A few months later came the Declaration of Independence, summing up the conclusions to which for years the Scots and Ulster Scots had been leading. Out of the fifty-six members who composed the Congress that adopted it, eleven were of Scottish descent; and among them were such conspicuous leaders as John Witherspoon, of New Jersey, James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, Philip Livingston, of New York, and Edward Rutledge, of South Carolina. On the momentary and natural hesitation to "put their necks in a halter" by signing this document after its adoption, it was one of these Scots, John Witherspoon again, who came to the front and carried the day. "He that will not respond to its accents and strain every nerve to carry into effect its provisions," he said, "is unworthy the name of freeman. For myself, although these gray hairs must soon descend into the sepulchre, I would infinitely rather they should descend thither by the hand of the public executioner than desert at this crisis the sacred cause of my country."

At the first news of the skirmish at Lexington, John Stark, an Ulster Scot, of Londonderry, started for Cambridge, hurriedly gathered together eight hundred backwoodsmen, and marched with them towards the sound of the enemy's guns at Bunker Hill. . .

Two of the most noted battles in South Carolina, where half the population was Ulster Scottish, were those of King's Mountain and Cowpens. At the first, five of the colonels were Presbyterian ruling elders, and their troops were mainly recruited from Presbyterian settlements. At the Cowpens, General Morgan, who commanded, and General Pickens were both Presbyterian elders, and most of their troops were Presbyterians.

One of the greatest achievements of the war occurred so far in the West that not till long afterwards was its importance realized. This was the rescue of Kentucky and of that whole rich territory northwest of the Ohio. . . . For that momentous work, carried on in obscurity while attention was concentrated

on the sea-board colonies, without encouragement and with the scantiest means, but with skill and with heroism, we are indebted to General George Rogers Clark, a Scottish native of Albermarle County, Virginia. . . .

During the whole period, from the Revolution to the Civil War, the indomitable Ulster Scots, chiefly from Pennsylvania and the South, were pouring over the Alleghanies, carrying ever westward the frontiers of the country, forming the advance guard of civilization from the Lakes to the Gulf, fighting the Indians and the wild beasts, subduing and planting the wilderness, westward to the Mississippi. Of this conquering race, Theodore Roosevelt says in his Winning of the West:—

"Full credit has been awarded the Roundhead and the Cavalier; nor have we been altogether blind to the deeds of the Hollander and the Huguenot; but it is doubtful if we have wholly realized the importance of the part played by that stern and virile people whose preachers taught the creed of Knox and Calvin. . . . They formed the kernel of the distinctively and intensely American stock who were the pioneers of our people in their march westward."

THE PILGRIMS

EDWARD EVERETT

THEIR banishment to Holland was fortunate; the decline of their little company in the strange land was fortunate; the difficulties which they experienced in getting the royal consent to banish themselves to this wilderness were fortunate; all the tears and heart-breakings of that ever-memorable parting at Delfthaven had the happiest influence on the rising destinies of New England. All this purified the ranks of the settlers. These rough touches of fortune brushed off the light, uncertain, selfish spirits. They made it a grave, solemn, self-denying expedition, and required of those who engaged in it to be so too. They cast a broad shadow of thought and seriousness over the cause,

and if this sometimes deepened into melancholy and bitterness, can we find no apology for such a human weakness?

Their trials of wandering and of exile, of the ocean, the winter, the wilderness, and the savage foe, were the final assurances of success. It was these that put far away from our fathers' cause all patrician softness, all hereditary claims to preeminence. No effeminate nobility crowded into the dark and austere ranks of the pilgrims. . . . No well-endowed clergy were on the alert to quit their cathedrals and set up a pompous hierarchy in the frozen wilderness. No craving governors were anxious to be sent over to our cheerless El Dorados of ice and snow. No, they could not say they had encouraged, patronized, or helped the pilgrims; their own cares, their own labors, their own counsels, their own blood, contrived all, achieved all, bore all.

Is it possible that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious?

