George F. Hoar: “The proscriptive and intolerant opposition to Catholicism, especially against men of foreign birth, has shown its head…”

But I like to think he will be sent on some errands like that of the presence which came to Ben Adhem with a great wakening light, rich and like a lily in bloom, to tell him that the name of him who loved his fellow men led all the names…

We speak of a light that makes darkness visible; and similarly there are sounds that deepen the long intervals of silence with which they alternate.

We are here in the sweet silence of a summer morning, eighteen hundred years after such a scene, and able mentally to catch some glimpse of it; some echo of the storm that has left behind it so ineffaceable a mark.

We bring you the heart's love of Boston where you were born, and Worcester where you took the early vows you have kept so well; of Massachusetts who knows she has no worthier son, and of the great and free country to whom you have taught…