'Thou, too, sail on, oh ship of State! Sail on, oh, Mayflower, string and great Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future' years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate. In spite of rock and tempest's roar, In spite of false lights on the shore, Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea, Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, Our hearts, our hopes, our prayer, our tears, Our faith trium want o'er our fears, Ave all with thee, are all with thee.
These are Longfellow's lines, written at the time of the Civil War, states a writer in a home paper, and I have substituted the world "Mayflower" for the word "Union," and apply them to a smaller' and bigger ship than the poet thought of. One-third of the whole population of the United States are des-conded from the early Puritans of New England, a fact which needs no eloquent embellishment.
The five score of men, women and children who sailed in the Mayflower 300 years ago this year, wer natives of Yorkshire and Notting-hampshire, and before they abandoned Europe they had given Holland a trial, and found that overcrowded country even more ungodly than England.
After a day of humiliation they sailed from Delfthaven on July 22, 1620, their friends of the Indepen: dent congregation there speeding them with a volley of small shot. On August 5 their two sbips—the Speedwell, 60 tons (Captain Rey-naids), and the Mayflower, 180 tons (Captain Jones)—carried them out of Southamptod harbour to cross the Atlantic. The Speedwell, however, sprang a leak, and eight acy! were lost at Dartmouth repair 4 Starting again, the Pilgrims had aot got more than 100 leagues beyond Land's End when the Sp: il was once more found to be Jeaking, and both vessels put into Plymouth, where the Speedwell was dismissed from the enterprise, a number of passengers having to be left behind in consequence and the Mayflower uncomfortably crowded. It was now September 6, and the Pilgrims had already suffered seven weeks of discouraging omens. But they were made of stern stuff.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.