Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1912-09-18

been especially interested in the remarkable
Mathews. He has great power OF vivid de-
scription; can see standing out before me
the mental qualifications and the attributes
of every one of your ministers whom he has
described. II had undertaken to add any
thing to what he has said Of DR.. Tenney,
should subtract from what he has SO aptly
and eloquently said.
l congratulate this church upon its great
past; 1 congratulate 1t upon the eminent men
whom you have sent forth in the last years
into our national and our State life. ! agree
with what has been said this afternoon, that
no other church in the State can compare
with the record that You have made, and 1
congratulate you most heartily upon your
minister. He is doing q great work. He lie
beginning the new century Of this church
with all our hopes for great future.
New England historian has said that the
most distinctive thing about Puritan civiliza-
ton is that IL may be recognised As the con-
Meeting link between the Jewish civilization
and the republican life of to-day; and that
the New England meeting house is an historic
cal monument, q survival of the Mosaic law.
The historian insists that as q pure matter Of
literature, II the Puritan had done nothing
more in this world he would still be great
benefactor to the world In impressing He
brew literature on New England; and that
this literature and the study of Jewish life
have made the New Highlander IS pure
literary type more Hebraic that the Hebrews.
To-day it is very fitting for me to refer to this
ministry Of the Hebrews upon our life and
literature, for Mr.. Ropes has this afternoon
eloquently referred to the fact that to-day is
the first day OF the Jewish year; SO that we
are celebrating not only the old century, but
new year.
In an address in England upon the English
bible, Ambassador Choate said:
"when the Pilgrim Fathers embarked in
the Mayfower in 1920, Aud when eight years
afterwards the great Puritan emigration
from old England to New England set in,
upon which their infant State was built.
New England In its first
generation was the most biblical community
on the face Of the EARTH"
Then Mr.. Choate quotes this passage from
Phillips Brooks, whom he calls one OF the
greatest Of their descendants:
at never frightened Puritan when you
babe him stand still and listen to the voice of
the reverberations Of the awful, gracious,
beautiful voice for which he listened. He
made little, too little, OF sacraments and
priests. because God was so intensely real to
him. What should he do with lenses who
stood thus full in the torrent of the sunshine?"
Every New Englander-especially every New
Highlander who was brought up as boy in a
country town-realizes what Jewish litera-
ture has been to New England. Passages
from the Hebrew scriptures we're the stock
illustrations of New England life. Prece-
dents from the Hebrew scriptures pointed
the daily duty. The prayers of our fathers
were couched in oriental symbol and Hebrew
paraphrase. 1 do not think Mr.. Choate can
be accused of the exaggeration of the orator
when he said:
"a very large share Of the good which has
been wrought out in America from the begin
ming is traceable to the pious efforts of the
Pilgrims and the Puritans; If the common
schools have found their way from Atlantic to
Pacific; il slavery has been abolished; il the
whole land has been changed from wilder
ness into garden of plenty, from ocean to
ocean, If education has been fostered accord
ing to the best light of each generation, il in
dustry, frugality and sobriety are the watch
words of the nation, as 1 believe them to be,
l say it is largely due to those first emigrants,
who landing with the English bible in their
hands and in their hearts, established them
selves upon the shores OF America