by an iron railing, with the names of the Pilgrims inscribed in ovals at the top. Perhaps it would be in better taste to carry the fragment back to its native original position,. and there encircle it with whatever defences may be requisite for its protection. There should be a park there, down to the water's edge; for where in the world, out of Judea or Egypt, is there a more sacred bit of soil, be it rock or rich mould, than that which the feet of those men first pressed, as the chosen spot where the home should be of the free to worship God? It is a solemn place; the incongruities of the artificial scenery around it are of no avail to diminish the impression, when the great reality presses on the mind. It is felt to be a solemn spot, when, on Forefathers' Day, the procession of men bare-headed passes over it; each man silently, reverently, as he approaches it, uncovering his head; it is a time, place, and scene, for thoughts much more easily imagined than described.

To gain a satisfactory impression of the localities of Plymouth Harbor, we must ascend the Burial Hill, which rises, covered with its forest of grave-stones, directly above the terrace, where the Pilgrims laid out the first rude street of their settlement. It is a very sacred spot in their history, and the view from it is incomparably fine. The town lies below you, around the bosom of the hill. A few majestic elms and lindens rise in beautiful masses of foliage among the buildings on the water side, but in general there are few trees, until the eye passes into that noble ridge of pine forest on the southeast, running out into the sea; a hill-range of the primeval wilderness, as deeply foliaged as the Green Mountains, or the Jura range in Switzerland. The wide harbor is before you, with a bar or spit of land straight stretching across the centre of it, and dividing the inner flats from the deep blue water beyond. I say the wide harbor. And now it depends very much upon the time of tide when you first enter the town, whether

you are greatly disappointed or pleased in the first impression. Plymouth harbor is one of those vast inlets so frequent along our coast, where, at high tide, you see a magnificent bay studded with islands, and opening proudly into the open ocean; but at low tide an immense extent of muddy, salt-grassed, and sea-weeded shallows, with a narrow stream winding its way among them to find the sea. Here and there lies stranded the bark of a fisherman, or a lumber schooner amidst the flats, left at low tide, not high and dry, but half sunk in the mud; and the wharves are dripping with rotting seaweed, and the shores look decaying and deserted; not pebbly or sandy like a beach, but swampy with eel grass, and strewn here and there with the skeletons of old horse-fishes, crabs, muscles, &c., among the withered layers of dry kelp. Now and then, also, the red huts and fish-flakes of the fishermen vary the scene upon the shore, or a small vessel, about as large as the May Flower, slowly though with all sail set, follows the course of the stream winding among the shallows, the only channel, at low tide, by which there is any approach from the outer open bay, towards the quay or business landing-place of the village. The extent of these flats and shallows at Cape Cod and Plymouth, was the cause of great evil and hardship at first; for, speaking of Cape Cod Bay, where the Pilgrims first came to anchor, they say: "We could not come near the shore by three-quarters of an English mile, because of shallow water, which was a great prejudice to us, for our people, going on shore, were forced to wade a bow-shoot or two in going a-land, which caused many to get colds and coughs, for it was by times freezing cold weather." In these colds and coughs were the seed, to some of a speedy, to others a lingering, New England consumption, which soon sowed the harbor side. with graves, almost as many as the names of the living.

Now this whole range of low tide scenery, to one who is truly fond of the sea and the shore, in all their freaks, inlets,

varieties, and grand and homely moods, is not without its beauty. The poet Crabbe, or the Puritan poet, R. H. Dana, would describe it in such interesting colors that it would wear a most romantic charm; the stranded boats, and the mud flats, and the rotting sea weed, would have a strange imaginative life put into them. Nevertheless, if these are the first images of the landing of the Pilgrims presented to you, you will experience, probably, a great disappointment.

But now if you behold this same sweep of sea scenery at high tide, beneath a clear sky, a bright sun, in the coloring of morn or evening, or in the solemn stillness of an autumn noon, what an amazing change! It is no longer the same region. You would think it one of the finest harbors in the world. You would think it was the preference and selection of the human will, after long searching, that brought the Pilgrims hither, and not merely the hand and compulsion of an overruling Providence. You would think how easy and how natural for them to find their way just to this landing-place; and how beautiful and admirable the region, for the thrift of a colony, both in commercial and in country life. How differently God sees from man! He seems to have shut up the Pilgrims in this inlet, difficult of access from the sea, and barren in the country, to set their growth, firm and steadfast, amidst much tribulation, in dependence neither on the riches of the land, nor the sea, nor the attractions of commercial intercourse, but upon himself alone. He hid them as in a tabernacle from the strife of tongues, and let them grow, unperverted by the admiring notice, and unassaulted by the temptations of a wicked world. It was a costly growth, but glorious.

It must have been at high tide that the Pilgrims found their way into this harbor. A sweet fresh stream, setting into it from the land, was to them a great attraction, as well as the abundance of fresh fountains. Had they been able to survey the coast as far as Boston, before making

choice of their settlement, they would probably have stopped there, and the swift commercial growth that would thence have succeeded the enterprise would not have been favorable to the growth of a deep-set piety, the fixtures of stern, difficult, Puritan virtue in the character. Like New England soil itself, there must be a granite basis first, and then a sturdy, vigorous loam to last for many generations. So the settlement and growth of the Pilgrim colonies was at first slow, difficult, painful; but so much the more rapid, unprecedented, and successful afterwards. It was a native growth. If there had been such a thing as steam communication then between England and America, there would never have been a New England on this continent, as the example of social, commercial, and religious virtue and happiness for the world. Let us be thankful to God that he kept the ocean between us and Europe for two hundred years, before he lessened the distance or the difficulty of its navigation, or permitted the tide of an ignorant and vicious emigration to set with such fury upon us, as would have destroyed our infant institutions in the bud.

CHAPTER XI.

INSTRUCTIVE DISCIPLINE OF THE PILGRIM CHURCH AT AMSTERDAM.-ORIGINAL ORDER AND BEAUTY OF THE CHURCHES THERE. EVILS OF DISSENSION, AND OF MINUTE LEGISLATION. THE FORBEARING AND KINDLY SPIRIT OF THE PILGRIM CHURCH.

TOGETHER with Robinson and Brewster, there is mention. in Governor Bradford's writings of a grave and fatherly old man, having a great white beard; a sound, orthodox, reverend old man, who had converted many to God by his faithful and painstaking ministry, both in preaching and catechizing. This was Mr. Richard Clifton, one of the earliest members in that Congregational Church in the North of England, of which Mr. Robinson was chosen the Pastor. Mr. Clifton accompanied the Church in its exile to Amsterdam, but on account of his great age did not remove with it from Amsterdam to Leyden, but took his dismission from them to join the Church in Amsterdam. In that church there were at one time about three hundred communicants, under the care of two eminent men as their Pastor and Teacher, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Ainsworth. In the time of their beauty and order, before the canker of division and bitterness, they were a flourishing church, having "four grave men for ruling elders, and three able and godly men for deacons, and one ancient widow for deaconess, who did them service many years, though she