holiness blowing about the conscience! Think of the bracing air of God's holiness breathing upon the affections! Think of the bracing air of God's holiness bringing its vitalizing vigor to the will! And this is what happened to these famous forefathers of ours, whom we are holding in grateful remembrance to-day. Their faculties and powers were seasoned and tempered in mountain air, in the atmosphere of God's holiness, for there breathed around about them continually the quickening breath of the Holy Ghost. "They drew in breath in the fear of the Lord."

And thus it happened that with spiritual vision there came moral dynamic. An intense and lofty spirituality bred a virile morality. That is ever the law of life. If our spirituality is lofty and pure we shall have masculine morality, as surely as with snowy uplands we have swift and forceful rivers. If your morality lacks verve and vim, question your spirituality, for by the quality of your water you may infer the character of your gathering ground. If there is no iron in our moral blood, it is because there is no iron in our conception of God. Our morality reflects our spirituality, and if we have no "glory and strength" in our character, it is because there is no "glory and strength" in our God.

The spirituality of the Pilgrim endowed him with magnificent fortitude. "He endured as seeing him who is invisible." The endurance of the Pilgrim Fathers revealed itself first of all in their power of resistance. You might take away their life; you could never bend or pervert their will. You might slit their tongues; you could not silence their conscience. You might put them in strong holds; you could not imprison their prayers. A tremendous business is the resistance of the soul which is accompanied by the holy Lord! Take this glimpse from apostolic life: "And when they had laid many stripes upon them they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely. Who, having received this charge, thrust them into the inner prison and made their feet fast in the stocks. And at midnight, Paul

and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God." Or take this glimpse of Vanity Fair, as given by John Bunyan, and through which the pilgrims passed on their way to the Celestial City. "At this Fair are all such merchandise sold as houses, lands, trades, places, honors, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures, and delights of all sorts, as harlots, wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not." "Behold, even as they entered into the Fair, all the people in the Fair were moved, and the town itself was in a hubbub about them, for the pilgrims were clothed with such kind of raiment as was diverse from the raiment of any that traded in that Fair. They also naturally spoke the language of Canaan; but they that kept the Fair were the men of this world, so that from the end of the Fair to the other, they seemed barbarians each to the other." The pilgrims were in the Fair, and yet they stoutly resisted its customs and its speech. "They endured as seeing him who is invisible."

In the second place, the power of endurance which characterized the Pilgrim Fathers revealed itself in the power of aggression. God was not only their "refuge" but their "strength," and in that strength they marched out in positive conflict against everything that was alien to God. Wherever they saw iniquity enthroned they sought to undermine the foundations of its sovereignty. Wherever men were making mischief by law, they sought to overthrow both "the horse and the rider," the law-maker and the mischievous law. They not only refused complicity with popular sin, but they smote it in the face, however multitudinous the number of its friends. Such were the men whom we honor to-day-not only the Pilgrims who crossed the water, but also the Pilgrims who dared to stay at home! They walked in the fear of the Lord. They lived in the comtemplation of His holiness. They drank the very blood of the Lord, and they shed it again at His bidding, in wil

ling and glorious sacrifice. "They endured as seeing him who is invisible."

Well, what is the call upon the Pilgrims of our own day? For surely there is a very definite and chivalrous call upon those who bear the Pilgrims' name and boast a kinship in that great succession. Surely we may claim that the river shall contain the primary elements found in the spring. "A mountain stream that ends in mud is melancholy.' It is possible to claim descent and yet have no communion. Our Lord protested in His day that many people boasted they were the "children" of Abraham, when they were only his "seed." The Master always distinguished between kinship in the flesh and kinship in the spirit. He recognized no vital community except in the vital matters of the soul. "I know ye are Abraham's seed," He said; I know that ye can trace your fleshly pedigree to that ancestral fount, "but if ye were the children of Abraham ye would do the deeds of Abraham." The true patriarchal succession was found in a quick and quickening faith, as the true apostolic succession is found in the apostolic spirit, in the common possession of the Holy Ghost. And therefore must we seek our true relationships in the deepest currents of the soul. We may be more akin to the Cavalier than to the Puritan. Indeed it is possible for the true Puritan stock to pass from the Anglo-Saxon race. Let it be said again that our Master always traced spiritual pedigrees and communions, and even in respect to Himself He recognizes no intimacy except in the hidden secrets of the soul. "And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold thy mother and thy brethren seek for thee. He answered them, saying, Who is my mother or my brethren? And he looked round about on them which sat about him and said, Behold my mother and my brethren, for whosoever shall do the will of of God the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother." And so it is with the heroic men and women whose character we are now recalling in sanctified remembrance. Our noblest distinction is not to carry the blood of their

bodies, but, shall I say, to share the blood of their souls, to be their spiritual children, and not only their natural seed. And if we are their children, their kinsmen in the spirit, what shall be our contribution to the life and movements of our own time? Assuredly we shall contribute those two vital elements which distinguished the patriarchal life of Moses, and which constituted the primary qualities of the first apostles, and which characterized all the noblest of the Puritans-the vision of the invisible God and the power of an enthusiastic moral passion.

We shall contribute to our modern life the clear and radiant vision of the Invisible God. That is perhaps harder in our time than in the days of our fathers. Although I suppose every generation has made a similar plea. It may be that each generation has its own full complement of difficulty, and each its own distinctive privilege and glory. But, surely, there was never a day when there was a greater danger of putting emphasis upon living rather than upon life. The air is heavy with materialism. Everything is judged by materialistic standards and values. To get at the soul of the individual, or at the soul of his social fellowships, we have to pierce a materialistic vesture as thick and irresistible as an armor-plate. The visible round of life is too often only a material prison, gaily illumined, if you will, and touched with vivid adornments. But the lights are only artificial lamps, and the decorations are the home of the destructive moth. There are no "never withering flowers," and there is no ray of the "light that never was on sea or land.

Well, now, to let the Invisible into the visible prison, to let in the light of the Invisible upon its naptha glares, to let in the glories of the Invisible upon its tawdry toys, is surely the first ministry of the modern Pilgrims to the present generation. To let in the blazing light of the spiritual upon the material; to let in the blazing light of the ideal upon the expedient; to let in the blazing light of the Holy Lord upon all the works of darkness; this surely

must be the Puritan business of our time. We are to see the Invisible, and then, by our life, to reveal Him, so that our track in the ways of men shall be as a shining light that will make it impossible for men to forget the high concerns of the soul.

And as we are ministers of spiritual vision we shall also be contributors of moral dynamic. The loftiness of our characters will give them their weight. We need have no concern about the force of our life if only we are concerned about its height. Our moral influence will be constant, and will always be the minister of elevation and of rectitude. In the home life, in private business, in the affairs of the city, and in the larger concerns of the State, we shall recognize only one realm, one kingdom, and we shall accept only one standard, as we shall bow to only one sovereign King. The modern pilgrim will be a spiritual seer, and a moral contagion, for "He that dwelleth in Me," saith the Lord, "out of him shall flow rivers of water;" and on the banks of the river shall grow "the tree of life, bearing all manner of fruits, and the leaves of the tree shall be for the healing of the nations."

Breathe on me, Breath of God,

Fill me with life anew,

That I may love what Thou dost love,

And do what Thou wouldst do.

Breathe on me, Breath of God,
Until my heart is pure,
Until with Thee I will one will,
To do or to endure.

Breathe on me, Breath of God,
Till I am wholly Thine,
Till all this earthly part of me
Glows with Thy fire divine.

Breathe on me, Breath of God,
So shall I never die,

But I live with Thee the perfect life
Of Thine eternity.