WOW! Was that said well! Thank you, Harlow! Father John >From: "Harlow Chandler" <chandler@firstva.com> >To: MAYFLOWER-L@rootsweb.com >Subject: RE: [MFLR] Plymouth Colony "did not greatly flourish" >Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2002 14:13:38 -0500 >***-----Original Message----- >***From: Ed Finigan [mailto:efinigan@attbi.com] >***Sent: Sunday, November 03, 2002 10:32 AM >***To: MAYFLOWER-L@rootsweb.com >***Subject: [MFLR] Plymouth Colony "did not greatly flourish" >*** >*** >***While scanning "The Puritan Republic of The Massachusetts Bay" by Daniel >***Wait Howe (Cornell On-Line Books), I was surprised to read on >***page 4 that >***the Plymouth colony "did not greatly flourish. Eleven years after it was >***founded it had only about 500 population, and it never became an >***important >***factor in American colonial history.) >*** >***On the eve of our annual First Thanksgiving celebration, this is >***an awful >***revelation to digest. I'm crushed. I wonder if Howe is expressing a >***minority opinion? > >Well, Ed, here's my opinion. > >What Howe says I think is true in its way. Plymouth Colony was always a >poor colony whose poor soil and modest harbors offered no foundation for >economic growth. It was soon hemmed in by better financed, more aggressive >colonies with better harbors and better access to the interior, and it >finally faded away as an independent colony after only about seven decades. > >So if success is measured by material wealth and the power to impose one's >will on others Plymouth Colony was a failure. > >William Bradford wrote that before the people who were to become those >Plymouth colonists we think of as the Pilgrims left England for Holland >they, "saw the evil of these things in these parts, ...and as the Lord's >free people joined themselves (by a covenant of the Lord) into a church >estate, in the fellowship of the gospel, to walk in all His ways made >known, >or to be made known unto them, according to their best endeavors, >whatsoever >it should cost them, the Lord assisting them. And that it cost them >something this ensuing history will declare." (p. 9) > >Bradford's history of Plymouth Colony is in part a history of >misadventures, >of betrayals, and if you will of failures. It is a history of costs. But >more than that it is a history of people who kept their faith and were >sustained. Early in the history Bradford recounts an event which might be >considered a pattern for the events which follow. The men of the >congregation had been separated from the women and children.. The men were >on the ship which was to take them all to Holland. While they were >preparing >to leave "the master espied a great company, both horse and foot, with >bills >and guns and other weapons, for the country was raised to take them." The >master, "Swore his country's oath_sacremente_, ..weighed his anchor, hoised >sails, and away," leaving the women and children behind. The men were >soon >caught in a fierce storm, > > the mariners themselves often despairing of life, and once with >shrieks and cries gave over all, as if the ship had been foundered >in the sea and they sinking without recovery. But when man's hope and help >wholly failed, the Lord's power and mercy appeared in their recovery; for >the ship rose again...And if modesty would suffer me, I might declare with >what fervent prayers they cried unto the Lord in this great distress...even >without any great distraction. When the water ran into their mouths and >ears and the mariners cried out, 'We sink, we sink!' they cried (if not >with >miraculous, yet with a great height or degree of divine faith), 'Yet Lord >Thou canst save! Yet Lord Thou canst save!' ...Upon which the ship did not >only recover, but shortly after the violence of the storm began to abate, >and the Lord filled their afflicted minds with such comforts as everyone >cannot understand. (13) > >Again and again in the history Bradford recounts occasions upon which the >colony faces disaster, often brought on through the perfidy of people they >counted upon as friends. And again and again they turn to their faith and >they are sustained. At one point they lose their patent--the legal >foundation of their right to colonize--and Bradford writes that this is, "A >right emblem...of the uncertain things of this world, that when men have >toiled themselves for them, they vanish into smoke." (35) > >No, the Plymouth Colony did not "flourish." It did not enjoy material >prosperity or political or military power. But Bradford wrote, "What could >now sustain them but the Spirit of God and His grace? May not and ought >not >the children of these fathers rightly say:'Our fathers were Englishmen >which >came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness; >but >they cried unto the Lord, and he heard their voice and looked on their >adversity." (63) > >As an old man Bradford was grieved to see the people of Plymouth turning >more and more to "the uncertain things of this world." But his words have >survived as a testament to a people who left behind their goods, their >homes, their friends, and often their families, trusting not in their own >strength, but in something larger than themselves, and living not for >themselves, but for something greater. It seems to me that people who do >not share the particular faith of the Pilgrims can appreciate what they >did, >and it seems to me that in the light of what they did, the fact that they >did not "flourish" doesn't matter very much. > > >citations from William Bradford's _Of Plymouth Plantation_, ed. Samuel >Eliot >Morison, in the Modern Library edition of 1967 published by Randonm House >of >New York > > > > > > >==== MAYFLOWER Mailing List ==== >Check out the Mayflower FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)page at >http://www.macatawa.org/~crich/mayfaq.htm . _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963