The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-08-21
Speech of Ambassador Bryce.

Speech of Ambassador Bryce.
 The following is the speech of Am bassador James Bryce at the Cape Cod Pilgrim Monument dedication at Prov incetown, August 20:
 First let me thank you in behalf of the sovereign and the people whom I am honored by being deputed to rep- resent in the United States for the in- vftation to join in the celebration to- day of great event, It is fitting that the ancient Motherland, whence came the settlers whom you commemorate should be remembered here, and should send you her greetings. These colonists were men of the right stamp to settle and develop new country. England gave you of her best, and she gave them in q great crisis of her own fate She has ever since watched the for tunes of their descendants, marking their growing greatness, and never with more pride, more sympathy and more affection than she d6es to-day. Many of you may remember to have seen somewhere on the coasts of Mas sachusetts or. Maine, a rainbow stretch ing from one island to another and seeming to make radiant bridge from land to land It Is a beautiful sight, and still more beautiful when the rain bow is double one. In this shape of a double rainbow bridging the ocean frcm England to America there nre- serts itself to me the double settlement or this continent by, the men who founded Virgin, and the men who founded Massachusetts The rainbow is the symbol of hope and America the land of hope. Over this bridge of hone millions have passed from Europe hith- CT and it is in the spirit of hope for tle future of land so blessed by Providence as yours that we of Eng lend send our hearty greetings.
 Much has been said-indeed nothing has been left unsaid-in praise of the Pilgrim Fathers-for this country is fertile in celebrations; and I cannot hope to say anything new about them, But eN " man must speak of a thing as 1t strikes him. I ask myself when I think of these exiles coming to make their home on what was then a bleak and desert shore, what was fl that brought them hither. Was it love of civil liIberty2 They loved civil liberty but it was not mainly for tie sake of lthat liberty that they came. Was if Tor love of religious liberty? Not at any rate for a general freedom of con- science and freedom to all to think and speak and teach as they should. for the proclamation of that general freedom ! had not yet been made by it's noble apostle Roger Williams.
 What they did desire and what brought them here was the wish to worship God in the way they held to be the right way It was loyalty to truth and duty that moved them to quit their English homes and friends. and face the rigors of a, winter for harsher than their own in an untrod- den land where enemies lurked in trackless forests: No one hoped to find gold in Massachusetts No one hoped for that Fountain of Youth which Ponce de Leon had sought in Florida \ No one dreamed of the mighty state ] which was to grow out of the titv settlement. Not in the thirst for gold. not in the passion for adventure. moi for the sake of dominion, but in faith and in duty were laid the foundation of the colony and state of Masachu- 1 setts,
 Is not this what their settlement means to us now after 300 years? Faith and Duty, when mated to Courage for without Courage they avail litle, are the most solid basis on which the | greatness of a nation can rest. The strength of a state lies in the eharac- ters of it's citizens. It is a far cry from Massachusetts to Italy, but when ] think of these forefathers of yours with their plain stern lives, and stead- fast wills l am reminded of the fam ous line in which the great Roman poet says that it was in the austere sim plicity of her oldca days and the strons men she reared that the might of Rome dwelt. Such men were your forefathers They were hewn from the same rock. as those soldiers of Cromwell, some of whom were doubtless their kins folks before whom every enemy went down and to whom was fitly applied that verse from the Psalms, Let the praises of God be in their mouths and a two- edged sword in their hands" They were men of bold and independent spirit, but they knew the value of law,