Our forefathers were driven out of the old world by the intolerance of an arbitrary authority, attempting to enthrone itself on the human conscience. I seem to stand once more beneath the wintry trees which threw their bleak shadows on the rock where they first knelt, in their wild inhospitable home. Their memory stands apart, as a thing by itself, sacred and imperishable in the reverence and love of millions. Hail to
THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
They were men of giant soul,
Men of faith and deeds sublime;
Men whose acts will reach their goal
In the mighty depths of time.
They resigned, at God’s behest,
Kindred, home, their fathers’ graves—
Pilgrims o’er the ocean’s crest,
Mid the thunder of its waves.