If thou canst not live without such things, and hast no means to procure the one, and wilt not take pains for the other, nor hast ability to employ others for thee, rest where thou art; for as a proud heart, a dainty tooth, a beggar's purse, and an idle hand, be here intolerable, so that person that hath these qualities there, is much more abominable. If therefore God hath given thee a heart to undertake such courses, upon such grounds as bear thee out in all difficulties, viz. his glory as a principal, and all other outward good things but as accessaries, which peradventure thou shalt enjoy, and it may be not, then thou wilt with true comfort and thankfulness receive the least of his mercies; whereas, on the contrary, men deprive themselves of much happiness, being senseless of greater blessings, and through prejudice smother up the love and bounty of God; whose name be ever glorified in us, and by us, now and evermore. Amen."-p. 374.

The next document is also by Winslow, and is entitled, "A Brief Narration of the True Grounds or Cause of the First Planting of New England." It appeared in London in 1646, as an appendix to his answer to Gordon. No copy of this book is known to exist in this country, and Mr. Young prints from a manuscript copied for him from the printed volume in the British Museum. This document may be considered as the gem of his book, being equally important and interesting. Winslow here vindicates his brethren against the imputations which their enemies at the time cast upon them, of having quarrelled among themselves, while they agreed in spurning the faith and sincerity of all other professed Christians. He proves that Robinson, their pastor, did not deny communion and fellowship with members of the English Church, though he had a strong dislike to episcopacy and the liturgy. Winslow thinks that his brethren approached nearer to the primitive model of the Christian church, and he is anxious to show the distinction between their opposition to an exclusive communion which professed to enclose all the true members of Christ, and their readiness to acknowledge every true disciple, whatever his differences from them might be. He has preserved the parting advice of John Robinson to the exiles, which was as follows:

"We are now ere long to part asunder, and the Lord knoweth whether ever he should live to see our faces again. But whether the Lord hath appointed it or not, he charged us before God and his blessed angels, to follow him no further than he followed Christ;

and if God should reveal any thing to us by any other instrument of his, to be as ready to receive it as ever we were to receive any truth by his ministry; for he was very confident the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth out of his holy word. He took occasion also miserably to bewail the state and condition of the Reformed Churches, who were come to a period in religion, and would go no further than the instruments of their Reformation. As for example, the Lutherans, they could not be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw; for whatever part of God's will he had further imparted and revealed to Calvin, they will rather die than embrace it. And so also, saith he, you see the Calvinists, they stick where he left them; a misery much to be lamented; for though they were precious shining lights in their times, yet God had not revealed his whole will to them; and were they now living, saith he, they would be as ready and willing to embrace further light, as that they had received. Here also he puts us in mind of our church covenant, at least that part of it whereby we promise and covenant with God and one with another, to receive whatsoever light or truth shall be made known to us from his written word; but withal exhorted us to take heed what we received for truth, and well to examine and compare it and weigh it with other Scriptures of truth before we received it. For, saith he, it is not possible the Christian world should come so lately out of such thick antichristian darkness, and that full perfection of knowledge should break forth at once.

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'Another thing he commended to us, was that we should use all means to avoid and shake off the name of Brownists, being a mere nickname and brand to make religion odious and the professors of it to the Christian world. And to that end, said he, I should be glad if some godly minister would go over with you before my coming; for, said he, there will be no difference between the unconformable ministers and you, when they come to the practice of the ordinances out of the kingdom. And so advised us by all means to endeavour to close with the godly party of the kingdom of England, and rather to study union than division, viz. how near we might possibly without sin close with them, than in the least measure to affect division or separation from them. And be not loth to take another pastor or teacher, saith he; for that flock that hath two shepherds is not endangered but secured by it.'

"Many other things there were of great and weighty consequence which he commended to us. But these things I thought good to relate, at the request of some well-willers to the peace and good agreement of the godly, (so distracted at present about the settling of church government in the kingdom of England,) that so both sides may truly see what this poor despised church of Christ, now at New Plymouth in New England, but formerly at Leyden in Holland, was and is; how far they were and still are from separation from the churches of Christ, especially those that are Reformed." -pp. 396-399.

Something resembling this vindication of the religious peculiarities of the pilgrims, is found in the next document, which Mr. Young copied from the records of the Plymouth Church. It was written by Governor Bradford, and is called, "A Dialogue, or the Sum of a Conference between some Young Men born in New England, and sundry Ancient Men that came out of Holland and Old England." The young men propound the objections to the course pursued by their fathers, and ask many close questions relating to their opinions, proceedings, and eccentricities, which are answered to their satisfaction, at least, by the elders.

