As I
look over the list of the excellent worthies of the first emigrations, I
find no one who, in all respects, occupies a nobler place in the early
colonial history of Massachusetts than John Winthrop. Like Vane and
Milton, he was a gentleman as well as a Puritan, a cultured and
enlightened statesman as well as a God-fearing Christian. It was not
under his long and wise chief magistracy that religious bigotry and
intolerance hung and tortured their victims, and the terrible delusion of
witchcraft darkened the sun at noonday over Essex. If he had not quite
reached the point where, to use the words of Sir Thomas More, he could
"hear heresies talked and yet let the heretics alone," he was in charity
and forbearance far in advance of his generation.
I am sorry that I must miss an occasion of so much interest. I hope you
will not lack the presence of the distinguished citizen who inherits the
best qualities of his honored ancestor, and who, as a statesman, scholar,
and patriot, has added new lustre to the name of Winthrop.
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