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SABBATH IN THE COMMON HOUSE AT PLYMOUTH

itive organization-is planted here. The Christian church has brought with it the Christian state, organized for the time under the form of a pure democracy. But in these arrangements there is no identification of the church with the state-no subjection of either in its own sphere to the dictation of the other. In the Separatist colony of Plymouth there is a free church, dependent on the state for nothing but protection; and a free state, in which the church has no control otherwise than by quickening and enlightening the moral sense of the people. That which will be the American system of the relations between the church and the state has come into being in the cabin of the Mayflower; and a church history distinctively American has begun when the Pilgrimst transfer the government of their little commonwealth, and the Sabbath assemblies of their church, from the ship which has brought them across the ocean to the shore which their footsteps consecrate to liberty and to God.

Note referred to on page 308:

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"After some deliberation had among themselves and with the master of the ship, they tacked about and resolved to stand for the southward, find some place about Hudson's River for their habitation. But after they had sailed that course about half the day, they fell among dangerous shoals and roaring breakers; and they were so far entangled therewith as they conceived themselves in great danger; and, the wind shrinking upon them withal, they resolved to bear up again for the cape.”—Bradford, p. 77.

It has been assumed that the intention of the Pilgrims, when they sailed from England, was to settle in the territory for which they had a patent from the Virginia Company-in other words, south of the Hudson. But had not their plan been gradually modified ever since the beginning of their intercourse with Weston ?-Ante, p. 276, 278; Bradford, p. 43, 44. Did they not, when they sailed, regard themselves as "having undertaken, for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia," where the Virginia Company had no jurisdiction or possession? That voyage was undertaken at the very time when the disorganized Plymouth Council for colonizing "the north parts of Virginia" were urging their petition to be reincorporated, and "that their territory may be called -as by the Prince, his Highness, it hath been named-New England." The

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arrival of the Pilgrims at Southampton (from Leyden) was ten days before the date of the king's warrant to his solicitor (July 21, O. S.), “to prepare a new patent for the Adventurers to the northern colony of Virginia." Six days before the Mayflower came in sight of Cape Cod, the new patent incorporating the Plymouth Council," for the planting, ruling, ordering, and governing of New England," received the royal signature.-Prince, p. 160. "Some place about Hudson's River" might be found on either side of the 40th degree of N. latitude, the boundary between Virginia proper and those "northern parts of Virginia hich were the domain of the Plymouth Council.

THE MAYFLOWER."

CHAPTER XVI.

THE FIRST YEAR AT PLYMOUTH.

WHEN the Pilgrim Church had planted itself on American soil, there was no certainty that it could live through the remainder of that winter. The question whether they could keep together under the distress that was coming upon them might have been considered doubtful. What was to hinder them from quarreling, as hungry men are prone to do? If they were the unintelligent fanatics which they are sometimes supposed to have been, what was to hinder them from falling into anarchy? What reason was there to hope that the slight bond which held their body politic together would not break at the first trial of its strength? The character of the men gives the answer to such questions. "After they had provided a place for their goods or common store, and begun some small cottages for their habitation as time would admit, they met and consulted of laws and orders both for their civil and military government as the necessity of their condition did require." The members of the nascent commonwealth were not all from Leyden, nor all of one mind and temper. "In those hard and difficult beginnings," there were "discontents and murmurings among some, and mutinous speeches and carriage in others; but they were soon quelled and overcome by the wisdom, patience, and just and equal carriage of things by the governor and better part." Gradually the simple democracy, the earliest instance of New England town-meeting government, was proving itself equal to the need of the little republic.

There was another way in which the colony might be annihilated. After so long a voyage in a crowded vessel, with insufficient accommodations at the best, and such food as

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