments of her temple, and set men of beneficence above men of blood : " The names of the wicked shall rot, but 31 the memory of the just shall be l)lesseil." Then shall be second deaths on earth : then sliall be resurrections ! Then the Right Hand of Plymouth's Pilgrhns shall bo seen again among the living. Their leader shall resume his place on the deck of the May-Flower ; and, as she floats along the stream of ages, generation shall vie with generation in grateful acknowledgment of his services and homage to his worth : the memory of his actions shall never die ; and the name of the man who sought no name shall be immortal. \j at: c c c cc< << c<: ct< ■\ est . ..- ■ occ ^ ::f V c c .«l''«ccc:;./^ =-t'c^c C-c C C - ( C c c clc "c c C C=<^ cz <^ tr '^ cc <:: c c c cc *^ ; C ^c: cc « ,^ <:''< <^ CJC CLL.'dcr'— <2c '-cr.ido ''' 41 [T^ c c c « ^ < d= c «: c .*g:'" < d'c c cc- ' < ^tr ^ cr ■^* ••l-c^^:'^ <^ * Z5^ , ^r^ f ^r^ etc <1C :^; <<■ c o.- V ^ cr< o* ^= ■ • d C*^ S r c ^ <^ ^^c.c cc. ^cCCc*' ^ CCCC ^cc ex ^ CjCCcc^^-^^ <: c «'