The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-07-26
JOHN ROBINSON.

in st. Peters church. at Lyden, Holland,
| in honor of Rev. JOHN ROBINSON, pastor of
the Pilgrim Fathers while they were in
exile in Holland. The dispatcher was in
error in saying that Pastor ROBINSON was
one of the passengers on the Mayfower IN
1920. Mr.. ROBINSON did not come to Amer
lea at all, though his family immigrated in
1929. The company of merchants who
furnished the vessel in which the Pilgrims
were carried to America refused q passage
to Mr. ROBINSON, and even attempted 10
force upon them a minister more friendly
to the Church of England, an attempt in
which they were not successful.
| According TO the dispatches the ceremony
of unwilling the memorial was i'm
pressive, being witnessed by number
of Americans and English, as well as
by the Hollanders. Part of the ceremony
was the hosting of the Dutch, American
and English flags, while the bands played
the national airs of those respective
countries.
1t is fitting that the life and labors of
such men as Rev. JOHN ROBINSON should
/ be held in honored remembrance by the
generations which follow them. Though
| less conspicuous than some Of the So called
masters of the world who fret and fume
out their brief hour upon the stage CT life,
he represents class Of men to whom our
race owes more than ever marble or
bronze, painter or sculptor, or even writer
will ever tell. He was not king who
lorded it over COPS heritage; he was not
conqueror who waged war on weaker
people and appropriated their lands and
subjected him to his arbitrary DEGREES; nor
was he a statesman in the accepted sense Of
that word, that could command the atten-
ton of listening senates and teach
monarchs the art of king craft.
He was none Of these: but in a humble
sphere he was one OF those earnest men OF
whom CARLYLE speaks and praises as
well: one who possessed in a marked de-
gree that one great characteristic of heroic
men-sincerity; and by virtue of possess
| ing it, and living in harmony with it, he
ought to be remembered. Three nations
united in doing honor TO a man who was
merely the pastor of exiled heretics All
that, too, growing out of the possession of
sincerity, rather than of brilliant attain
ments, or heroic-that is, in the vulgar
sense of the acknowledgements That of
! itself is high tribute to sincerity, and
more than outweighs MACAULAY's carica-
ture of the Puritan character of that day.
What If some OF the EXTREMIST of them did
consider it sin to hang garlands on May
pole to drink friends health, to fly a
hawk, to hunt stag, to play ct chess, to
wear love locks, to put starch
into a ruff, to touch virginals, or
| to read the 'Farie Queenm What
if these same extremists did affect pecu-
| liar dialect and antique Hebrew names
These things were the very quackery of
Puritauism. I'VE shall not see into the
true heart Of anything" writes CARLYLE,
IF we look merely at the quackeries of it;
| if we 90 not reject the quackeries alto
gether, as mere diseases, corruptions, with
which our and all mems sole duty is to
have done with them, TO sweep them out OF
our thoughts as out of our practice
Quackeries aside, these Puritans were
earnest men of tender sympathies If of
austere lives; and devoted to their concep-
lions of duty, true to their convictions of
what was right To these characteristics
we Of America are indebted more than
every body knows for our free Institutions.
The Puritans moro than any other sect
stood for the great principle of private
judgment in religious matters, and Of
untrammeled religious liberty. "Only for
themselves" will some cynics, super
fcially acquainted with some of
their subsequent acts of intolerance say.
Well, let them once establish it for them
selves and it can not be and was no. long
withheld from others. From their high
position in respect to religious liberty to
the broad rock of civil freedom was but a
step and they soon took II. From Puritan
pulpits, which soon became the tribunes of
the common people, was first announced
| that splendid doctrine shat the sovereign
was amenable to public opinion when fairly
expressed" That is good Democra attic doc
trine, and it was announced and main
tanned with boldness which nothing short
of fanaticism could have supported 1t
startled the queen on her throne and the
primates Of England and the thirty-ni ar
ticles of faith were formulated to which
these Puritans were comman ded TO con
form. Conform they would not how
ever, and for twenty five years during
E'LIzABETH's reign the heavy hand of per-
secution was upon them, but to no purpose
except to make more obstinate religious
conviction. When JAMES succeeded ELIZA
BETH they hoped for some relief. In this
their hope was vain. A little judgment
ought to have told them it would be. What
could be expected of one who was ''cun-
ming, covetous, wasteful, idle, drunken,
greedy, dirty, cowardly, and withal great
swearer and the most conceited man in the
worlds" There were more than thirty
thousand Puritans in England when
JAMES succeeded to the throne, and in the
first year Of his reign three hundred of
their ministers had been silenced, impris-
oned or exiled. Among the latter was
JOHN ROBINSON, who was pastor of flock
gathered in the northern counties. Learn
ing there was freedom of religion for all
men in Holland he fed there with his peo-
pie after many hardships and settled In
Lyden, where the exiles for con-
science sake remained until the way
opened for them to remove to America
During their stay in Lyden, from 1905 to
1929, ROBINSON was their pastor, and did
much to instruct them, not only in religion,
but in freedom, religions better part 1t
was the pupils Of this man, the men who
came over in the May flower in 1850, who
formed the first constitution OF government
ever subscribed to by q whole people. That
constitution was formed in the cabin Of the
May flower previous to the landing Of the
pilgrims, and to it they pledged due sub
mission and obedience. That may PROD