The social-compact theory as applied to the church, implying that the mutual duties of Christian disciples in society are derived solely from mutual stipulations, is quite as transparently fallacious as when it is applied to civil polity, and the consequences deducible from it are not less absurd. But it cannot be claimed for the Plymouth men, and still less for their spiritual successors, that they have wholly escaped the evil consequences of their theory in its practical applications. The notion that a church of Christ is a club, having no authority or limitations but what it derives from club rules agreed on among the members, would have been scouted by the Pilgrims; among those who now claim to sit in their seats there are some who would hesitate to admit it, and many who would frankly avow it with all its mischievous implications. Planted in the soil of Plymouth, it spread at once through New England, and has become widely rooted in distant and diverse regions of the American church.[89:1] The church of Plymouth, though deprived of its pastor, continued to be rich in faith and in all spiritual gifts, and most of all in the excellent gift of charity. The history of it year after year is a beautiful illustration of brotherly kindness and mutual self-sacrifice among themselves and of forgiving patience toward enemies. But the colony, beginning in extreme feebleness and penury, never became either strong or rich. One hundred and two souls embarked in the "Mayflower," of whom nearly one half were dead before the end of four months. At the end of four years the number had increased to one hundred and eighty. At the end of ten years the settlement numbered three hundred persons.