tain Bill Green's new horse. There is certainly a new Southampton. And with all our laudation of the past to-day, I do not suppose that any of us desire that the good old town should be remanded to the Puritan times. Many things that were good in their day ought to become obsolete. "God fulfills himself in many ways, lest one good custom should corrupt the world." It is not the good old customs that need to be preserved, but the good old spirit. The essentials of true life never change; the forms of life are ever variable. Water, air, light, retain through the ages the identity of their composition. The cup, the wind, the lamp, will be adaptable. Out of the old-time life there has come down a shining current of thought, power, purity, and moral energy. That current, however it may broaden, deepen, strengthen, and cut for itself new channels, must not be interrupted. Our business is to see to it that these same elements which made our fathers what they were and gave us whatsoever virtues we possess, shall go on into the future. And now permit me to use the few moments that remain to me, in urging upon you the importance of guarding with some greater care the vouchers of your noble descent, the memorials of your venerable history. Our gratitude to-day ought to materialize in an endeavor, which shall reach down into the future. Lord Macaulay has said that "any people who are indifferent to the noble achievements of remote ancestors, are not likely to achieve anything worthy to be remembered by their descendants." I am sure, from what I have seen both at home and abroad, that there is no force to hold a community up to virtue like a perpetual impression of noble descent. The memorials of the fathers are the safeguards of the children. The thought of Westminster Abbey fired the heroism of Nelson at the battle of the Nile. The crossed swords in Prescott's study did not. make a soldier of Prescott, but they nursed in him a brave, heroic spirit which enabled him under sorest calamity to win the choicest victories in the battle of a scholar's life. Many of our town's most precious memorials have vanished forever. Our fathers were too busy in planting and colonizing, in wresting life from hard conditions, to think much about leaving behind them personal souvenirs. We have few of their portraits, few of their letters, few of the books they handled, few of the household materials which ministered to the narrow comforts of their life. The golden opportunities for constructing the infant history of our colony have for the most part passed away. Those which remain ought to be seized with the greatest avidity. Negli gence here and now is criminal. Much has been done by the intelligent and reverent researches of Judge Hedges, Mr. Howell, and Mr. Pelletreau. Two hundred and fifty years from to-day the men of Southampton will be more grateful for their work, if possible, than we are. A noble beginning has been made in the History of Southampton and the printing of the town records, worth more than their weight in gold. It makes one shiver to think how those priceless pages from generation to generation were moved about in an old wooden chest from one garret to another, now to a grocery store, and now to a shop, and now to some farmer's bedroom, subjected to the contingencies of flames and to the certainty of rats. "After us the deluge!" The present era of historical criticism is giving us back the ages that were beyond the flood, showing us the habitations men lodged in, the garments they wore, the food they ate, the language they spoke, their method of social intercourse, and the sort of government under which they lived. They have resurrected the Pharaoh of the Exodus and given us his photograph. I would give more to see the face of Abraham Pierson and to get a vision of the life of Old Town as it was in 1645. But alas for us! It is far easier for us to get a picture of Zoar or Nebuchadnezzar. Now let us remember that as we feel about the memorials of the settlers the men of the generations to come will feel interested in us. We owe a debt both to the past and to the future, which it is high time for us to begin to pay. Pardon me. We have begun-but only begun. Shall I give you an outline of what ought to be in this fine old town, of what it will be a shame by and by if it is not, in this oldest English town of the empire state, pace Dr. Whitaker? First then I would like to see the fairest lot of land to be found between Long Springs and the beach devoted to a memorial use. Spare an acre or two from your generous farms, upon it to be erected a modest but dignified structure of stone or of brick, fire-proof, which shall contain primarily a public library. Mr. Howell and Mr. Pelletreau, how much do I owe to that old district library that used to be kept in Captain Harry Halsey's back kitchen! It did not do as much perhaps to fit us for college examinations as the old academy, but that back kitchen was the porch through which we entered into the knowledge of good literature. Let the library room serve also as a memorial hall in which tablets shall be placed inscribed with the names of the first colonists, the names, so far as they can now be recovered, of those who served in the wars of the Revolution and of 1812, and above all, of those who enlisted in the war for the preservation of the Republic. Let those be thus remembered also who have deserved well of the old town for their conspicuous service, whether in civil, judicial, or executive relations. Let a place be provided also in the building for the town clerk's office and for the preservation of its records. Then into this repository let every native and every citizen take a pride in gathering whatever shall preserve the memory of the past or throw a light upon its life. The place and time to begin are here and now. Begin with to-day and work backward as fast and as far as possible. Let the records of this notable anniversary be religiously preserved. Is there in existence a complete file of our town's breezy little newspaper, the Sea-Side Times? Believe me if it is not gathered at once, in a few years it