y are derived solely from
mutual stipulations, is quite as transparently fallacious as when it is
applied to civil polity, and the consequences deducible from it are not
less absurd. But it cannot be claimed for the Plymouth men, and still
less for their spiritual successors, that they have wholly escaped the
evil consequences of their theory in its practical applications. The
notion that a church of Christ is a club, having no authority or
limitations but what it derives from club rules agreed on among the
members, would have been scouted by the Pilgrims; among those who now
claim to sit in their seats there are some who would hesitate to admit
it, and many who would frankly avow it with all its mischievous
implications. Planted in the soil of Plymouth, it spread at once through
New England, and has become widely rooted in distant and diverse
regions of the American church.[89:1]

The church of Plymouth, though deprived of its pastor, continued to be
rich in faith and in all spiritual gifts, and most of all in the
excellent gift of charity. The history of it year after year is a
beautiful illustration of brotherly kindness and mutual self-sacrifice
among themselves and of forgiving patience toward enemies. But the
colony, beginning in extreme feebleness and penury, never became either
strong or rich. One hundred and two souls embarked in the "Mayflower,"
of whom nearly one half were dead before the end of four months. At the
end of four years the number had increased to one hundred and eighty. At
the end of ten years the settlement numbered three hundred persons.

It could not have been with joy wholly unalloyed with misgivings that
this feeble folk learned of a powerful movement for planting a Puritan
colony close in the neighborhood. The movement had begun in the heart of
the national church, and represented everything that was best in that
institution. The Rev. John White, rector of Dorchester, followed across
the sea with pastoral solicitude the young men of his parish, who, in
the business of the fisheries, were wont to make long stay on the New
England coast, far from home and church. His thought was to establish a
settlement that should be a sort of depot of supplies for the fishing
fleets, and a temporary home attended with the comforts and safeguards
of Christian influence. The project was a costly failure; but it was
like the corn of wheat falling into the ground to die, and bringing
forth much fruit. A gent