Show I BILL NYE IN BOSTON The Old South Mcetiur House BrinGs Up a Few Reflections The Old South Meeting House in Bos ton is the most remarkable structure in many respects to be found in that remarkable I remark-able city Always eager wherever I go to search out at once the gospel privileges privi-leges it is not to be wondered at that I should have gone to the Old South the first day after I landed in Boston It is hardly necessary to go over the history of the Old South except perhaps to refresh the memory of those who live outside of Boston The Old South Society So-ciety was organized in 1669 and the ground on which the old meeting house now stands was given by Mrs Norton the widow of Rev John Norton since deceased The first structure was of wood and in 1729 the first brick structure succeeded it Kings Handbook of Boston Bos-ton says It is one of the few historic buildings that have been allowed to remain re-main in this iconoclastic age So it seems that they are troubled with iconoclasts in Boston too I thought I saw one hanging around the Old South on the day I was there and had a good notion to point him out to the authorities but thought it ivas none of my business I went into the building and registered and then from a force of habit or absentmindedness absent-mindedness handed my umbrella over the counter and asked how soon supper would be ready Everybody registers but very few I am told ask how soon supper will be ready The Old South is now run on the European plan however how-ever The old meetinghouse is chiefly remarkable re-markable for the associations that cluster around it Two centuries hover about the ancient weathervane and look down upon the visitor when the weather is favorable Benjamin Franklin was baptized and I attended worship here prior to his wonderful won-derful invention of lightning Here on each succeeding Sabbath sat the man I who afterward snared the forked lightning with a string and put it in a jug for future generations Here Whitofield preached and the rebels discussed the tyranny of the British king Warren delivered his famous speech here upon the anniversary of the Boston massacre and the tea party organized in this same building Two hundred years ago exactly the British used the Old South as a military ridingschool although a majority of the people of Boston were not in favor of it It would be well to pause here and consider con-sider the trying situation in which our ancestors were placed at that time Corning Corn-ing to Massachusetts as they did at a time when the country was new and prices extremely high they had hoped to escape from oppression and establish themselves so far away from the tyrant that he could not come over here and disturb them without suffering from the extreme nausea nau-sea incident to a long sea voyage Alas however when they landed at Plymouth Rock there was not a decent hotel in the place The same stern and rockbound coast which may be discovered along the Atlantic seaboard today was there and a cruel relentless sky frowned upon their endeavors Where prosperous cities now flaunt to the sky their proud domes and floating debts the rank jimson weed nodded in the wind and the pumpkin pie of today still slumbered in the bosom of the future That glorious facts have under the benign be-nign influence of fostering centuries been born of apparent impossibility What giant certainties have grown through these years from the seeds of doubt and discouragement and uncertainty Big firecrackers and applause At that time our ancestors had but timidly tim-idly embarked in the forefather business They did not know that future genera tions in fourbutton cutaways would rise up and call them blessed and pass resolutions utions of respect on their untimely death If they stayed at home the King taxed them all out of shape and if they went out of Boston a few rods to get enough huckleberries for breakfast they would frequently come heme so full of Indian arrows that they could not get through a common door without great pain Such was the early history of the country coun-try where now cultivation and education and refinement run rampant and people sit up all night to print newspapers so that we can have them in the morning The land on which the Old South stands is very valuable for business purposes pur-poses and four hundred thousand dollars will have to be raised in order to preserve the old landmark to future generations I earnestly hope that it will be secured and that the old meetinghouse dear not alone to the people of Boston but to the millions of Americans scattered from seato sea-to sea who can not forget where first universal freedom plumed its wings will be preserved Boston Globe |