Pilgrim Trails Part 4

"So," remarks the Governor with fine simplicity, "they comited them selves to ye will of G.o.d, & resolved to proseede."

The whole story of that voyage has in it the vitality of the wind at sea. It has also the n.o.bility always found when the human will goes somewhere and does something with the minimum of material equipment, alone, against odds, for the sake of a true conviction. Materially, the Pilgrims had the narrowest possible margin. A great iron screw to prop their beam; a great iron purpose to prop their souls.

We do well to hold in honor those who voyage alone through "crosse winds and feirce stormes into desperat and inevitable perill," in the power of a n.o.ble thought. We erect our monuments to those who, with discouragement and danger and threatened s.h.i.+pwreck all around them, valiantly prop up their beam, calk their decks, commit themselves to the will of G.o.d--and "resolve to proseede."

THE END

McGrath-Sherrill Press Boston