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358 CARNEGIE LIBRARY OF PITTSBURGH
The Pilgrims' Reasons for Leaving England
From the Bradford Manuscript.
After these things, they could not long continue in any peaceable
condition; but were hunted and persecuted on every side: so as their
former afflictions were but as flea-bitings in comparison of these which
now came upon them. For some were taken and clapt up in prison.
Others had their houses beset and watched, night and day; and hardly
escaped their hands: and the most were fain to fly and leave their
houses and habitations, and the means of their livelihood. Yet these,
and many other sharper things which afterwards befell them, were no
other than they looked for: and therefore were [they] the better prepared
to bear them by the assistance of GOD'S grace and SPIRIT.
Yet seeing themselves thus molested; and that there was no hope
of their continuance there [as a Church] : by a joint consent, they resolved
to go into the Low Countries, where they heard was Freedom of
Religion for all men; as also how sundry, from London and other parts
of the land [of England], had been exiled and persecuted for the same
Cause, and were gone thither, and lived at Amsterdam and in other
places of the land [of Holland].
The Pilgrims' Reasons for Leaving Holland
From John A. Goodwin's "The Pilgrim Republic."
By 1617it was found that few with their constant and hard labor
could earn more than a fairly comfortable living; provision for old age
and reverses was impossible, and the children were deprived of proper
education, many of the young being obliged to work prematurely, to
the hindrance of their physical growth,—a lot which most of them
cheerfully met for their parents' sake, but which to their elders was a
source of much grief. So hard was this life that many later comers
returned to England, choosing the risk of imprisonment there to the
constant toil which in Holland would only earn a bare support during a
man's best years. Hence the congregation fell away one half from its
largest size.
The young, too, were naturally acquiring a home-feeling for Holland;
some entered her army or went to sea in her ships, and others had
found the daughters of the land fair to look upon. Soon they would
become Dutch in tastes and habits, and the third generation would be
likely not only to lose the English language and character, but to allow
the precious fire to die out on the Pilgrim altar. In the Netherlands,
as111 other Continental countries, Sunday was made a day of recreation
and jollity; and the Pilgrim lads (the younger portion of whom had
never known any other public practice) were naturally growing into
the ways of the country. There was, too, much license among the
Dutch youth, which was contagious, and had already made some moral
wrecks. The welfare of the children especially demanded a removal;
and did not the Lord's service require them to go where they might do