the Mayflower is sailing still between the old world and the new. Every
day it brings new settlers, if not to our material harbors--to our Boston
Bay, our Castle Garden, our Golden Gate--at any rate, to our mental ports
and wharves. We cannot take up a European newspaper without finding an
American idea in it. It is said that a great many of our countrymen take
the steamer to England every summer. But they come back again; and they
bring with them many who come to stay. I do not refer specially to the
occupants of the steerage--the literal emigrants. One cannot say much
about them--they may be Americans or not, as it turns out. But England and
the continent are full of Americans who were born there, and many of whom
will die there. Sometimes they are better Americans than the New Yorker or
the Bostonian who lives in Beacon Street or the Bowery and votes in the
elections. They may be born and reside where they please, but they belong
to us, and, in the better sense, they are among us. Broadway and
Washington Street, Vermont and Colorado extend all over Europe. Russia is
covered with them; she tries to shove them away to Siberia, but in vain.
We call mountains and prairies solid facts; but the geography of the mind
is infinitely more stubborn. I dare say there are a great many oblique-
eyed, pig-tailed New Englanders in the Celestial Empire. They may never
have visited these shores, or even heard of them; but what of that? They
think our thought--they have apprehended our idea, and, by and by, they or
their heirs will cause it to prevail.

It is useless for us to hide our heads in the grass and refuse to rise to
the height of our occasion. We are here as the realization of a truth--the
fulfilment of a prophecy; we must attest a new departure in the moral and
intellectual development of the human race; for whichever of us does not,
must suffer annihilation. If I deny my birthright as an American, I shall
disappear and not be missed, for an American will take my place. It is not
altogether a luxurious position to find yourself in. You cannot sit still