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 Pilgrims. 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:

"After some deliberation had among themselves and with the master of the ship, they tacked about and resolved to stand for the southward, . . . to 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.

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

sea-farers in those days were compelled to live on, and after their great exposures to cold and rain, many of them could have only a feeble hold on life; and it is difficult to conceive how there could be one in whom there was not some lurking disease. Six of the passengers died while the ship was lying at Cape Cod. Almost from the date of their arrival in Plymouth harbor they were wasting away. Bradford tells the sad story with characteristic simplicity: "In two or three months' time half of their company died, . . . being infected with the scurvy and other diseases which this long voyage and their inaccommodate condition had brought upon them." "There died, sometimes, two or three of a day." When the spring opened upon them, “of one hundred persons, scarce fifty remained.”2 "In the time of most

distress, there were but six or seven sound persons, who (to their great commendation be it spoken) spared no pains night or day; but, with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health, fetched them wood, made them fires, dressed them meat, made their beds, washed their loathsome clothes, clothed and unclothed them; in a word, did all the homely and necessary offices for them which dainty and queasy stomachs can not endure to hear named; and all this willingly and cheerfully, without any grudging in the least, showing herein their true love to their friends and brethren. ... Two of these seven were Mr. William Brewster, their reverend elder, and Miles Standish, their captain and military commander; to whom myself and many others were much beholden in our low and sick condition. . . . What I have said of these, I may say of many others who died in

One of the six, Mrs. Bradford, was drowned. The others may be regarded as having died of the privations, hardships, and exposures which they had suffered.

2 More exactly, the deaths were: in December, six; in January, eight: in February, seventeen; in March, thirteen-forty-four in four months. Before the arrival of the first reinforcement the number of the dead was just fifty.

this general visitation, and others yet living, that while they had health-yea, or any strength continuing-they were not wanting to any that had need of them."

Details like these, illustrative of character and of the Christian spirit, are always pertinent in church history. For the same reason we must not omit from our story those incidents which show how wide a difference in moral character and human sympathy there was between the Pilgrims and the rough sailors of the Mayflower. Bradford tells us that at first "the calamity fell among the passengers that were to be left here to plant. They were hastened ashore and made to drink water that the seamen might have the more beer." When Bradford himself, "in his sickness, desired but a small can of beer," he was harshly denied. But soon the hardier and more favored seamen began to succumb; and before April nearly half of their company had died. Master Jones was "something strucken" when his own men began to be sick and to die. He thought more kindly of the sick ashore," and told the governor to "send for beer for them that had need of it," professing himself willing to. drink water homeward bound" rather than that they should suffer. "But among his company there was far another kind of carriage in this misery than among the passengers. They that before had been boon companions in drinking and jollity, began now to desert one another, saying they would not hazard their lives for them-they should be infected by coming to help them in their cabins; and so, after they began to die, would do little or nothing for them. Such of the passengers as were yet aboard showed them what mercy they could, which made some of their hearts relent." The boatswain, in particular, "a proud young man," had often cursed the passengers, and had scoffed at them (foolish Brownists, pretending to be saints); "but when he grew

1 A more tonic and nutritious drink than water seemed necessary as a preventive of scurvy and similar diseases resulting from low diet and the loss of vital force.