seven years ago the Mayflower was lying at anchor in Cape Cod Bay. Two hundred and seventy-seven years ago to-day an exploring party of ten men, among whom were Miles Standish, John Carver and William Bradford, was resting, since it was the Sabbath, on a little island. Two hundred and seventy-seven years ago next Tuesday these same men landed from their shallop on a solitary boulder that the glaciers had brought down from the frozen North, to be the object of a nation's veneration. But why is this occurrence exalted above others of its kind? And why should we in Michigan, who most of us do not trace back our origin to the New England Pilgrims, why should we pay special attention to Forefathers' Day? Because Plymouth Rock is one of the corner stones of the Republic; because we, of English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch, and German blood, are still the spiritual children of the Pilgrims. Because that landing at Plymouth was in reality the beginning of America. Listen to the words of Thomas Carlyle: "There were straggling settlers in America before; some material as of a body was there; but the soul of it was this: These men I think had a work. The weak thing, weaker than a child, becomes strong if it be a true thing. Puritanism was only despicable, laughable then; but nobody can manage to laugh at it now. It is one of the strongest things under the sun at present." We may therefore with wisdom study for a little. time these Pilgrims, that we may learn from them the secret of true greatness. I. They were men possessed of intense religious devotion. They believed in God; they believed in his Word; they believed in the atoning power and kingly rule of Jesus Christ. They bowed before the claims of conscience; and recognized the truth which was a few years later given lasting shape in the first answer of our shorter catechism, that "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." To God's service they were willing to devote themselves; while they esteemed it their highest privilege to learn his will and to enter into personal relations with him as Redeemer, Master and Friend. In their day England had awakened from the moral torpor of the middle ages. Men's minds were occupied once more with the rescued treasures of the Scriptures. Wyclif had given England national life and power by his translation of the Bible, and ever since his day England's best were found among the Puritans. They were men who believed that it was possible to know God's will, duty to perform it, joy to receive his commendation. Having satisfied themselves that the Scriptures were inspired of God, they set themselves deliberately to study them, and in the task would brook no interference. King, priest or preacher must not interfere between the seeker and his God. They would listen to no voice except the still voice of the Spirit speaking to their souls. They would have no intercessor except Christ. They would seek no rank, honor, or dignity, but the supreme one of being members of the family of God. They believed, for Scripture stated it, that each one of them was personally known and cared for by Jehovah; that there was no respect of persons with the Lord; that for them as individuals the Savior came to suffer and to die; that even the beggar by the roadside might enjoy closest intimacy with his Master. And the possession of these blessings they determined at all cost to gain. Unless we understand this controlling motive of the Pilgrims' character, we never can come into sympathy with their lives. For this drove them forth from pleasant England first to sojourn among a people of strange customs, different tem perament and foreign speech; and it was fear of losing this privilege of worshiping God according to the demands of their own conscience, that caused them to resolve upon a migration unparalleled in history. A little band of men, women and children, singularly weak as they seem to us who read their names, determine to leave home, kindred, native land, the triumphs of centuries of civilization and the opportunities of comfortable livelihood, to face a barren soil, a severe climate, a land infested by wild beasts and savages, where hardship and privation must be the lot of all and death the first winter was to slay half of them, all for the privilege of serving God according to their understanding of his will. 66 Ay, call it holy ground, The soil where first they trod; They have left unstained what there they found,- Surely the text can be applied to men like these; and on this quiet Sabbath morning, rejoicing in our sacred privileges, made possible by their heroic sacrifice, we can in gratitude exclaim: "Our fathers trusted in thee; they trusted and thou didst deliver them." Is it necessary for me to declare that in this devotion to God we should make the Pilgrims patterns? We live in a strange and sickly age, when it is fashionable for one to divest himself of strong conviction, when a man who knows what he believes is called in one breath narrow and fanatical. The type of the age is carved upon a tombstone in the south. It was raised by a father to the memory of two sons who died, one in the Union and the other in the Confederate army. The monument is four-square, with the family name upon one tablet, the names of the two boys upon two more, and on the fourth the evasive sentence written, "God knows which was right." Now in all great matters of civil or religious life it is not enough to say, "God knows which was right." God expects us to know also and to take our stand with him. Either God exists or he does not. Either the Bible is his word or not. Either Christ is a savior for man's sins or not. And it is at once a mark of weakness and ignorance to be willing to say upon such matters, "God knows which is right." A man may know; a man should know; a man is guilty if he does not know the truth. Thus only can he find peace of conscience, pardon for his sin, and power over men. For it is the man who knows what he believes, and who is willing to risk all for his belief that rules his fellow-men. Unbelief is paralysis. The blood of the martyr is the seed of the church; but the death of the unbeliever or the coward is barren, and his body lies in a forgotten grave. Take pattern, therefore, by these men of Plymouth, who were willing to give up all that life held dear, that thus they might obey their God; who went on board the ship with prayers and songs of praise, and who rested shelterless on a desert island two hundred and seventy-seven years ago to-day that they might keep the Sabbath holy. II. We may take pattern by the Pilgrims also in their love of liberty. They were the kind of men who a little later took the head from treacherous and tyrannical King Charles rather than suffer the loss of national freedom. It was to be expected, for those who bow most heartily before Jehovah are always the most resolute in resisting unjust command. It is a proverb as true as it is old, that "When the real Gods come the half Gods go." Let tyrants tremble when men learn to stand with bowed heads and listening hearts before the great white throne. This was what made Elijah dare |