27 Feb. 16291. Began to organize in a military way. Chose Miles Standish Captain. Two savages made signs on a near hill, but ran away. 3 Mar. Got the great guns out of the ship, and mounted them on what is now Burial Hill. William White, William Mullins, and two others die. 31 66 Isaac Allerton's wife Mary dies. The birds sang, and there was a thunder-storm. A second meeting to arrange military affairs was Fair. Sowed seeds. Ditto. Sent Samoset off. Another military meeting again interrupted by the sight of Indians on the hill. The carpenter, long sick, got well enough to repair the shallop, so they could "fetch all from aboard " so they cleaned out the ship, and their colonizing became complete. 1 Apr. Another fine day, and another attempt at public business interrupted by the return of Samoset, bringing Squanto, (the only survivor of the Indians native to the spot,) and announcing Massasoit, who, with his brother, Quadequina, and suit, made a formal call, and concluded a treaty which was kept by both parties, until Philip broke it in 1675. Visits exchanged between the colonists and Massasoit's party. Squanto went to fish for eels, which he trod out of the mud with his feet, and caught with his hands, and which the colonists thought "very fat and sweet." Concluded their military and other public business, and re-elected John Carver for Governor, for the new year, beginning on Sabbath the 25th. Edward Winslow's wife, Elizabeth, dies. A great mortality prevailed during this month, above the names here given. Nearly half the sailors of the Mayflower died also. Day. Tues. Sat. Mon. 1621. The Mayflower starts for England on her return voyage, but none of the diminished company wanted to go back in her. Governor Carver died suddenly, "and his wife being a weak woman, dyed within 5 or 6 weeks after him." William Bradford was chosen Governor in his place, "and being not yet recoverd of his ilnes, in which he had been near ye point of death, Isaak Allerton was chosen to be an Assistante unto him." 21 Feb. 12 May. 22 May. Edward Winslow was married to Mrs. Susanna, widow of William White, who had died, 3 Mar. The first marriage in the Colony. 18 Jun. 28 Jun. Two servants fight a duel, each wounding the other. The company sit on their case, and adjudge them to have their head and feet tied together, and so to lie for twenty-four hours without meat or drink; but "within an Hour, because of their great Pains, at their own & their Master's [Stephen Hopkins] humble Request, upon Promise of better Carriage, they are released by the Governor." "The spring now approaching, it pleased God the mortalitie begane to cease amongst them, and ye sick and lame recovered apace, which put, as it were, new life into them; though they had borne their sadd affliction with as much patience & contentedness, as I thinke any people could doe. But it was ye Lord which upheld them, and had beforehand prepared them; many having long borne ye yoake, yea, from their youth.' Gov. Bradford's Hist. Plim. Plant. 98. VARIOUS EXTRACTS, ETC., ILLUSTRATING THE RISE, CONDUCT, HISTORY, OPINIONS, TRIALS AND INFLUENCE, OF THE PLYMOUTH MOVE MENT, AND MEN. From the rise of the Papacy to the Reformation, the theory of the Church was that of an all-embracing centralized organism; governed by the Papal Hierarchy, and whose private members had simply the right, duty, and responsibility, of submission and unquestioning obedience. Wycliffe. "Upwards of a century and a half before the time of Luther, Wycliffe had exposed the superstition and despotism of Rome. Born in the early part of the fourteenth century, [near Richmond, Yorkshire, 1324, died at Lutterworth, 31 Dec. 1384,] he anticipated the discoveries of his more fortunate successors, and labored with an assiduity and rectitude of purpose, which entitle him to the admiration and gratitude of posterity. Though his labors did not effect an alteration in the ecclesiastical polity of his country, they made an extensive and permanent impression. A numerous class of followers were raised up, by the Providence of God: these preserved the precious seed of the kingdom until more propitious days; and, though assailed by the fiercest persecutions, were enabled to hand down the sacred deposit to the times of the Lutheran reformation.” — Price's History of Prot. Non-Conform. i: 4. About 1380, Wycliffe completed a translation of the Bible into English - the first ever made public. "It was not made for his own use, but for the enlightenment of his country. His object was to throw the broad blaze of revelation upon the corruptions of the Church, to expose before his fellow-men the errors and superstitions into which they had fallen, and to disclose to their view the narrow path which they had missed. The numerous copies of Wycliffe's translation preserved for four centuries and a half, attest the early publicity of his version, and the diligent means employed for the multiplication of transcripts. It may safely be affirmed that not one of the partial versions previously made, had ever been as widely diffused as this; and it was the formation of the bold idea of its general circulation, and the execution of the daring and unexampled project, that constitute the peculiar and glorious characteristic of the reformer's enterprise."— Bagster's English Hexapla. 13. "The disciples of Wycliffe were termed Lollards, and were found in most parts of the kingdom. Knighton, a canon of Leicester, and a cotemporary of Wycliffe, tells us that in the year 1382, 'their number very much increased, and that, starting like saplings from the root of a tree, they were multiplied, and filled every place within the compass of the land.' This language must undoubtedly be understood with some limitation; but we cannot mistake the inference to be drawn from it.” -Vaughan's Life of Wycliffe. 154. "One thing I boldly assert, that in the Primitive Church, or the time of Paul, two orders of the clergy were held sufficient those of priests and deacons. No less certain am I, that in the time of Paul, presbyters and bishops were the same, as is shown in 1 Tim. iii, and Titus i."