But as free men they bad no master who could be relied upon to supply their material wants. They became distressed and threatened a rebellion against their new leader. They began to say they had rather be slaves of the Egyptians than to be faced with the necessity of planning for themselves. They were distressed to learn that freedom to shape their own destiny meant nothing more and nothing less than responsibility for their own destiny. The experience of the Egyptian slaves has been repeated with depressing and monotonous regularity throughout human history.
Men offer their lives to become free only to become frightened as soon as the prize is obtained.
It would not be profitable to pile up a multiplicity of illustrations here but the experience of the early European settlers who arrived in America cannot be ignored. These settlers came to America to escape oppression of one kind or another in the old country. They arrived on rocky, inhospitable shores where there were no houses, no factories, no drug stores, and not even any neon signs to brighten the horizon. It was an underdeveloped country. The first group in Virginia in 1607 and the first group at Plymouth in 1620 were in a similar predicament and they both went through the same process.