“Believing, as I firmly do, that he was a useful, a necessary citizen, because he was ‘that brave man and good officer’ at a time when soldierly qualities were essential to the very life of the infant colony, it seems to me providential for the colonists that one of their number was, by temper and training, unable to sympathize with that soft tenderness for human life which is wont to characterize saintly-minded men, like the Rev. Mr. Robinson, who, when he heard of the marvelous conflict where Standish, with three or four others, in a locked room, killed the same number of hostile chiefs that were gathering their tribes to exterminate the English, uttered these sorrowful words: ‘Oh! that you had converted some before you had killed any!’ “The soldier practised that terrible piece of economy which no saint of the company would have dreamed of doing with his own hand. To borrow the diction of the time, the gauntlet of the man of wrath was the fold of the lambs of God. It was fortunate for us who believe in Plymouth Rock, that one trained soldier, who had faced war conducted by the Duke of Alva, came out in the Mayflower. “Myles Standish represented the true idea of public service, vigorous fidelity, and trained fitness for his place. In his single heroic person he presented the true idea of the army,--skilled military force in loyal subordination to the civil authority. The confidence that the colony reposed in him to execute their most difficult commands as a soldier, seems to prove that he revered, in the words of Mr. Robinson’s farewell sermon, ‘the image of the Lord’s power and authority which the magistrate beareth.’ “To be the founders of states is the first of glories, according to Lord Bacon. The career of our Pilgrim hero is a beautiful illustration of an education fitted to the great mission for which he seemed peculiarly, strangely ordained. “In grateful memory we consecrate this spot of earth to a monument of the great Puritan Captain. May its shadow fall upon his grave! For two centuries the stars have looked upon it. At what moment of the night the circling moon may point it out with shadowy finger, no mortal knows. No mortal ear can hear the secret whispered to the night, ‘Beneath this spot lies all of a hero that could die.’” Several other eloquent addresses were made upon the occasion by General B. F. Butler, Dr. Loring, and other gentlemen of the highest social standing. The community is deeply indebted to Stephen M. Allen, Esq., one of the prominent citizens of Duxbury, for the time and money he has devoted to furtherance of this good enterprise. As Corresponding Secretary of the Standish Memorial Association, he has been one of the most efficient agents in pushing forward the truly patriotic undertaking.