Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/235

The Modest Immigrant religious persecution, and we liken him in this regard to the best and noblest of our early settlers. But the Puritan, the Quaker, and the Huguenot sacrificed temporal well-being for liberty of conscience. They left conditions of comfort, and the benefits of a high civilization, to develop the resources of a virgin land, and build for themselves homes in the wilderness. They practised the stern virtues of courage, fortitude, and a most splendid industry. Had the Pilgrim Fathers been met on Plymouth Rock by immigration officials; had their children been placed immediately in good free schools, and given the care of doctors, dentists, and nurses; had they found themselves in infinitely better circumstances than they had ever enjoyed in England, indulging in undreamed-of luxuries, and taught by kind-hearted philanthropists,—what pioneer virtues would they have developed, what sons would they have bred, what honours 219