Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/214

Rh or, also, “The Pilgrims' Rock.” It was a young girl who was first permitted to spring from the boat on shore. It was her light foot which first touched the rock. It was at the commencement of winter when the pilgrims reached the new land; and they were met by cold, and storm, and adverse circumstances. They made an excursion of discovery inland, and found, in one place, a little corn, but no habitations, only Indian graves.

They had been but a few days on shore, and were beginning to build habitations as a defence against the storms and the snow, when the Sunday occurred, and it is characteristic of that first Puritan community that, under their circumstances, they rested from all labour, and kept the Sabbath uninterruptedly and with all solemnity.

I have lately read a narrative, or, more properly speaking, a chronicle, kept as a diary of the life of the first colonists, their wars and labours during the first year of their settlement. It is a simple chronicle, without any wordiness or parade, without any attempt at making it romantic or beautiful, but which affected me more, and went more directly to the depths of the heart, than many a touching novel; and which seemed to me grander than many a heroic poem. For how great in all its unpretendingness was this life, this labour! What courage, what perseverance, what steadfastness, what unwavering trust in that little band! How they aided one another, these men and women; how they persevered though all sorrow and adversity, in life and in death. They lived surrounded by dangers, in warfare with the natives; they suffered from climate, from the want of habitations and conveniences, from the want of food; they lay sick; they saw their beloved die; they suffered hunger and cold; but still they persevered. They saw the habitations they had built destroyed, and they built afresh. Amid their struggles with want and adversity, amid the Indian's rain of arrows, they founded their