  They remained in Amsterdam about a year when for both material and spiritual reasons they decided to move to Leyden 22 miles distant. They had come into some contention with the church that had established itself before them which seemed difficult to settle to their satisfaction and their means of livelihood had become so restricted that they were threatened with poverty. “For these and some other reasons they removed to Leyden, a fair and beautiful city. But being now here pinched, they fell to such trades and employments as they best could, valuing peace and their spiritual comfort above any other riches whatsoever; and at length they came to raise a competent and comfortable living, but with hard and continual labor.” The Final and Historic DecisionSome eleven or twelve years were spent in Leyden where they enjoyed “much sweet and delightful society and spiritual comfort together, in the ways of God, under the able ministry and prudent government of Mr. John Robinson and Mr. William Brewster, who was an assistant unto him in the place of an Elder, unto which he was now called and chosen by the church; so as they grew in knowledge and other gifts and graces of the spirit of God; and lived together in peace, and love, and holiness.” Yet while they seemed to have more spiritual freedom and to have enjoyed the society of their Dutch neighbors and had established a good credit among them, they were confronted with the fear of final absorption in an alien country. They preferred to maintain their language and traditions as English men and women. Moreover, King James was beginning to exercise an unwarrantable influence in the Low Countries. This went to the extreme of confiscating their types “Although the people generally bore all their difficulties very cheerfully and with a resolute courage, being in the best of their strength, yet old age began to come on some of them; and their great and continual labors, with other crosses and sorrows, hastened it before the time; so as it was not only probably thought, but apparently seen, that within a few years more they were in danger to scatter by necessity pressing them, or sink under their burdens, or both; and therefore, according to the divine proverb, that ‘a wise man seeth the plague when it cometh, and hideth himself,’ so they, like skilful and beaten soldiers, were fearful either to be entrapped or surrounded by their enemies, so as they should neither be able to fight nor “Lastly (and which was not the least,) a great hope and inward zeal they had of laying some good foundation, or at least to make way thereunto, for the propagating and advancing the Gospel of the kingdom of Christ in these remote parts of the world; yea, though they should be but as stepping-stones unto others for performing of so great a work.” “The place they had thoughts on were some of those unpeopled countries of America, which are fruitful and fit for habitation, being devoid of all civil inhabitants, where there are only savage and bruitish people, which range up and down little otherwise than the wild beasts. This proposition being made public, and coming to the scanning of all, it raised many variable opinions amongst men, and caused many fears and doubts amongst themselves. Some from their reasons and hopes conceived, labored to stir up and encourage the rest to undertake and prosecute the same; others again, out of their fears, objected against it, and sought to divert from it, alleging many things, and those neither unreasonable nor unprobable: as that it was a great design, and subject to many inconceivable perils and dangers; as, besides the casualties of the seas, (which none can be freed from,) the length of the voyage was such as the weak bodies of women and other persons worn out with age and travail, (as many of them were,) could never be able to endure; and yet if they should, the miseries of the land which they should be exposed unto would be too hard to be borne, and likely, some or all of them, to consume and utterly to ruinate them. For there they should be liable to famine, and nakedness, and the want, in the manner, of all things.” Destruction of Brewster’s printing shop “It was answered, that all great and honorable actions were accomplished with great difficulties, and must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable courages. It was granted the dangers were great, but not desperate, and the difficulties were many, but not invincible; for although there were many of them likely, yet they were not certain. It might be that some of the things feared might never befall them; others, by providence, care and use good of means, might in a great measure be prevented; and all of them through the help of God, by fortitude and patience, might either be borne or overcome. True it was that such attempts were not to be made and undertaken but upon good ground and reason, not rashly or lightly, as many have done for curiosity or hope of gain, etc. But their condition was not ordinary. Their ends were good and honorable, their calling lawful and urgent, and therefore they might expect a blessing of God in their proceeding; yea, although they should lose their lives in this action, yet they might have comfort in the same; and their endeavours would be honorable.” “They lived here but as men in exile and in a poor condition; and as great miseries might possibly befall them in this place; for the twelve years of truce were now out, “After many other particular things answered and alleged on both sides, it was fully concluded by the major part to put this design in execution, and to prosecute it by the best means they could.” Cushman before the Merchant Adventurers |
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