BOSTON TO ALBANY. 39 



I remembered reading that in 1767 a committee 

 was appointed to decide whether it would be wise to 

 attempt to locate a village on the present site of 

 Worcester. 



They reported that the place was one day's journey 

 from Boston, and one day's journey from Springfield, 

 that the place was well watered by streams and 

 brooks, and that in eight miles square there was 

 enough meadow to warrant the settling of sixty 

 families, adding these words: " We recommend that a 

 prudent and able committee be appointed to lay it out, 

 and that due care be taken by said committee that a 

 good minister of God's Word be placed there, as soon 

 as may be, that such people as be there planted may 

 not live like lambs in a large place." 



That was only a little more than a century ago. 

 As I stood overlooking it all, '' thickly dotted with 

 the homes of the husbandmen, and the villages of the 

 manufacturer, traversed by canal and railway, and 

 supporting a dense population/' proving so strong a 

 contrast between the past generation's humble antici- 

 pations, and our overflowing prosperity, I asked 

 myself what those old Puritans would have thought 

 of our railroads, our electric cars, our niodern ma- 

 chines, our telephones ; and I said, with a spirit of 

 self-gratulation, 



"We are living, we are dwelling, 

 In a grand and awfnl time; 

 In an age on ages telling, 

 To be living is sublime." 



There is little doubt that future generations will 

 look back upon this age as the brightest in the world's 

 history. 



