The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-11-21
THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BY REV.
WINFIELD S. HAWKES..
On the Occasion of the Dedication
of the Plymouth Congregational
Church-Grandest Fruit of the
EIiZabethan Age.

EIizabethan Age.
The Herald yesterday mentioned the
dedicatory exercises held at the Ply
mouth Congregational church ON Tues
day evening, and the discourse de-
tendent of the Congregational missions
for Utah and Idaho.
The address was a gem, in it's way,
dealing with the history of the Pill
grims and picturing the views of the
Pilgrim fathers. He reviewed the
origin of the movement in England,
and traced it to the landing of the Pill
grims ''at the tip end of Cape Cod
Concluding his address Mr.. Hawkes.
said:
The Pilgrim Fathers were the prod
uct of one of the most remarkable per-
iods of European history. What is
known as the Elizabethan age was just
eliminating when they organized their
church. That age produced the writ
ers Edmund Spencer, called the prince
Of poets; Philip Sidney, Walter Ra-
leigh, Francis Bacon, William Shakes
peare, Isaac Newton, John Dillon, Des-
carries, Spinoza and Grotius; the great
scfentiyts, Calico, Kepler and Iycho
Brahet the immortal painters, Titan,
Michael Angelo, Rubens, Rembrandt
and rulers, William the Silent, Henry
of Navarro, afterwards Henry " of
France; Sully, his great prime minis
ter; Charles V of Germany, his son,
Philip II of Spain; Elizabeth of En-
gland, and Cecil, her great prime min
lister; such generals as William of Or
ange, his son, Maurice, and Henry of
Navarro; such admiralS as Cologne of
France the farmers son, F>rancis
Drake of England, Van Tromp and De
Ruyter of Holland; all these, and many
more, had flourished, were 1ourishing
or about to come on the stage of ac-
ton. The great English patriots, Hamp-
den, Ppm and Cromwell were then
young men just starting out in life.
The great age of discovery had just
preceded, Africa had been cfrcumnavi-
gated, America, discovered, and daring
mariners had sailed into the Pacific
from both east and west. Such events
greatly enlarged the minds of educated
and thinking people. 1t was also an
age of scientific tiiscovery-that of the
telescope, the thermometer, the bar
ometer, the air pump, the circulation of
the blood, the mature of electricity and
the practical use of the microscope.
The invention of printing had not long
preceded and was then for the first
time showing what mighty power
it might be, and the first English news
paper was then started. The great
trading companies. the English and
Dutch East Indian companies were
them chartered. 1t was the age just
Luther, Calvin, Zwingle,
Cranmer, Hooper and Knox. A COM
pany of intelligent people whose faith
ers, or themselves, had seem such great
and epoch making improvements, such
of thought and development
of ideas, and who had been closely
studying the Bible, simply could not
be hoped around by and held in a
medieval, bigloted religious or
ganization where they were denied all
thought. A people who
had been permitted to look out into so
MANY of Gods wonders and hold such
with him through His
written word, could not but be Wig
orous, original, Independent and deter
mined. Not one of the Stuart kings
had ability enough to understand such
an age or such "a people. Out of that
age grew Puritanism; not alone that
party, but that spirit, and by that spirit
revived in his people God purified unto
himself a peculiar people, Jealous of
good works. and they gave birth TO
the Pilgrims; and they ventured all
and suffered all, in seeking a country
where they might worship and serve
God with liberty and devotion. And
from them came three great blessings
which we all enjoy today-a free gov
a free church and an active,
aggressive Christianity.
That was called the Elizabethan age;
after it for a good while the world |
rested; and then dawned the more re-
markable Victorian age. In it writers,
scientists, artists and civil, military |
and naval leaders, the equals, or supe- |
riors, of the former age, have appear
ed. 1t has also been an age of diScov- |
cry, invention, commerce, political
changes, moral and religious move
ments far beyond the Elizabethan. The
church has gone, not across the Allan
tic alone for Gods glory and the love
Of Christ, but she has crossed all |
oceans and has been seeking to dis
ciple all nations.
T believe the grandest fruit of the
age was the little, weak |
modest and unknown Pilgrim band |
whose teaching, spirit and practice has
done more than all other combined |
agencies to mould this great nation |
and make it a mighty power in the
earth.
What shall be the product of this
more wonderful Victorian age? 1t is
possible that the chief lever it produces
may be some little band of Christian
believers, now in some quiet corner,
studying Gods word, ready, as Pastor
John Robinson, of the Pilgrim church.
taught, to receive any and all new
light which God causes to break out
Of that Word, and trying to do, and to
endure, all things in the spirit of the
Lord Jesus for the glory of Almighty