THE QUAKER AND HIS INFLUENCE

HENRY ARMITT BROWN

[From an address at Burlington, New Jersey, in 1887, at the two hundredth anniversary of its settlement. This early Quaker colony at Burlington was a distributing point from which other settlers moved up and down the Delaware River or crossed into Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, under the leadership of William Penn, later became the chief center of Quaker settlement and influence.]

Ir was in the midst of the stormiest years of the civil war that George Fox, an humble shepherd youth from the fields of Nottingham, began his ministry. Fox went forth to preach to his countrymen the new gospel, founded on freedom of conscience, purity of life, and the equality of man. Here was not only a new religious creed, but a dangerous political doctrine.

Here was an idea that, once imbodied in a sect, would strike a blow at caste and privilege, and shake the very foundations of society. But nothing availed to tie the tongue of Fox, or cool the fervor of his spirit. Threatened, fined, beaten, and imprisoned, he turned neither to the left hand nor to the right.

At Cromwell's death the Quakers were already a numerous people. At the Restoration they had grown to dangerous proportions. Against them, therefore, was directed the vengeance of all parties and of every sect. Under all governments it was the same, and the Quaker met with even worse treatment from the Puritan government of New England than he had received from either the stern republican of Cromwell's time or the gay courtier of the Restoration. Though his hand was lifted against no man, all men's hands were laid heavily on him. He was persecuted, but nowhere understood. His 'religion was called fanaticism, his frugality avarice, his simplicity ignorance, his piety hypocrisy, his freedom infidelity, his conscientiousness rebellion.

But, though they fought no fight, they kept the faith. None can deny that they sought the faith with zeal, believed with sincerity, met danger with courage, and bore suffering with extraordinary fortitude. "They are a people," said the Protector, "whom I cannot win with gifts, honors, offices, or places."

There are many reasons why our forefathers turned their eyes upon New Jersey. The unrelenting Puritan had shut in their faces the doors of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth Colony. New York had been appropriated by the Dutch, and the followers of Fox could find little sympathy among the settlers of the Old Dominion. He had travelled across New Jersey two or three years before. It is to be noticed that Penn's connection with the Quaker settlement of Burlington led to the founding of Pennsylvania.

James II, in the year 1664, sold what is known as New Jersey to two of his friends,—Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley. Carteret planted settlements in Eastern Jersey, and the city of

Elizabeth still perpetuates the name of his accomplished wife. At last Berkeley, too old to realize his plans, offered the Province for sale. The opportunity was a rare one for the Quaker. Not alone for himself did the Pilgrim embark upon the Mayflower; not for himself alone did the Puritan seek a shelter on the bleak shores of Massachusetts; not for himself alone did Roger Williams gather his little colony at the head of Narragansett Bay; and the same faith that he was building in the wilderness a place of refuge for the oppressed forever, led the stern Quaker out of England. This was the faith that sustained them without a murmur through all the horrors of a New England winter; that kept their courage up while the Connecticut Valley rang with the war-whoop of the Indian; that raised their fainting spirits beneath the scorching rays of a Southern sun; that made them content and happy in the untrodden forests of New Jersey.

Proud may we justly be, as Americans, of those who laid the foundations of our happiness. I know of no people who can point to a purer and less selfish ancestry; of no nation that looks back to a nobler or more honorable origin. The history of old Burlington has been a modest one, but full of those things which good men rejoice to find in the character of their ancestors; of a courage meek but dauntless, a self-sacrifice lowly but heroic, a wisdom humble and yet lofty, a love of humanity that nothing could quench, a devotion to liberty that was never shaken, an unfaltering and childlike faith in God.

PETER MUHLENBERG, PREACHER-SOLDIER
RUDOLPH CRONAU

[General Muhlenberg was born at Trappe, Pennsylvania, in 1746, of German parentage. His father was one of the chief founders of the Lutheran church in America. Early in life Muhlenberg entered the ministry, and was pastor of a church at Woodstock, in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Washington, knowing the man, offered him a colonel's commission early in the Revolution. His regiment, the