The next scene represented the Fleet Prison on the night of
April 5, 1593. Two heaps of straw are seen, on which a man in
Puritan garb is seated, writing rapidly. By the other heap sits
a man on a stool, who is correcting some written pages. Both men
wear chains. A woman stands by the second man with some papers.
She seems to be waiting for the other sheets which the man is
writing. As he passes the last to her she hides them all in the
bosom of her dress.
The next scene represents the Opposition, 7603. The lights are
suddenly turned, on revealing a flurry of children and young
people across the field, from left to right, and the sound of
gay music from the point toward which the children are running.
The field fills rapidly with some hundreds of people--men, women
and children, of all types and kinds. From the right to the
triumphant march, King James enters in royal progress.
Space forbids us to relate the various scenes portrayed upon
this wonderfully well-illuminated field. No one who witnessed
this wonderful production can ever forget the solemn
impressiveness of its closing scenes. A voice is heard coming
from the rock, "As one candle may light a thousand, so the
lights here kindled have shone to many, yea! in some sort, to
our whole nation."
As Bradford gazes out in the distance, the lights now
penetrating more deeply reveal in turn, George Washington and
Abraham Lincoln. The clear voice of Washington repeats these
significant words: "The basis of our political system is the
right of the people to make and to alter their constitution of
the government." Then the deep, calm voice of Lincoln is heard
to say: "Government of the people, for the people, and by the
people, shall not perish from the earth."
As Lincoln finishes speaking, two men in modern dress come
toward the rock, looking seaward.
The first speaker:
"This was the port of entry of our Freedom.
Men brought it in a box of alabaster
And broke the box and spilled it to the West,
Here on the granite wharf prepared for them.
Second speaker:
"And so we have it."
Firstspeaker:
"Have it to achieve;
We have it as they had it in their day,
A little in the grasp--more to achieve."
Then we hear these significant words:
"I wonder what the Pilgrims if they came
Would say to us, as Freemen? Is our freedom
Their freedom as they left it to our keeping,
Or would they know their own in modern guise?
Across the back of the field to the grand triumphal strains of
martial music pass the flags of the allies, so lighted that they
show brilliantly. Nearer move the French and British flags, and
then all wave and beckon. There follows a hush. Suddenly from
far out on the Mayflower a bugle calls in the darkness and light
begins to glow on the vessel, but very faintly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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