The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-12-28

, called, are all conceded; but the events which
| have rendered their names most illustriOus
| create no enthusiasm, and inoite TO no annual
| oommemoration. They preceded the landing
| of the Pilgrims, and led to the founding Of
| commonwealths of more wealth aud physical
importance than Massachusetts,. But in ideal
and religious. significance Plymouth Rock
overtops them all, and endures, while the
breakers, surfs sprays or sands amid which
the other events occurred are unremembered
in song or story. There are Plymouth
churches and and associations in nearly every
city and throughout our institutions, GUS
toms, and literature there is certain abstra)-
tion, which assumes many concrete forms,
and which we can only define as the Plymouth
idea. This Plymouth idea is essentially re-
ligious, missionary, aggressive, philanthropio
towards all suffering, except suffering oppres
sors, firm against tyranny, intermeddling or
public-spirited to the extent necessary TO ena-
BILE it to find out whether the world is right,
and If not, to set it right-in short, IL is Puri-
tanism, in the pulpit, in politics, and in the
world.
Puritanism is a masculine, energetic, theo-
logical ism-hard- featured in its serious
moods, more given to sound doctrine than to
gentle amiabilities, and more apprecistive Of
orthodoxy than of art. We are outgrowipg
its primal adherence of elegant temples,
stained windows, fresooes statues, carved
work, organs, and instrumental and unrege
nerate music. The plymouth church Of
our leading Western city is the most elegant
ecclesiastical parlor in the country. There is
strong tendency in this modern age, fostered
by our best and humanest writers, to place
the human sympathes on a par with human
creeds, as a means of refining and elevsting
the race. The aesthetic is taking its proper
place beside the theological.
All these softenlng influences are seen no.
where in greater fulness to-day than among
the descendants and admirers of the Puritans
themselves Nevertheless, the Plymouth idea,
softened and refined by the mellowing infu-
ence of time, is still power in the land. It's
fundamental truth, viz, that men are not
merely to seek their own comfort and let their
neighbors alone, but are to intervene in every
relation of society for the reformation of the
erripg, the deliverance of the oppressed, and
the advancement of mankind, is wholly true
and noble one; and, when duly sottened and
relieved by tender human sympathies, and a
profound regard for the delioacies and proprie-
ties of life, it forms, perhaps, the leading idea
of our age and civilization.
It is to be expected that Mayor Hoffman,
owing his election to the anti-Puritan elements
of New York, would not be warm admirer
of that which, wherever it comes into power,
leaves to men like him no alternative but
repentance or obsourity. Nevertheless, in
consenting to appear as guest at public
dinner in honor and eommemoration of the
Landing of the Pilgrims few men would have
displayed the bad taste of sneering at New
England ideas and institutions in company
assembled to honor them. Mr.. Hoffman is
reported as saying at this New England
dinner
HE never heard of but one canal built by q
| New Englander, and that was ut Dutch Gap,
| and didn't turn out q great success. He hoped
when the New Englanders went down South,
| and took their pianos, which Mr.. Beecner spoke
| OF, they wouldn't take any that they brought
away from there"
Great allowance should be made for all men
whom our pell-mell system of universal suf-
frage lifts into positions Of prominence, but
fails to endow with the good taste which such
positions call for. But he who would turn q
New England anniversary into an occasion fol
ainging at an audience of gentlemen the SIAN
der appropriate enough in Five Points pri
| mary meeting, viz.:-That the New England
troops and officers stole pianos from the South
ern chivalry during the war, has simply showI
himself regardless of those gentlemanly in
stincts which we must presume him to possess
and to be capable, under less trying cirCum
stances of displaying.