There is likewise a brief memoir of Elder Brewster, written by Governor Bradford, and copied by Mr. Young from the records of the Plymouth Church. That faithful elder deserves this memorial, for he bore "his part in weal and wo, with this poor persecuted Church, about thirty-six years in England, Holland, and in this wilderness." He had been at court in the service of Davison, the secretary of state under Queen Elizabeth, and was a good scholar. The disgrace of the secretary put him out of employment, and his heart being with the separatists, he soon joined them. He supported himself in Holland by teaching and by printing. In the government of the church, and in the office of teaching upon the Sabbath, in the want of their pastor, Brewster was highly acceptable to the pilgrims, and his ministry was blessed. He lived to the age of eighty, and dying in 1644, was favored with a cheerful fulfilment of the hopes which he entertained for the colony.

Mr. Young's volume concludes with six letters taken from the records of the Plymouth Church, and from a portion of Governor Bradford's Letter-Book, which was rescued from a grocer's shop in Halifax, about fifty years since. Two are letters of Robinson, one to the church at Plymouth, the other to Elder Brewster; the rest are from brethren at Leyden to Bradford and Brewster. In one of these is an account of the death of the pastor, Robinson, on the first of March, 1625. His long-cherished hopes of joining his friends here were disappointed. Many others who had been left behind failed, not from disinclination, but from inability, to unite with the portion of their church in the wilderness.

In the slight sketch which we have given of these memorials of the pilgrims, we have reserved for especial mention a few particulars which may now be stated. In three im

portant matters the documents before us, with the notes of the editor, triumphantly vindicate the pilgrims from aspersions that have been cast upon them. The first relates to the original cause of their removal from Leyden. It was said that they had quarrelled among themselves, and were obliged to divide and put an ocean between the two parts of the church. This insulting calumny had not the least foundation in fact. We have already stated the reasons which induced the whole church to think of a removal to some place beyond the seas, before any particular location had been selected. The most entire harmony marked all their deliberations upon the subject. It was decided, as a matter of policy, that a part should go first and prepare the way for the remainder. If so be the larger part went first, the pastor was to accompany them, but if the smaller part went, they should take with them the elder. Those who first went were bound by a solemn obligation to help over the residue, and those who were left behind longed for the opportunity of following. Many were disappointed by death, by opposition, and by poverty, but the hopes of others were gratified. Here is nothing that appears like quarrelling. Indeed, Robinson, Bradford, and Winslow, bear witness to the tender love, the uniform peace of the brethren in their connection. They were more united than might have been expected.

Again, the pilgrims have been ridiculed for undertaking to carry out the Utopian theory of a community of goods and labor. This reflection upon their good sense, though repeated by many historians, and even by Chief Justice Marshall, is wholly erroneous. The pilgrims were obliged to enter into a most disadvantageous partnership with the merchant adventurers in order to secure the means of being transported. They threw their own property into a common stock in order to furnish provisions for the voyage, and the materials for planting a colony. But the very moment that their common necessities were answered by the erection of an edifice, emphatically called "the common house," they at once divided the land, parted off house-lots, and labored each for himself. Winslow is very explicit in mentioning this partition of the land, and the liberty and obligation of each individual to provide for himself. He gives as good reasons as we can give now against a community of goods, namely, that self-love instigates a man to the greatest exer

tion for his own private interest, and that drones will take advantage of a general partnership to live on the labors of others.

A third reflection has been cast upon the pilgrims even by Baylies, the historian of Plymouth. He speaks of their conduct in digging up and appropriating the corn which the Indians had buried in baskets, as "inexcusable," and as "compromising their consciences." This would be rather

a severe censure upon men in their condition, even if they had never had the intention of paying the rightful owners of the corn as soon as they could find them. But at the first mention of their discovering the buried treasure, they declare their determination to pay for it at the first opportunity. They kept this determination in view, they frequently repeat it in connection with their search after, and their interviews with the savages, and within six months they had paid the Nauset Indians, to whom the corn belonged, double its estimated value. The pilgrims were equally scrupulous in all their dealings with the savages, and with just pride their writers assert that they purchased of the natives, in fair bargain, all the land they occupied.

For three or four years previous to the arrival of the pilgrims, a most destructive pestilence raged among the Indians from the Penobscot to Narragansett Bay, almost depopulating the intervening territory, and leaving, in many places, only a bare vestige of human life. It was computed that the Massachusetts Indians were reduced from thirty thousand to three hundred fighting men. The settlers, in different portions of New England, regarded this driving out of the heathen as a providential preparation for them.

The intention of the Plymouth colonists had been to settle south of Hudson river, or in its neighborhood, as their patent did not extend north of the fortieth degree. As they happened to make land at Cape Cod, and after their long voyage were anxious to go on shore, and as the season was so far advanced, they concluded to remain. Morton, in his memorial, first brought the charge against their captain, Jones, of being bribed by the Dutch to land them above the Hudson. But Mr. Young does not think the charge is correct. None of the original settlers mention it, and moreover they imposed great confidence in Jones, which is inconsistent with the charge.

One of the most interesting characters among the Plymouth