The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1909-12-24

Rev. w. HI. swift's Address at New
England Dinner.
The twenty-third annual dinner Of
the New England Society of North
eastern Pennsylvania was held at
Hotel Jermyn, in Scranton, on Tues
day evening, Dec. 21st. The speak
ers were Chancellor Day of Syracuse
University; Hon. Charles R. Bruman
of Schuylkill county. Professors Per-
rim and Bacon of Yale University
and Rev. DR.. Swift of Honesdale,
whose address in part we print.
Honesdale was represented by HON.
er Greene, Historian of the Society,
Hon. Judge A. T. Searle, w. F. Suy-
dam, Dwight Dorfinger, Chas. P.
Searle, R. M. Stocker, Frank P.
Kimble, w. G.. Blakney and John D.
Weston. DR.. Swift's subject was
"The Twentieth Century Puritan"
and he took occasion to urge the New
Englanders to protect the ballot box.
He spoke in part as follows:
1--WE honor tonight the Pilgrim
and Puritan. OF course there is a
difference between them. If we were
living in Boston and failed to make
distinction we would never be for
given. But the Pilgrim and Puritan
were not the only migrations. There
were others who wrote history on
these shores, and we have no desire,
not even tonight, to forget it. There
were Scotch and Scotch Irish, and
Irish too. There were Hollanders
and Hugenots, Cavaliers and Quak-,
ers, the solid Pennsylvania Ger
mans, and the Welsh, of course.
1--WE are a composite people, will
be more truthfully so in the future.
| Perhaps, more gloriously so, is true
to the highest ideals, the ideals of
the Pilgrim and Puritan, for it has
been well said God sifted whole
nation, that he might send choice
grain into the wilderness" The
Puritan has been idealized, and Carl
catured. The popular conception is
mirorred in the mythical Blue laws.
He had his unattractive side no
doubt. 1t may be that he repressed
in expression the warm sunny heart
side of his character. 1t may be that
| few words of praise fell from his lips,
that his manner was austere, some
times perhaps repelling, but the
attractiveness in the Puritans, as the
exterior of the gourd, the husk pro-
| tecting the seed from which sprung
the republic. Says John Fisk, OF all
migrations of people, the settlement
of New England is pre-eminently the
one in which the almighty dollar has
paid the smallest part, however i'm
portant it may have become as a
motive power 1t was left for re-
ligious enthusiasm to achieve what
commercial enterprise had failed to
accomplish Whether 1t be true or
not that the Puritan migration was
in the interest Intentionally so) of
civil and religious liberty-that lib:
erty has been the result of the truth
he taught. AS far back as 1648, one
hundred and thirty-eight years be-
fore the declaration of independence
was signed at Philadelphia. Nookes,
in sermon at the opening of the
] general conrt.fsaid: THE foundation
of authority Ns Laid in the free COM
sent of the people," that the choice
of public magistrates belongs unto
! the people by Gods own allowance"
and that they who have power to ap-
point officers and magistrates have
the rights also to set the bounds and
limitations of the power and place
into which they call them.'s And on
January 14th of the next year, the
! freemen of three towns assembled
at Hartford and adopted written
constitution. Says Foske: 1T was
the first written constitution known
to history that created govern
ment, and it marked the beginning of
American Democracy of which Thos.
! Hooker deserves more than any other
man to be called the father. The
sentiment of the United States to-day
| is in lineal descent more nearly re-
lated to that of Connecticut than to
that of any other of the thirteen col
onies.
Is 1t at all strange that we stop
once year for an evening to speak
of their worth, and trace back to
their source the influences that have
/
made US what we are? We do not
worship them, say some, but we re-
we're them. We do not organize a
cultus; we accept an inspiration.
With sublime Inconsistencies they
were shaping institutions of which
they never dreamed and without
which we can neither understand nor
maintain them. Out of the struggles
and sacrifices of the past have come
the free state and the past have come
the free state, the free church, the
free school, and the free press. Let
us maintain them at any cost. The
Puritan of the seventeenth century
was characterized first of all by the
God consciousness. The eternal was
with him from morning till night,
every day, and that supreme fact
made life something tensely real and
sacred, there is no greater used to-