lement at Plymouth, did they
constitute the sole and exclusive actuating cause. Worldly interest and
commercial speculation entered largely into the views of other settlers,
but the commands of conscience were the only stimulus to the emigrants
from Leyden. Previous to their expedition hither, they had endured
a long banishment from their native country. Under every species of
discouragement, they undertook the voyage; they performed it in spite
of numerous and almost insuperable obstacles; they arrived upon a
wilderness bound with frost and hoary with snow, without the boundaries
of their charter, outcasts from all human society, and coasted five
weeks together, in the dead of winter, on this tempestuous shore,
exposed at once to the fury of the elements, to the arrows of the native
savage, and to the impending horrors of famine.

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which
difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. These qualities
have ever been displayed in their mightiest perfection, as attendants in
the retinue of strong passions. From the first discovery of the
Western Hemisphere by Columbus until the settlement of Virginia which
immediately preceded that of Plymouth, the various adventurers from the
ancient world had exhibited upon innumerable occasions that ardor of
enterprise and that stubbornness of pursuit which set all danger at
defiance, and chained the violence of nature at their feet. But they
were all instigated by personal interests. Avarice and ambition had
tuned their souls to that pitch of exaltation. Selfish passions were the
parents of their heroism. It was reserved for the first settlers of
new England to perform achievements equally arduous, to trample down
obstructions equally formidable, to dispel dangers equally terrific,
under the single inspiration of conscience. To them even liberty
herself was but a subordinate and secondary consideration. They claimed
exemption from the mandates of human authority, as militating with their
subjection to a superior power. Before the voice of Heaven they silenced
even the calls of their country.

Yet, while so deeply impressed with the sense of religious obligation,
they felt, in all its energy, the force of that tender tie which binds
the heart of every virtuous man to his native land. It was to renew that
connection with their country which had been severed by their compulsory
expatriation, that they resolved to face all the