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

Do you suppose that, if Elder Brewster could come up from his grave to-day, he would be contented with the Congregational Church and the five points of Calvin? No, Sir; he would add to his creed the Maine Liquor Law, the Underground Railroad, and the thousand Sharpe's Rifles, addressed “Kansas,” and labelled “Books.” [Enthusiastic and long-continued applause.] My idea is, if he took his staff in his hand and went off to exchange pulpits, you might hear of him at the Music Hall of Boston [where Rev. Theodore Parker preaches] and the Plymouth Church at Brooklyn [Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's]. [Renewed applause.]

We should bear in mind development when we criticise the Pilgrims,--where they would be to-day. Indeed, to be as good as our fathers, we must be better. Imitation is not discipleship. When some one sent a cracked plate to China to have a set made, every piece in the new set had a crack in it. The copies of 1620 and 1787 you commonly see have the crack, and very large, too. Thee and thou, a stationary hat, bad grammar and worse manners, with an ugly coat, are not George Fox in 1855. You will recognize him in any one who rises from the lap of artificial life, flings away its softness, and startles you with the sight of a man. Neither do I acknowledge, Sir, the right of Plymouth to the whole rock. No, the rock underlies all America; it only crops out here. [Cheers.] It has cropped out a great many times in our history. You may recognize it always. Old Putnam stood upon it at Bunker Hill, when he said to the Yankee boys, “Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes.” Ingraham had it for ballast when he put his little sloop between two Austrian frigates, and threatened to blow them out of the water, if they did not