The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-09-15

The glamour of romance has for ever surrounded stories of lost treas ures, whether ultimately recovered or not The pages of history and the explorations of modern times yield material enough and to spare to grip and stimulate our imaginations. For once, in the story of William Brad fords lost manuscript all the ele ments of romance are fulfilled. Here was a document describing in fullest detail one of the landmarks of his tory, the story of the Pilgrim Fathers written by the hand of their most notable leader and Governor, the only authentic history of what has been called "the most important political transaction that has ever taken place on the face of the earth.
 How many readers of these pages on this side of the water, I wonder, have ever heard of the Bradford Manuscript or who will not be slight Iy amazed at the value attached to it in the eyes of Americans? After all it is but matter of perspective. America has been slowly dawning upon the world, until today the flight and voyage of a handful of humble English folk in the early days of the
 
 of the first magnitude. There is nothing like it since the story of Bethlehem thus wrote Senator Hoar. ''these Englishmen and EnglishwO-
 men going out from their homes in
 beautiful Lincoln and York, wife sep
 arating from husband, and mother from child in the hurried embarka- ton for Holland, pursued to the | beach by English horsemen; the thirteen years of exile, the life at 1 Amsterdam in alley foul and lane | obscure; the dwelling at I1eyden; the l ernbarkatiOn at Delfshaven; the fare
 well of Robinson; the terrible voyage across the Atlantic; the compact in 1 the harbour; the landing of the new 1 day; the beginning of the new life; ! the enjoyment of peace with liberty | of all these things this is the original 1 record by the hand of our beloved ! father and founder"
 How came this famous History of i the Plimouth Plantation" to be lost, where and how was 1t discovered, l and what manner of man was Brad ! ford who was capable of thus stir l ring the hearts of his descendants | close on three hundred years later? 1 William Bradford was born in the | i in Yorkshire. He was the eldest son 1 and third child of William and Alice 1 Bradford. a yeoman farmer in good ! circumstances, for we are told that ] Bradford was left comfortable in- l heritance on the death of his father , two years later. The children were | handed over to the care of various ] relations and William was educated l first by his grandparents and later | bv his uncles, by whom he was des-
 fined to follow the calling of hus- | baudrv. as his forebears had done be- | fore him. But Bradford's tastes lay in | A different direction He was delicate | he was studlous he was precocious,
 and possessing much force of char | acter, struck out a line for himself At the early age of twelve he show l ed marked religious tendencies, his ! thoughts having been turned to re- | ugion from hearing the Geneva Bible l read aloud, and so great was the l impression made upon him that he 1 and one or two other friends as grave | and serious as he, used to walk five miles on a Sunday to hear the Puri- tan Rector of Babworth-the Rev Mir. Clifton-deliver his faithful and . edifving word He had first come in 1 touch with the RurlldH Sepdi d'49'S
 through 'Niam Brewster Of Scrooby
 a man some twenty years his senior
 who organized the Pilgrim Church
 Bradford received scant sympathy
 from his family, indeed he was op-
 posed by his relatives and derided by
 his neighbors, nevertheless he held or
 his way. asserting with courage and
 gentleness his right to his own "soul- | freedom"
 l A heavy weight of oppression rest.