It was predominantly a movement of the people. The hierarchy was a movement of the court. The court had said to the waves of the Reformation, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no further"; but its edicts were as powerless to stop the rising tide as they would have been to stay the waves of the sea. One of the most distinctive features of Puritanism was its enthusiastic attachment to the Scriptures as the revealed will of God. Even in the time of the Lollards, some of them were known to give a load of hay for a few chapters of St. James or St. Paul in English. Puritanism was a defence of the right of private judgment, a plea for simplicity of worship and purity of life. As exhibited in the great exodus from England which formed this church, and which within the ten years that followed landed twenty thousand Englishmen on our shores, it was a prayer for freedom from civil and prelatical persecution, a hope to carry the gospel to the benighted Indian, and an attempt to found a Hebrew State, with God as its ruler and the Bible as its statute-book. We cannot look at the history of Puritanism without discovering its limitations. It was a reaction in itself, and was destined to breed reactions, some of which we still feel. It was intolerant, rigid, sombre, unæsthetic. But, though it lacked grace and beauty, it was tremendous in its strength; and we find more occasion to-day to render homage for the elements it possessed than for those which it lacked. The force and magnitude of that Puritan movement are seen not only in what it did for America, but in what it afterwards did for England. Slowly and steadily," says Green, “it introduced its own seriousness and purity into English society, English literature, English politics. The history of English progress since the Restoration on its moral and spiritual sides has been the history of Puritanism."

Let us be thankful on this Easter day that the gathering of this church was a new evidence that the spirit of Jesus

was still alive, and could no longer be contained in the tomb of ecclesiasticism. Wycliffe, Luther, and the Heaven-sent messengers of the Reformation had rolled away the stone from the tomb; but the spirit of Christianity in the English hierarchy was bound hand and foot with the grave-clothes and still redolent with the odor of papacy. It was Puritanism that uttered the words, "Loose him, and let him go."

In the Sailors' Bethel in Boston, where that inspired apostle, Father Taylor, thundered many a volley at the sin-bound sailor, there is behind the pulpit a large and striking picture of a ship riding over a stormy sea, while frowning cliffs rear their lofty perils. Such a picture must call forth in the hour of devotion the sailor's gratitude for a safe harbor, and symbolize the freedom of the sea and the peril of the shore. If, in any hour of defection from Puritan principles, we should surrender the severe and unpictorial simplicity of the old and much-loved "meeting-house "for a faint imitation of those mediæval cathedrals whose walls are adorned with the highest products of the genius of art, I should hope that some modern Raphael might paint for our altar-piece that illustrious event, two hundred and fifty years ago, when the Mary and John, freighted with the new-born church, set sail from Plymouth and stood out upon the broad ocean whose waves still kiss with equal love the shores of the old home and the new.

But you, dear friends, need not a "painted ship upon a painted ocean" to bring vividly before your imagination that interesting scene. I am not preaching to the prairie boy who has never seen a ship, never whiffed the sea-breeze, nor climbed such gigantic rocks as those on which this church is founded. I am preaching to-day to those who, every time they mount this hill-top to worship with this church, look far out upon the ocean which once bore it on its blue bosom. I

am preaching to those who do not consider that a boy has received a liberal education unless he can tie a bowline, man an oar, mind a helm. In the spirit of adventure which is very anciently and honestly derived, your white-winged yachts ride far out upon the foam-crested waves, and returning greet once more the old meeting-house, standing like a beacon on the hill-top. You who have so often weighed the anchor and spread the sail can picture to yourselves, as no inland-bred mind, that scene when the hawsers were cast off, the sails hoisted, and the Mary and John moved slowly toward a new destiny. You can hear the blocks creak and the water ripple at her sides. You can picture the mingled emotions of her passengers as they watch the shores of Old England recede until the voices of loved friends die away upon the ear, the waving of the hand is no longer descried, the houses dwindle into toys, a rim of blue haze settles down upon the horizon, and the brave craft is heaving to and fro, alone on the bosom of the deep. You, too, can summon the feelings of those who gathered on the shore to say the last adieu and breathe a last blessing on the Godsped ship. John White is there, his bosom swelling with hope and pride. He cannot go with the flock; but, like John Robinson, he can give his benediction. It is his voice, his labor, his inspiration that has animated the enterprise. His heart,

"With all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on its fate."

The gray-haired man has done his work. Captain and crew have done theirs. God does not fail to do his. Breezes from heaven fill the sails. She glides away from the teardimmed sight of the friends on shore. The "great ship" becomes a white-winged gull asleep on the cradling wave, then fades to a little speck on the far margin of the wide,

wrinkled sea, till the same blue haze that veils the shore from the pilgrims veils the pilgrims from the shore. Gone from sight, but not from heart: from ten thousand English breasts rises the then unworded prayer:

"Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea:

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee;
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith, triumphant o'er our fears,

Are all with thee,- are all with thee."

On the great ocean we leave the Mary and John to-day. On the 17th of June next, I invite you all to this church to extend to the memory of your newly landed fathers the fervent welcome of posterity.

Time has preserved and ripened the immediate, the remote, and the unexpected fruition of that Christian enterprise. But, if that ship and all on board had sunk to the bottom of the sea, the lofty faith, the sturdy resolution, the deep religious purpose which animated its passengers would still have been worthy of the admiration and the gratitude of mankind.

Afternoon Service.

THE exercises in the afternoon were resumed at three o'clock, and introduced, as described in the preceding programme, by an organ voluntary and an anthem from Mosenthal. Prayer was offered by Rev. D. M. Wilson of Quincy. The choir sang "Arise, shine, for thy light has come," by Dudley Buck. The one hundred and fifth Psalm which followed, taken from the version of Sternhold and Hopkins, was sung by the whole congregation with fine effect. Indeed, the psalm-singing, to the same tunes and words as used by the fathers two hundred and fifty years ago, was one of the most interesting features of the day.

Welcome by the Pastor.

It has been a source of much satisfaction to me to observe the surprise with which many people learned that this church is two hundred and fifty years old. The gratification I have experienced lies in the fact that they had not discovered it themselves. They had detected no antiquity in the church feature, no decrepitude in its walk, no feebleness in its conversation. They had generously given us credit for having a considerable amount of vigor, but suspected no decay. If we wished to impose upon the public credulity, I am confident we might pass ourselves off as being no older than many of our neighbors who are at least two hundred years younger. There is no sense of guilt mingled with this satisfaction; for we have not tried to conceal our age. We