will be utterly impossible. What would not a perfect file of the old Suffolk Gazette, the Sag Harbor Corrector, or of its younger contemporary be worth? Do you know that for thirty years without a break the old Daboll's Almanac, which used to hang in the chimney corner of every farmhouse, gave the names of ships owned in the port of Sag Harbor, their tonnage, the names of their agents, the names of their commanders and their last date of sailing? Who has a file of them covering that thirty years from '44 to '74? I would like to see a complete set of the school-books used by my old grandfather Squire Herrick during the long time that he served in the two-fold capacity of pedagogue and town clerk, to say nothing of the primers and horn-books of a remoter age. But I cannot even find a Peter Parley's Geography with its wonderful poetry, "This world is round and like a ball, Goes swinging through the air, which I used to study wearily in the long summer afternoons in the dame-school of good Mrs. Proud. Who can furnish a complete list of Dr. Wilson's printed discourses-two on the death of President Harrison, one on the Rev. Samuel Huntting, one of our most beloved young townsmen, who died when he had barely assumed the pastorate of our sister church of East Hampton, one on Rev. Amzi Francis, and various thanksgiving and fast-day discourses? And the sermons of Mr. Bogart, to go no further back, that polished gentleman and ripe scholar whom we Yankees wooed and won from the Dutch at the West. Where are the Journals of our Early Whalers? Where, O where, is the log-book of Captain Mercator Cooper on that historic voyage which gave to Southampton the honor of opening up Japan and introducing the wonderful people to the family of nations? Where are preserved the portraits of Judges Halsey and Rose, par nobile fratrum, and I may ask also, of his honor the orator-in-chief of our anniversary? The best materials for the construction of future history are evanescent. I make a plea for their salvation in behalf of those who come after us. They cost little or nothing at the time of their issue, their loss is utterly irreparable. Let me note this fact by way of encouragement, a fact abundantly verified in my own experience, of which if there were time I could give you abundant and most romantic illustration. Whenever an individual or a community fairly enters upon this work of preserving the memorials of the past, a sort of whirlpool current is created about the collection which rapidly brings in the rarest materials, even from the most distant and unpromising quarters. Gradually the past will be restored, the lost will be found. Long-hidden treasures will leap from their hidingplaces to find their companions and congenial associates. To him that hath shall be given, but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. How much of value has been thrown away for want of a place to keep it! The spaces upon your shelves or in your cases will appeal powerfully to generous possessors. In the long run things tend to go where they are greatly wanted and where they ought to be. Thus gradually there will come to be in our midst nothing less than a sort of village university, at once a centre and fountain of reverend and patriotic influences, a fostering nurse of affectionate veneration for the past, of brotherly feeling and social good-will for the present, of generous forethought for the great future, whose generations will bless us in the coming centuries as to-day we bless the memory of our goodly ancestors. fam-Etterrick BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS. SOUTHAMPTON IN HISTORY No town on the American continent has led a more unostentatious and uneventful career than Southampton, Long Island, yet in celebrating its two hundred and fiftieth birth-year it has stepped securely into public notice with a record of conspicuous interest. Its antiquity gives it the lead among its fellows. Judge Henry P. Hedges, in his historical address on the 12th of June, 1890, pronounces it "the earliest and first born of the English-settled towns on Long Island and in the state of New York, dissipating myth and conjecture and doubt, commencing the earliest of any town on Long Island, continuing in unbroken succession to the present day. Wider reflection, ampler research and crucial controversy confirm this title." In 1640 the eastern part of Long Island was only a flat and weird wilderness inhabited by untutored Indians. A few brave young pioneers who had paused in Lynn, Massachusetts, before determining upon a permanent location of residence, crossed the waters of the sound under the auspices of James Farrett, agent of the Earl of Stirling, who had been granted the whole of Long Island by the Plymouth Company in England and who was anxious to sell his lands to parties who would found permanent settlements. The Dutch of New York were surprised and indignant as they claimed that entire territory; but they were chiefly occupied in maintaining possession of the western part of Long Island, thus could give little heed to what was going on in the more distant forests. “This lone colony at Southampton," said Judge Hedges, " remote from any other English settlement, divided by Peconic bay from Southold and yet further removed from the island stronghold of staunch Lyon Gardiner, surrounded by wild beasts and wild Indians, was like a ship adrift on the ocean, its company uncommanded, unofficered, undisciplined, its course undetermined, its voyage undecided, its destiny unknown. Will the company select and submit to the command of the best men? Will they enforce discipline?" He proceeded to describe their primitive houses and plans for tilling the soil. "Edward Howell, first of all the company styled 'gentleman,' seems to have been the most wealthy, and the father of the colony. Before the erection of a church edifice, Sabbath worship may have been held at his house, as the amplest for the purpose. As early as 1645 allusion is made in the town records to a church previously built, probably in 1641. Abraham Pierson, the first minister, held to the exclusive right of |