921.73 W589w.pdf - Mesa FamilySearch Library

.Roy. Samuel ¢Vhili1_g. 79
unanimity, has made the foundation of the liber-
ties of a free people.
The reason is plain enough, why the Pil-
grim Fathers who landed at Plymouth in i62o
should have marched with unfaltering steps
straightway to the establishment of popular
sovereignty in State and Church. The glo-
rious promise of their future can still be read
between the lines of that covenant they wrote
on board the Mayflower,--the first charter
that was ever founded on the divine rights
of the people. In Plymouth, statesmen and
warriors were the leaders; preachers were of
small account. The people did their own
preaching, praying, and fighting. Some of
them were equal to emergencies, and ready
to lead a scouting-party or a prayer-meeting.
They had lighted their torches at the same
altar whose fire but a few years later setall
England ablaze, while psalm-singing Round-
heads, under the valiant Cromwell, were whirl-
ing the King and his elegant Cavaliers before
them as dry leaves before a cyclone. With
men like these, of,all most fitted to found a