Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/216

Rh nobler foundation or nobler founders. The whole of humanity had taken a step onward with the Pilgrim-fathers in the New World. The work which they had to do concerned the whole human race.

And when from the land of the Pilgrims I look abroad over the United States, I see everywhere, in the south as well as the north and the west, the country populated, the empire founded by a people composed of all peoples, who suffered persecution for their faith, who sought freedom of conscience and peace on a new free soil. I see the Huguenot and the Herrnhutter in the south, and along the Mississippi, in the west, Protestants and Catholics, who, from all the countries of Europe seek for and find there those most precious treasures of mankind; and who in that affluent soil establish flourishing communities under the social and free laws instituted by the oldest Pilgrims.

To them belongs the honour of that new creation, and from them even to this day, proceed the creative ideas in the social life of the New World; and whether willingly or unwillingly, widely differing people and religious sects have received the impression of their spirit. Domestic manners, social intercourse, form themselves by it; the life and church-government of all religious bodies recognise the influence of the Puritan standard, “Live conformably to conscience; let thy whole behaviour bear witness to thy religious confession.” And that form of government which was organised by the little community of the “Mayflower,” has become the vital principle in all the United States of America, and is the same which now on the coast of the Pacific Ocean controls and directs with quiet power the wild free spirits of California, educating them to self-government and obedience to law.

The old colonies have sent out to all parts of the Union crowds of pilgrims, sons and daughters, and they constitute at this time more than one-third of the population of