THE PILGRIM FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND: A HISTORY. BY W. CARLOS MARTYN, AUTHOR OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN MILTON, A HISTORY "What sought they there, whose steps were on the dust Of the old forest lords? Not summer skies, Nor genial zephyrs, nor the amenities Of golden spoils. Their strength was in the trust That breasts all billows of the abyss of time, AMERICAN SOUVENIR. PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by the AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. ANDOVER THEOL. SERHARY MAR 5 1907 LIBRARY. 58734 PREFACE. LORD BACON assigns the highest meed of earthly fame to the builders of states, conditores imperiorum. The Pilgrim Fathers were members of that guild, and their story belongs to the heroic age of America. "No other state," remarks Stoughton, "can boast of such an origin, and adorn its earliest annals with a tale as true as it is beautiful, as authentic as it is sublime." But aside from the honor which attends the Forefathers as the founders of empire, they march down the ages crowned with richer and more fragrant laurels; for they built not for themselves or for posterity alone, in imitation of Romulus, and Cyrus, and Cæsar, and Ottoman; they planted also for justice and for God. Therefore they are the rightful heirs of the benedictions of mankind; while to Americans they are doubly precious as "the parents of one-third of the whole white population of the Republic." Of course, the career of the Pilgrim Fathers has been often painted but the interest of the story is inexhaustible, and its thrilling incidents exhibit the wisdom, the benevolence, the faithfulness of God in so many glorious and delightful aspects, and are so replete with facts whose inevitable tendency is to inflame the love, strengthen the faith, and awaken the wondering gratitude of the human heart, that it is impossible to wear the "twice-told tale" threadbare by repetition. Besides, a thoughtful scholar, who has himself laid his garland of everlasting upon the altar of the Pilgrims, has re |