THE PRESIDENT'S PRELUDE
[Speech of Charles Emory Smith at the thirteenth annual dinner of the New England Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, December 22, 1893. Mr. Smith, then President of the Society, delivered the usual introductory address of the presiding officer, immediately after ex-President Benjamin F. Harrison had spoken.]
Honored Guests and Fellow-members:—I am sure that you have greatly enjoyed the brilliant and witty speech to which you have just listened—a speech which shows that our distinguished guest is as felicitous at the dinner-table as he is signally successful in other fields of oratory. But if you have deluded yourself with the idea that because of this change in the programme you are to escape the infliction of the usual address by the President of the Society, it is now my duty to undeceive you. [Laughter.] Even the keen reflections of General Harrison respecting the prepared impromptu speeches shall not deter us. The rest of us who are not as gifted as he is have expended too much midnight oil and sacrificed too much of the gray matter of the brain to lose our opportunity. You will see that we have anticipated his impromptu observations by carefully premeditating our impromptu reply. [Laughter.] Lord Beaconsfield said that Carlyle had reasons to speak civilly of Cromwell, for Cromwell would have hanged him. [Laughter.] General Harrison has been hanging the rest of us—yes, hanging and quartering us—though this is far from being the only reason for speaking civilly of him, and yet we must go on with the exhibition.
You have observed that on the programme, as arranged by the Committee, the first number is a prelude by the President and the last a hymn by the Society. The Committee evidently intended to begin and end with music. What particular solo they expect me to perform I am somewhat uncertain. But the truth is you have already had a part of the music and you will have the rest when I am done. For my part is only that of the leader in the old Puritan choir—to take up the tuning fork and pitch the key; and I do this when I say that we are assembled for the two hundred and seventy-third time [laughter] to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. If any one doubts the correctness of that chronology, let him consult Brothers Shortridge and Lewis and Clark and Cornish, who have been with us from the beginning. [Laughter.] We have met to celebrate these fourfathers [laughter], as well as some others, and to glorify ourselves. If we had any doubts about the duty we owe our ancestors, we have no scruples about the satisfaction we take in their posterity. "My idea of first-rate poetry," said Josh Billings, "is the kind of poetry that I would have writ." So our idea of first-rate posterity is the kind of posterity we are. [Laughter.]
But while not forgetting the posterity, it is not forbidden at these dinners to make an occasional and casual allusion to the Pilgrim Fathers. Thackeray tells us of an ardent young lady who had a devotion of the same sort to "Nicholas Nickleby." When she wanted instruction, she read "Nicholas Nickleby." When she wanted amusement, she read "Nicholas Nickleby." When she had leisure, she read "Nicholas Nickleby." When she was busy, she read "Nicholas Nickleby." When she was sick, she read "Nicholas Nickleby," and when she got well, she read "Nicholas Nickleby" over again. [Laughter.] We return with the same infrequent, inconstant and uncertain fidelity to the memory of the Pilgrim Fathers. If we seek the light persiflage and airy humor of the after-dinner spirit, we find an inexhaustible fountain in the quaint customs and odd conceits of the Pilgrim Fathers. If we seek the enkindling fire and the moral elevation of high principle and profound conviction and resolute courage, we find a never-ceasing inspiration in the unfaltering earnestness and imperishable deeds of the Pilgrim Fathers. [Applause.] After praying for all the rest of mankind, the good colored preacher closed up with the invocation "And, finally, O Lord! bless the people of the uninhabited portions of the globe." [Laughter.] We are sometimes as comprehensive in our good-will as the colored brother; but to-night we fix our thoughts upon that more limited portion of mankind which belongs in nativity or ancestry to that more restricted part of the globe known as New England.
We are here to sing the praises of these sturdy people. They, too, sang—and sang with a fervor that was celebrated in the memorable inscription on one of the pews of old Salem Church:—
"Could poor King David but for once
To Salem Church repair,
And hear his Psalms thus warbled out,
Good Lord! how he would swear."
And it was not in Salem Church, either, that the Psalms were sung with the peculiar variations of which we have record. An enterprising establishment proposed to furnish all the hymn-books to a congregation not abundantly blessed with this world's goods, provided it might insert a little advertisement. The thrifty congregation in turn thought there would be no harm in binding up any proper announcement with Watt and Doddridge; but when they assembled on Christmas morning, they started back aghast as they found themselves singing—