The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-06-15
THE CONGREGATIONAL CLUB
Continued from First Page,)

Continued from First Page,l start because of their pluck They were men who believed in having an opinion and and maintaining it to the death They were tolerant men, too, If you look at them right, They would split hairs in discussion, but they would not split the difference. The Puritan fathers used speech plainly and sincerely. They spoke their minds. Some of their sons have fallen from that virtue somewhat, it is to be feared.
 "As thirty-siX years ago when they were hiding their opinions they were called back to the truth by the voice of Beauregard and Sumters cannon. The complaint is sometimes made that they were not literary, and in truth they were not. It Is probable that with no people has so much fault been found as with them. What went ye out into the wilderness for to see? A pack of bigots say. It is strange the relish some have of aspersing them. What the fathers sowed in weakness is grow Ing to-day with ever increasing power. Tt is true that they were men of sober lives, but those who cry out against Puritan cant have invented an Puritan can which we all know, They have not hesitated while con- demning the bigotry of the Puritan to turn the searchlight of their own criticism in every nook and corner of the Puritan life. I wonder that in studying these men do not consider more the circumstances in which they were. Their conditions of life were es- sentially military and it was their duty to lead sober lives.
 E At Gettysburg on that eventful July 2 the union army was sombre com munity in face of the coming storm. There was no fiddling or other fine arts to speak of. As true as you live the illustration is no exaggeration of the condition of the Puritan at the planting time of the colony, and yet people eter- nally pick and peck at them because they were stern in the face. It was their duty to be so. It was a sign of fighting not of an ascetic character.
 "When the rulers of England feared the power which the Bay colony was exercising under their charter and sent word for them time and again to send their charter back they set their teeth and mounted few old cannons. They had collected lot of ammunition and awaited events. Not one move did they make toward sending the charter back Never by all the threats of the great power of England could that little com munity of hardly 5000 people be com pelled to relinquish its charter, The story of David facing Goliath is an in- sufficient picture of that superb gall lantry.
 How they ever came off from that unequal struggle no man can tell Events helped them, Gods providence helped them and they kept the charter. There stands not on the pages of his tory another such incident of courage as thus displayed by those. ancestors of ours.
 "They were not hotheads; they kept cool while they were doing these things. 4 leading London paper sent a special correspondent to Ireland to investigate and find out the causes of discontent The correspondent travelled throughout Ireland, and reported as the result of his investigation, The people don't kEow what they want and are bound to get it.
 Our fathers knew that the charter meant much to them It stood for
 
 laid the superstructure of our govern ment They were broad in their ideas of freedom during the struggle preced- ing the English commonwealth. Every ship that sailed from this country was freighted with prayers for the success of the cause of liberty. Witness this same feeling as expressed in the many days of prayer and fasting held in Massachusetts and Connecticut for the success of the cause. See too, the value they set on education; living in huts that their children might to go school. They were worthy to be put on duty at the post in the progress of human so- ciety, which they occupied. Who, in estima ting the causes that have com bined to make this great nation makes not large account of the stern faced Puritans omits a chief cause of the in- stitution which we and our children have inherited"
 President Luckey rendered the thanks of the club to Dr. Twchel1 for his ad- dress to the quartet for it's music, and to the ladies of the church for the SUD- per provided He then called upon Mir. Parsons, the newly elected president, to assume the chair. Mir Parsons thank ed the club for the honor conferred up- on him in few appropriate words.
 The meeting was dismissed with ben- n