think of the story of suffering, of sorrow, of peril, of exile, of death,
and of lofty triumph which that book tells,--which the hand of the great
leader and founder of America has traced on those pages. There is nothing
like it in human annals since the story of Bethlehem. These Englishmen
and English women going out from their homes in beautiful Lincoln and
York, wife separated from husband and mother from child in that hurried
embarkation for Holland, pursued to the beach by English horsemen; the
thirteen years of exile; the life at Amsterdam, 'in alley foul and lane
obscure'; the dwelling at Leyden; the embarkation at Delfthaven; the
farewell of Robinson; the terrible voyage across the Atlantic; the
compact in the harbor; the landing on the rock; the dreadful first
winter; the death roll of more than half the number; the days of
suffering and of famine; the wakeful night, listening for the yell of
wild beast and the war whoop of the savage; the building of the State on
those sure foundations which no wave or tempest has ever shaken; the
breaking of the new light; the dawning of the new day; the beginning of
the new life; the enjoyment of peace with liberty,--of all these things
this is the original record by the hand of our beloved father and
founder."

In addition to giving matter of unique historical importance, Bradford
entertains his readers with an account of Squanto, the Pilgrims' tame
Indian, of Miles Standish capturing the "lord of misrule" at Merrymount,
and of the failure of an experiment in tilling the soil in common. Bradford
says that there was immediate improvement when each family received the
full returns from working its own individual plot of ground. He thus
philosophizes about this social experiment of the Pilgrims:--

"The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried
sundry years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the