| Show THE PILGRIM FATHERS AX ADDRESS DELIVERED BY REV VVIXFIEID S HAWKES On the Occasion of the Dedication of ihe Plymouth Congrresntioiisil Church Grjmdest Fruit of thc < Elizabethan Age The Herald yesterday mentioned the dedicatory exercises held at the Plymouth Ply-mouth Congregational church on Tuesday Tues-day evening and the discourse delivered de-livered by Rev W S Hawkes superintendent superin-tendent of the Congregational missions for Utah and Idaho The address was a gem in its way dealing with ithe history of the Pilgrims Pil-grims aind picturing the views of the Pilgrim fathers He reviewed the origin of the movement in England and traced it to the landing of the Pilgrims grims at the tip end of Cape Cod Concluding his address Mr Hawkes i said The Pilgrim Fathers were the product prod-uct of one of the most remarkable periods per-iods of European history What is known as She Elizabethan age was just culminating when they organized their church That age produced the writers writ-ers Edmund Spencer called the prince of poets Philip Sidney Walter Raleigh Ra-leigh Francis Bacon William Shakespeare Shakes-peare Isaac Newton John Dillon Descartes Des-cartes Spinoza and Grotius the great scientiyts Galileo Kepler and Tycho Brahe < the immortal painters Titian Michael Angelo Rubens Rembrandt and Van Dyke the great statesmen and rulers William the Silent Henry of Navarre afterwards Henry IV of France Sully his great prime minister minis-ter Charles V of Germany his son < r Philip I of Spain Elizabeth of England En-gland and Cecil her great prime minister min-ister such generals as William of Orange Or-ange his son Maurice and Henry of Navarre such admirals as Coligne of France the farmers son Francis Drake of England Van Tromp and De Ruyter of Holland all these and many more had flourished were flourishing or about to come on the stage of acton ac-ton The great English patriots Hamp den Pym and Cromwell were then young men just starting out in life The great age of discovery had just preceded Africa had been circumnavigated circumnavi-gated America discovered and daring mariners had sailed into the Pacific from both east and west Such events greatly enlarged the minds of educated and thinking people I was also an i age of scientific discover that of the I telescope the thermometer the barometer I bar-ometer the air pump the circulation of the blood the mature of electricity and the practical use of the microscope The invention of printing had not long preceded and was then for the first time showing what a mighty power it might be and the first English newspaper news-paper was then started The great trading companies the English and Dutch East Indian companies were then chartered I was the age just succeeding Luther Calvin Zwingle Cnanmer Hooper and Knox A company com-pany of intelligent people whose fathers fath-ers or themselves had seen such great and epoch making improvements such quickening of thought and development of ideas and who had been closely studying the Bible simply could not be hooped aroUnd by and held in a narrow medieval bigoted religious organization or-ganization where they were denied all independent thought A people who had been permitted to look out into so many of Gods wonders and hold such communion with him through His written word could not but be vigorous vig-orous original independent and determined mined Not one of the Stuart kings had ability enough to understand such an age or such a people Qut of that rn Puritanism not alone that age grew Purianism Hat party but that spirit and by that spirit revived in his people God purified unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works and they gave birth to the Pilgrims and they ventured alL and suffered all in seeking a country where they might worship and serve God with liberty and devotion And from them came three great blessings which we all enjoy todaya free government gov-ernment a free church and an active Christianity aggressive Christanity That was called the Elizabethan age after i for a good while the world rested and then dawned the more remarkable re-markable Victorian age In it writers scientists artists and civil military and naval leaders the equals or superiors supe-riors of the former age have appeared appear-ed I ha also been an age of discovery discov-ery invention commerce political changes moral and religious movements move-ments far beyond the Elizabethan The church has gone not across the Atlantic Atlan-tic alone for Gods glory andjthe love of Christ but she has crossed all oceans and has been seeking to disciple dis-ciple all nations I believe the grandest fruit of the Elizabethan age was the little wealA modest and unknown Pilgrim band whose teaching spirit and practice has done more than all other combined agencies to mould this great nation and make it a mighty power in the earth What shall be the product of this more wonderful Victorian age I is possible that the chief lever it produces may be some little band of Christian believers now in some quiet corner studying Gods word I ready as Pastor I John Robinson of the Pilgrim church taught to receive any and all new light which God causes to break out of that Word and trying to do and to endure all things in the spirit of the Lord God Jesus for the glory of Almighty |
