of foreign growth and contrary to the heritage of
charity left by William Bradford.

[Illustration: A Puritan Christmas.]

This willingness to serve, to spend and be spent, is apparent throughout
the whole story of Bradford's life. It displayed itself in the boyish
spirit of renunciation that led him to join the Scrooby society, and
held him loyal to his association even through imprisonment and
persecution, through exile, flight, and emigration. Again and again
through his long service as governor of the Plymouth colony, he wished
to lay aside the burden, but always yielded to the wishes of his
comrades. Elected by the suffrages of his associates, he himself
restricted his own authority by the formation, in 1624, of the
governor's council of five members, increased in 1633 to seven, in which
the only privilege held by the governor was a double vote. In 1624 he
with seven of his associates assumed, what was for that day and the
uncertainties involved, a great risk, and bought out the "London
Adventurers" who had so feebly backed the colonists. In 1629 he obtained
a patent that conferred upon himself, his associates, and assigns the
title to the whole Plymouth tract, and in 1640 he conveyed this valuable
title to the colony, reserving only his personal proportion as a
settler.

It was this unselfishness of disposition, this loyalty to
duty--accepting honors as trusts and burdens as obligations--this union
of justice and faith that made William Bradford great and kept him
noble.

"With malice toward none, with charity for all," even as had that great
American of two centuries later, Bradford could keep the even tenor of
his way in the midst of obstacles and discouragements. Unmoved by the
ingratitude of Weston, the insolence of Morton, the treachery of Oldham
and Lyford, and the selfishness of Allerton; calm amid the controversies
brought about by the arrogance of the greater colony of Massachusetts
Bay, the encroachments of the French in Maine, and of the Dutch on the
Connecticut, he could yet, when occasion demanded, display that stern
justice that meted out the extreme penalty of the law to offenders, and
condemned to death Billington, the first murderer in the colony, and
Peach, the assassin of a defenceless Indian.

William Bradford is one of the most interesting figures in the history
of New England. He is the noblest of the Puritans--a type of their best
element, an exponent of their highest effort, a pionee