Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 1

[229] time, street after street, till we came to some broad way that our fears or our mothers forbade us to enter; and when the music turned away, our tiny feet kept time long afterwards? Can we get away from the spell which took possession of us in yonder church? I can only think in that channel. Who can get his mind away from the deep resounding march with which the speaker carried us from century to century, and held up the torch, and pointed out the significance of each age? All we can do is to utter some little reflection,--something suggested by that train of thought.

How true it is that the Puritans originated no new truth! How true it is, also, Mr. President, that it is not truth which agitates the world! Plato in the groves of the Academy sounded on and on to the utmost depth of philosophy, but Athens was quiet. Calling around him the choicest minds of Greece, he pointed out the worthlessness of their altars and the sham of public life, but Athens was quiet,--it was all speculation. When Socrates walked the streets of Athens, and, questioning everyday life, struck the altar till the faith of the passer-by faltered, it came close to action, and immediately they gave him hemlock, for the city was turned upside down. I might find a better illustration in the streets of Jerusalem. What the Puritans gave the world was not thought, but action. Europe had ideas, but she was letting “I dare not wait upon I would,” like the cat in the adage. The Puritans, with native pluck, launched out into the deep sea. Men, who called themselves thinkers, had been creeping along the Mediterranean, from headland to headland, in their timidity, the Pilgrims launched boldly out into the Atlantic, and trusted God. [Loud applause.] That is the claim they have upon posterity. It was

Action that made them what they were.

No, they did not originate anything, but they planted: