Page:Modern Eloquence - Volume 1.djvu/84



—I am charged by the President of the New England Society of Pennsylvania to extend its most cordial greetings to its sister Society in New York. I am instructed by our President to "congratulate you upon your long and honored history." He adds, in the message which I bring, and which I shall venture to use as a text: "It is well for neighbors so near to clasp hands frequently. With kindred lineage, principles and aims, we cannot emphasize too strongly the truths for which we stand. While honoring the past our faces are toward the future. We are confident that you and all true descendants of the Pilgrim and the Puritan will wisely and loyally help our country in the new, untried place among the nations, to which it has been so suddenly summoned." I wish, indeed, that those for whom I speak had a worthier spokesman. Indeed, in this presence, representing the culture of the metropolis, and with distinguished guests to address you,