to publish an appeal to parliament against prelacy was sentenced by the Star Chamber to a sentence so mild and equitable that, when it was pronounced, Laud pulled off his cap and gave God thanks. That we may justly appreciate his lordship's devotion, he has recorded in his own diary the sentence which raised his gratitude to heaven. "His ears were cut off, his nose slit, his face branded with burning irons; he was tied to a post, and whipped with a treble cord, of which every lash brought away his flesh. He was kept near two hours in frost and snow. He was then imprisoned with greater severity for about eleven years, and when released by the parliament, he could neither hear, nor see, nor walk."

It is no matter of surprise that in such circumstances our persecuted forefathers should call to recollection the words of their divine Lord, "when they persecute you in one city, flee ye to another;" and looking across the broad Atlantic, they determined to seek in its dreary wilds an asylum from the tyranny of Charles, the bigotry of Laud, and the cruel oppression of the Star Chamber and Court of High Commission. Among others who determined to expatriate himself was Mr. Robinson, formerly a clergyman of the Church of England, but subsequently a Brownist preacher, and who so far modified the principles of the Brownists, as to bring them more into the form of modern congregationalism, and on that account is generally regarded as the father of the English Independents. This man with many of his flock determined in the first place to emigrate to Holland; but when about to sail from Boston, in Lincolnshire, they were betrayed by the captain of the vessel, seized, and many of them committed to prison. A second attempt was made, when a still more melancholy

incident occurred, for, during the embarkation, when only a part of the men had been put on board, the captain, seeing an armed company approaching, weighed anchor in all haste, and sailed away to Holland, leaving Robinson and the rest of the crew to witness the outburst of agony from the wives and children whose husbands and fathers had been thus torn from them. In the next year, however, this devoted party and the rest of the company reached Holland, where the vessel which had borne their forerunners, who had been well nigh wrecked on the coast of Norway, had arrived before them. Here they found a settlement at Leyden, and exhibited Independency in much of the simplicity of the primitive churches. But the soil of Holland was not yet prepared for the seeds of this form of polity, and there its professors felt themselves ill at ease amidst a people who, though at one with them in theological doctrine, were diverse from them in ecclesiastical order. Added to this, a lingering patriotism for the country which was not worthy of them, and loyalty for a king which had insulted and oppressed them, still made them cling to their English birth and English relationships. Not wishing their children to become Presbyterians in religion, and Dutchmen in their nationality, they turned their eyes to the western world, and determined to fix their residence in that desolate country, which its northern shores then were. After observing solemn days of humilition and prayer for divine guidance, it was determined that part of the church should go before their brethren into America, to prepare for the rest. And if in case the major part should choose to go over as the first section, then the pastor should go along with them, but if the major part stayed, he should remain with them. The majority determined to conti

nue where they were for the present. Robinson, therefore, of course, remained with them. The number that were to emigrate amounted to about a hundred and twenty. Two small vessels, the Speedwell and the Mayflower, were engaged to convey these pilgrim fathers of the great western republic across the Atlantic.

The time of separation arrived. They were to sail from the neighbouring port of Deft Haven. They who were to remain accompanied the colonists to the scene of their embarkation. "The night before was one of little sleep, and was employed in friendly entertainment and Christian discourse, and other real expressions of Christian love. The next day they went on board, when doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting : what sighs, and sobs, and prayers did sound among them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each others hearts; that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood spectators could not refrain from tears. Robinson fell upon his knees, the whole company around threw themselves into the same posture, and while every cheek of man, and woman, and their little ones, was bedewed with tears, the man of God sent up his parting prayer for the much-needed blessing of heaven upon them."

After various delays, and touching at different ports to repair the vessels, which were found to be in a very crazy state, and after a long, rough, and somewhat perilous voyage, the Speedwell and the Mayflower reached the coast of North America, near Cape Cod. Their destination was the Hudson River, but weary of the voyage, and longing to set their feet on dry land, they begged to go on shore, on reaching which, they fell upon their knees and poured out their hearts in prayer and praise to God. "It is not too much to say,"

writes Dr. Vaughan, "that in that first prayer from the soil of the new world, ascending from so feeble a brotherhood, amidst a wilderness so desolate, there were the seeds of a new civilization for mankind, the elements of freedom for all nations, and the power which in its turn shall regenerate all the nations of the earth."

:

The vessels now sailed southward, and explored the coast, when, after many dangers from the intense cold of that northern region in mid-winter; from breakers and the rocks, and from the attacks of Indians, they landed on a point to which they gave the name of New Plymouth, in grateful memory of the hospitality shewn them in the last English port from which they sailed. Here they resolved to fix their permanent abode and here they laid the corner stone of that vast nation which is destined to bear so large a share in the future destinies of our world. A new town of course long since sprang up on the spot trodden by the feet of these pilgrims of persecution; the rock on which they landed is surrounded with an appropriate enclosure; and their descendants still commemorate, on the eleventh of December, the arrival of men in whom they justly boast, and of whom any country might be proud.

They had no sooner landed and provided the first and most necessary means of social and civilized life, than they adopted the polity both in church and state which had been determined upon even before they embarked. Independency was the form of their ecclesiastical government, and democracy that of their civil statutes. Robinson, with the other part of the church, kept up a constant correspondence with their brethren, and intended speedily to follow them; but various impediments were thrown in their way by the company of merchant adventurers at Plymouth in the old world,

and he died before his desire could be accomplished. After his decease, his family and the rest of the church joined their brethren at New Plymouth.*

This is perhaps a long digression from the course of the nonconformist history, or rather a considerable expansion of one of its incidents: but who would wish it shorter, when to its own inherent interest is added the consideration that it contains the origin of a nation, evidently destined not only to be the largest on the face of the earth, but to be itself an experiment for the instruction of all others in government, both civil and ecclesiastical.

In twelve years of Laud's administration, four thousand emigrants became planters in various places of America, chiefly in the more southerly parts, which had been already colonized, and Neal affirms that he possessed a list of seventy-seven divines, ordained in the Church of England, who became pastors of emigrant churches in America before the year 1640. Persecution, while it curses the country in which it rages, by draining its wealth, and driving its citizens to other lands, has been often overruled by Providence to be a blessing to the world. Those that were scattered abroad by the persecution that arose about Stephen, went everywhere preaching the word." The revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which drove out the Huguenots from France, impoverished that country to enrich many others.

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With a singular species of cruelty, Laud and his

*The reader is directed to read the first article in the first number of "The British Quarterly Review," entitled "The Pilgrim Fathers," written by Dr. Vaughan, and since published with his other papers prepared for that periodical. To that beautiful essay I am indebted for the facts I have narrated of the history of Robinson and his church.