nt a colony on the shores of the
Hudson; but after having been driven about for some time in the Atlantic
Ocean, they were forced to land on that arid coast of New England which
is now the site of the town of Plymouth. The rock is still shown on
which the pilgrims disembarked. *h

[Footnote h: This rock is become an object of veneration in the United
States. I have seen bits of it carefully preserved in several towns of
the Union. Does not this sufficiently show how entirely all human power
and greatness is in the soul of man? Here is a stone which the feet of
a few outcasts pressed for an instant, and this stone becomes famous; it
is treasured by a great nation, its very dust is shared as a relic: and
what is become of the gateways of a thousand palaces?]

"But before we pass on," continues our historian, "let the reader
with me make a pause and seriously consider this poor people's present
condition, the more to be raised up to admiration of God's goodness
towards them in their preservation: for being now passed the vast
ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in expectation, they had now
no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no
houses, or much less towns to repair unto to seek for succour: and for
the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of the country
know them to be sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms,
dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search unknown coasts.
Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full
of wilde beasts, and wilde men? and what multitudes of them there were,
they then knew not: for which way soever they turned their eyes (save
upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or content in
respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things stand
in appearance with a weather-beaten face, and the whole country full of
woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew; if they looked
behind them, there was the mighty ocean which they had passed, and was
now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all the civil parts of
the world."

It must not be imagined that the piety of the Puritans was of a merely
speculative kind, or that it took no cognizance of the course of worldly
affairs. Puritanism, as I have already remarked, was scarcely less a
political than a religious doctrine. No sooner had the emigrants landed
on the barren coast described by Nathaniel Morton than it wa