- Wycliffe, Trialogue, xiii. 66 Wycliffe was the first of Puritans, as well as of Protestants." Bennett, i: 27. Bogue and "Nothing came to the birth in the 16th century, that had not lain in embryo in Wycliffe's time, under the common heart of England." - Palfrey's Hist. New England, i: 108. "Hitherto, the corpse of John Wycliffe had quietly slept in his grave, about one and forty years after his death, till his body was reduced to bones, and his bones almost to dust; for though the earth in the chancel of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, where he was interred, hath not so quick a digestion with the earth of Aceldama, to consume flesh in twenty-four hours, yet such the appetite thereof, and all other English graves, as to leave small reversions of a body after so many years. But now, such the spleen of the Council of Constance, as they not only cursed his memory, as dying an obstinate heretic, but ordered that his bones (with this charitable caution, if it may be discerned from the bodies of other faithful people) to be taken out of the ground and thrown far off from any Christian burial. In obedience hereunto, Richard Flemyng, bishop of Lincoln, diocesan of Lutterworth, sent his officers, (vultures with a quick sight-scent at a dead carcass) to ungrave him accordingly. To Lutterworth they came, (sumner, commissary, official, chancellor, proctors, doctors and the servants, so that the remnant of the body would not hold out a bone amongst so many hands) take what was left out of the grave, and burnt them to ashes, and cast them into Swift, a neighboring brook running hard by. Thus this brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean; and thus the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over."-Fuller's Church Hist. Brit. ii: 423. See also Fox's Martyrology, i: 606. "Thus speaks (that voice which walks upon the wind, Though seldom heard by busy human kind), 'As thou these ashes, little brook, wilt bear 'Into the Avon, Avon to the tide 'Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas, 'Into main ocean they, this deed accurst 'An emblem yields to friends and enemies, 'How the bold teacher's doctrine, sanctified 'By truth, shall spread throughout the world dispersed !'"- Wordsworth. Henry the VIII and the Reformation. For the reason that the Pope would not divorce him from Katharine, his wife, when he was tired of her and wanted to marry Ann Boleyn, Henry divorced the Church of England from that of Rome, really founding a new Church in England. "The existence of the Church of England as a distinct body, and her final separation from Rome, may be dated from the period of the divorce."-- Short's Hist. Ch. Eng., 102. "Upwards of five years were employed by Henry in negotiating with the Papal Court. Wearied at length with its procrastination, he ordered Cranmer to pronounce the sentence of divorce. The Archbishop accordingly declared the marriage of the king with the lady Katherine, null and void; and on his return to Lambeth, he confirmed the marriage of Henry with Ann Boleyn, which had been privately solemnized by Dr. Lee, some months before. This step precipitated the king into a course of measures hostile to the papacy."- Price's Hist. Prot. Non-Conf., i: 22. Henry perhaps approached as nearly to the ideal standard of perfect wickedness, as the infirmities of human nature will allow."- Sir. James Mackintosh's Hist. of Eng., ii: 205. "The doctrine of the regal supremacy in ecclesiastical matters, had been familiar to Englishmen for many generations. It had been successfully maintained up to a certain point, by the greatest of the Plantaganet kings, and had been ably vindicated by Wycliffe, one of whose cardinal heresies consisted in the denial of the supremacy of the Pope. All that Henry did was to apply and extend a doctrine that had long been filtering through the minds, both of the aristocracy and the commonalty. Hence the otherwise inexplicable circumstance, that his assumption of unlimited supremacy excited only what may be described as a professional opposition. In that age indeed, there seemed to be no alternative between the supremacy of the Pope and the supremacy of the king. The minds of the best of men, as is the case with some even in these days, were so warped by the influence of ancient ecclesiastical precedents, that none dreamed of an ultimate appeal to Holy Scripture. St. Paul, if he were consulted, was to be interpreted by Augustine, St. John by Jerome, and St. Peter by the Popes; and to the interpreters, as a matter of course, was given the principal authority. A Church of Christ, independent, as such, of human control, and existing apart from State-craft, was an idea almost impossible to that age. If entertained at all, it could only have been by men as humble in life as in spirit, such as afterwards rose to assert the spiritual character of the kingdom of Christ upon earth.”. Skeats's Hist. Free Ch's of Eng., 3. "The king himself undertook to settle what the people should believe, and with this view, drew up a set of articles of religion. The new articles might have secured a much wider acceptance than it befell them to receive, but for a step altogether fatal to many of their doctrines, and almost equally fatal to the doctrine of the royal supremacy. The king not only authorized a translation of the Bible into English, but ordered a copy of it to be set up in each of the churches. This act, however, was soon felt to be, what it undoubtedly was, a political blunder, and, after seven years, was substantially recalled. Before furnishing his subjects with such a weapon of almighty power against the system which he had determined to establish, the king issued the "Injunctions." He, who was the slave of his own lusts, enjoined the clergy to exhort the people to 'keep God's commandments,' and to give themselves to 'the study of the Scriptures, and a good life.' In the 'Institution of a Christian Man,' the bishops laid down, at greater length, the creed of the Reformed Church, which was further vindicated in the 'Necessary Doctrine.' Having thus explained and appar |