The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-01-22
THE VOICE OF THE PULPIT
AN HISTORICAL DISCOURSE WITH a
PREsENT-DAY BEARING.
BY the Rev. Edward Everett Hale. n.
d., south congregational Church,
Unitarian, Boston, Mass.

And hast made us unto our God kings and
priests; and we shall reign on the earth
Revelation V, 10.
Our recent war was the picking up of
the stitch which King James the Fool let
drop in the beginning of the sixteenth CEN
tUry.
In the provoking history of his reign-in
which he failed to destroy at once that tyr
amy and bigotry for which Spain is an
other name-the two seeds were planted by
religious Englishmen which have grown into
the nation of which we are. To the nation
thus founded has been given in the provi-
dence Of history, the duty which he left I'M
fulfilled.
The two seeds thus planted were: First,
the colony of Virginia-established, as Mr.
John F1ske shows so well, in a purely
Christian design to limit the power of Spain
III any future struggle; and, second, the col
ony of Observation-Disclosures by English
men and English women whom the selfish
ness and persecution of James had driven
out of his kingdom.
We have but recently passed the anniver-
sary of the landing at Plymouth. On the
shortest day of the year Bradford and Car
yer, WinslOw, Standish and the rest of the
exploring party set foot on Forefather's
IOCh, anu do IL pIONSu, lHeu anu In6re a
nation was born. On Christmas day they
began to build their homes.
It was nearly twenty years before that a
company of those who, as the original
Bradford manuscript reads, saw We evil
of tt things, as We Lords free people
joyned them selves (by covenant of the
Lord in ye fellowship of We gospel. to
wake in ell His wages, made known or to
be made known unto them, according to
their best endeavours, whatsoever it should
cost them. the Lord assisting them. And
that it cost them something this ensewing
historic will declare"
The providence of Ged-as they would
have said-had led them, four or five years
after this covenant, to Holland. AS early as
1911 they found they must leave Holland
Worst of all, their children drifted away
from them. The truce between Spain and
Holland was wellnigh over. Lastly (and
which was not least)'' their desire was ''for
ye propagating and advancing We gospel of
We kingdom of Christ in those remote parts
Of We world; yea, though they should be put
even as stepping stones unto others"
MY FIRST QUESTION.
1t is pathetic now, and very interesting,
that, having determined upon this emigra-
ton, the question before them should have
been, North or South America? Guiana or
Virginia? Some and none the meanest,"
writes Bradford, had thoughts and were
in earnest for Guiana, or for some of those
fertill places in we hott climats." This was
the first question to be decided. But al
together was their word; they had cove
nanted together" and when the major
ity determined on the north parts of Vir-
ginia the minority concurred. But that vote
makes one of the most interesting ifs of
history.
If Carver and Bradford and Winslow had
taken their colony to the Spanish main,
where would Winthrop and Dudley and Will
son, and the colony of the bay have gone?
What would have been the North America
of the next two centuries?
1t was not ordered that these men should
plant Guiana. 1t was ordered-by the con-
sent Of God and man, the Almighty Father
working in the hearts of one hundred of his
most loyal children-that they should es-
tablish the nation which in the end should
sit in judgment on Spain and her directors
Loyal children, men, and women; the first
great colony since the Lombards recivilized
Italy, in which women had taken their share
in the beginning with the:pen.
In the facade Of the new Congregational
House in Beacon street. Boston, there have
been placed four memorial tablets in honor
of the first generation of these men and
women. To indicate their devotion to law,
the scene is represented in the cabin of the
Mayflower, in which, for the first time gov
eminent is established by the consent of the
governed. 1t is the Illustration of the sup
posed primitive compact
To indicate their devotion to religion a
representation is made of the Sabbath serv-
ice at Clark's island just before the MEM
orable landing the Rock. AS a picture of
philanthropy. we have John Eliot surround
ed by Indian sachem5 az Nonantum, to
whom he preached of the real presence of
the Holy Spirit. The fourth tablet, to illus
trate their interest in education, shows the
chamber of the General Court, when that
court devoted an amount equal to the whole
revenue of the State for that year to the
foundation of Harvard College.
Religion, law. humanity, education-these
are all fit reminders of the work which
these men, both in the Old Colony and the
Bay, with their wives and with their. chill
dren have done in nearly three centuries
Of the world
And think of the risk at which they did
it. and of the darkness of the future 1t
was but little over twenty-five years before
that body of four or five hundred French
Huguenots driven out of France for their
religion and established on the coast of
Florida, were all but five massacred by the
agent of Philip the Second, Bloody Marys
husband. leaving the announcement Il do
this not as to Frenchmen. but as to heretics
and inhdels."
NO ONE FALTERED.
At the first signal that Srain made war
upon England, those poor men and women
i'm Plymouth must look for similar fate.
This is their warning of the immediate past;
and for the future whether Immediate or
distant. there is no dreamer so besotted
with sleep that he shall see any vision
even of the beginning of the America OF
to-day.
Winter closes in upon them-and that win
teri One hundred and one of them the day
Of the landing. Fifty-one graves before the
month of April, and so less than half
mon, women aud newborn babies-to begin
the year Why hold on? Next to starva-
ton here. No reason to foresee health even;
the savage owns to pestileEce in his own
tribe Why not go back in the Mayhower?
Not one of them does go back. not one
wild