when
"the sun ariseth and they gather themselves into their dens and lay them
down." And yet alike to Indian, panther, and wild-cat, to every oak of
the forest, to every foot of land in America, from the stormy Atlantic to
the broad Pacific, that day was a day of days.

There had been stormy and windy weather, but now dawned on the earth one
of those still, golden times of November, full of dreamy rest and tender
calm. The skies above were blue and fair, and the waters of the curving
bay were a downward sky--a magical under-world, wherein the crimson oaks,
and the dusk plumage of the pine, and the red holly-berries, and yellow
sassafras leaves, all flickered and glinted in wavering bands of color as
soft winds swayed the glassy floor of waters.

In a moment, there is heard in the silent bay a sound of a rush and
ripple, different from the lap of the many-tongued waves on the shore;
and, silently as a cloud, with white wings spread, a little vessel glides
into the harbor.

A little craft is she--not larger than the fishing-smacks that ply their
course along our coasts in summer; but her decks are crowded with men,
women, and children, looking out with joyous curiosity on the beautiful
bay, where, after many dangers and storms, they first have found safe
shelter and hopeful harbor.

That small, unknown ship was the _Mayflower;_ those men and women who
crowded her decks were that little handful of God's own wheat which had
been flailed by adversity, tossed and winnowed till every husk of earthly
selfishness and self-will had been beaten away from them and left only
pure seed, fit for the planting of a new world. It was old Master Cotton
Mather who said of them, "The Lord sifted three countries to find seed
wherewith to plant America."

Hark now to the hearty cry of the sailors, as with a plash and a cheer
the anchor goes down, just in the deep water inside of Long Point; and
then, says their journal, "being now passed the vast ocean and sea of
troubles, before their preparation unto further proceedings as to seek
out a place for habitation, they fell down on their knees and blessed the
Lord, the God of heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious
ocean, and delivered them from all perils and miseries thereof."

Let us draw nigh and mingle with this singular act of worship. Elder
Brewster, with his well-worn Geneva Bible in hand, leads the thanksgiving
in words which, though thousands of years old, seem as i