LANDING OF THE ENGLISH "GOSPELLERS" IN AMERICA. keep them in his house or his country, and after being sent from place to place through all the tribe, they came back untouched to the hands of Governor Bradford. This put an end to the threatened invasion of the savages. But still the winter came on, and food was scarce; for six months the whole colony had barely one half of the ordinary allowance of rations; at last they were brought to the very brink of starvation. "I have seen," says Winslow, 66 men stagger by reason of faintness for want of food." There is a tradition to the effect that they were once reduced to their last pint of corn, which, equally distributed, yielded just five grains to each individual. They lay down to rest at night not knowing where to obtain a morsel the next day, and were fain to wander into the woods and dig up the roots, and to search the shore at low water for mussels and other shell fish. Such were the perils and sufferings amidst which the colony of New England was founded, and through which the pilgrim fathers passed, and such was the price at which they purchased freedom. But their condition slowly improved; their comforts gradually multiplied around them, and they diligently traded with the mother country. They maintained the most friendly relationship with the Indians, and to this largely they owed their preservation, while other settlements which were afterwards planted near them were abandoned. Their worthy pastor, however, was destined never to visit New Plymouth. He died in Leyden, in the year 1625. Of course it must not be supposed that simply from the settlers at Plymouth the present population of Massachusetts has descended. Various other colonies were founded, which, like Plymouth, flourished and grew strong; but the pilgrim fathers were the first to select this portion of the world, and many of those who followed were kindred spirits, whom the persecuting fury of Charles I. and Archbishop Laud compelled to seek a refuge in the Western world. To trace this history to all its consequences would be to enter on the history of the United States. I therefore carry it no further. I have endeavoured to describe to you the flourishing commonwealth of which Boston is the capital-I have shewn the early history of the first settlers in that state -I have followed them in their pilgrimage from Scrooby to Amsterdam, from Amsterdam to Leyden, from Leyden to New England; and I have briefly sketched the hardships to which LANDING OF THE ENGLISH "GOSPELLERS" IN AMERICA. they were exposed on their landing, and through the first two years of their colonial existence. I believe you will heartily concur with me when I say that the world has seldom seen such a noble band as the men and women who on board the little Mayflower braved the Atlantic storms in the autumn of the year 1620. If we may be permitted to quote from "The Psalm of Life" (and an American poet is not here out of place), I think you will scarcely find in modern history a finer illustration of these words, so encouraging to all who are struggling after the good, the useful, and the true :— "Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, The pilgrim fathers have left such footprints. You see them in the growth, the freedom, the intelligence, the power of Massachusetts, and in all that is good, great, and free in the mighty federal union of the Western world. They were great men of God's own choosing, fashioning, and training. And, indeed, valuable as are the lessons which their history furnishes us in reference to human character and examples of faith and fortitude, patience and perseverance, equally valuable to the intelligent student of history, are the illustrations which the lives and labours of the pilgrim fathers present of the dispensations of Divine Providence. When we contemplate the complicated circumstances which originated the enterprise, the unparalleled difficulties through which it had to pass, and the grand and momentous results which have ensued from it, I think we cannot but recognise in it all the finger of God just as clearly as in the exodus of Israel from Egypt. They did not see the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, as they were tossed upon the watery desert of Atlantic storms; but the guiding hand was there, though, shrouded in the clouds and darkness of autumnal tempests, it was not visible to the eye of sense. But she was safe, the little Mayflower-safe as the ark when borne upon the watery deluge of old. For was she not an ark, bearing far from the floods of royal and priestly despotism the elect heirs of liberty, who, like Noah and his sons, were destined to be the founders of a new world. And now the pilgrims rest together. Side by side they repose in their graves on Burial Hill, which was their fort, their sanctuary, and their graveyard-on which was POETRY. heard, now the booming salute of cannon that greeted their brethren on their arrival from Europe, now the clear harmony of praise, accompanied by the sounding sea, which, grander far than the music of cathedral choirs, welcomed the morning light and died away in the evening shade of the returning day of rest; and sometimes, too, alas, on that hill was heard the. voice of weeping, answered by the moaning of the forest, as the pilgrims, with heavy hearts, laid one after another of their famished children in the grave. Yet, though these fathers and founders of New England are dead, they still speak in the manly independence, they speak in the wide philanthropy, they speak in the growth and power of the Western confederation of states, which bids fair to make some of the powers of Europe look small, shrivelled, and contemptible. The spirit of the puritan still lives in the hearts of their posterity. Their memory is revered, their example is held forth for the encouragement of faith and patience, of diligence and hope, and the hill of their sepulture is pointed to as the very altar of freedom-a spot more sacred than the precincts of the most hallowed cathedrals in christendom. Poetry. TO THE GREAT FATHER OF ALL! FATHER of Lights! all perfect gifts bestowing, From Thy rich store, fresh streams of mercy flowing, Father of Love! Thy love to man revealing Father of Truth! to my petition bending, Father of Life! in Thee I have my being, Thou art my God, in whom I live and move! ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS. Anecdotes and Selections. THE PILGRIM FATHERS.-Thomas Clark, who is said to have been a mate of the Mayflower, and one of the first persons who landed on the island in Plymouth harbour that bears his name, died at the age of 98, in 1697; although he had been tomahawked by the Indians, he long survived the blow, and became a patriarch. In the year 1801 there died in Kingston a gentleman of the name of Cobb, who was born in Plymouth in 1674, and, consequently, was three years old when Clark died, and might have been spoken to by the old man. He did know Peregrine White well, who was born in 1621, the first child born in the colony, and who died in 1704. Many of those who survived the first sufferings of the colonists lived to be very old. They were a tough race, those old English nonconformists, and though not quite the angelic natures they are set down as having been by their eulogists, were probably as heroic a race as the world has ever seen. They were just the sort of stuff, both in minds and bodies, as goes to the formation of successful colonists. Their history is yet to be written properly, and, perhaps, they will gain as well as lose by having the exact truth told of them. I speak of the Plymouth men, for the founders of Massachussets, though of a higher social rank than the "Pilgrims" proper, were morally their inferiors. A STRIKING CONFIRMATION Of Scripture.-One of the most interesting of the monuments of ancient Rome, is the triumphal arch erected to commemorate the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus, who after the destruction of the temple made a triumphal march to Rome, bringing with him a long train of captive Jews and the spoils, among which were the sacred vessels of the temple. This procession is represented in the sculptures on the beautiful arch; which thus furnish an illustration of the Bible nowhere else to be found, these being the only representations that exist of the sacred vessels, the table of the shewbread, the golden candlestick with its seven branches, and the silver trumpets used by the priests to proclaim the year of jubilee. The Roman Senate and people little thought, when erecting this monument to a deified emperor, that they were erecting a monument to the true God in the verification of prophecy and divine history. A recent traveller says, not one of the Jews of Rome, of whom there are about 6,000, will even at this day, pass under the arch of Titus, although it spans one of the thoroughfares of the city; they shun it as a memorial of the subjugation of their nation, which has never been retrieved, and regard it with aversion. ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS, THE HAND THAT SAVES US.-Two painters were employed to fresco the walls of a magnificent cathedral. Both stood on a rude scaffolding constructed for the purpose, some forty feet from the floor. One of them was so intent upon his work that he became wholly absorbed, and in admiration stood off from the picture, gazing at it with intense delight. Forgetting where he was, he moved back slowly, surveying critically the work of his pencil, until he had neared the edge of the plank upon which he stood. At this critical moment his companion turned suddenly, and, almost frozen with horror, beheld his imminent peril; another instant, and the enthusiast would be precipitated upon the pavement beneath. If he spoke to him, it was certain death; if he held his peace, death was equally sure. Suddenly he regained his presence of mind, and, seizing a wet brush, flung it against the wall, bespattering the beautiful picture with unsightly blotches of colouring. The painter flew forward, and turned upon his friend with fierce up. braidings; but startled at his ghastly face, he listened to his recital of danger, looked shuddering over the dread space below, and with tears of gratitude blessed the hand that saved him. Just so, we sometimes get absorbed upon the pictures of the world, and, in contemplating them, step backwards, unconscious of our peril, when the Almighty, in mercy, dashes out the beautiful images, and draws us, at the time we are complaining of his dealings, into his outstretched arms of compassion and love. A REMARKABLE MAN.-At a temperance meeting held not long ago in Alabama, Colonel Lehmanousky, who had been a soldier twenty-three years in the armies of Buonaparte, addressed the meeting. He arose before the audience, tall, erect, and vigorous, with the glow of health upon his cheek, and said, "You see before you a man seventy years old. I have fought two hundred battles, have fourteen wounds on my body, have lived thirty days on horse flesh, with the bark of trees for my bread, snow and ice for my drink, the canopy of heaven for my covering, without stockings or shoes on my feet, and with only a few rags for my clothing. In the deserts of Egypt I have marched for days with a burning sun upon my naked head, feet blistered in the scorching sand, and with eyes, nostrils, and mouth filled with dust, and with a thirst so tormenting that I have opened the veins of my arm and sucked my own blood! Do you ask how I could have survived all these horrors? I answer, that next to the kind providence of God, I owe my preservation, my health and vigour, to this fact, that I never drank a drop of spirituous liquor in my life; and," continued he, "Baron Larry, chief of the medical staff of the French army, has stated it as a fact, that the 6000 survivors who safely returned from Egypt, were all of them men who abstained from the use of ardent spirits." |