; and has produced in the world very notable fruit. In some
senses, one may say it is the only phasis of Protestantism that ever
got to the rank of being a Faith, a true heart-communication with
Heaven, and of exhibiting itself in History as such. We must spare a
few words for Knox; himself a brave and remarkable man; but still more
important as Chief Priest and Founder, which one may consider him to
be, of the Faith that became Scotland's, New England's, Oliver
Cromwell's. History will have something to say about this, for some
time to come!

We may censure Puritanism as we please; and no one of us, I suppose,
but would find it a very rough defective thing. But we, and all men,
may understand that it was a genuine thing; for Nature has adopted it,
and it has grown, and grows. I say sometimes, that all goes by
wager-of-battle in this world; that _strength_, well understood, is
the measure of all worth. Give a thing time; if it can succeed, it is
a right thing. Look now at American Saxondom; and at that little Fact
of the sailing of the Mayflower, two hundred years ago, from Delft
Haven in Holland! Were we of open sense as the Greeks were, we had
found a Poem here; one of Nature's own Poems; such as she writes in
broad facts over great continents. For it was properly the beginning
of America: there were straggling settlers in America before, some
material as of a body was there; but the soul of it was first this.
These poor men, driven-out of their country, not able well to live in
Holland, determine on settling in the New World. Black untamed forests
are there, and wild savage creatures; but not so cruel as Starchamber
hangmen. They thought the Earth would yield them food, if they tilled
honestly; the everlasting heaven would stretch there too, overhead;
they should be left in peace, to prepare for Eternity by living well
in this world of Time; worshipping in what they thought the true, not
the idolatrous way. They clubbed their small means together; hired a
ship, the little ship Mayflower, and made ready to set sail.

In Neal's _History of the Puritans_[5] is an account of the ceremony
of their departure: solemnity, we might call it rather, for it was a
real act of worship. Their minister went down with them to the beach,
and their brethren whom they were to leave behind; all joined in
solemn prayer, That God would have pity on His poor children, and _go_
with them into that waste wilderness, for He also had made that