“I do not think many Americans will gaze upon it without a little trembling of the lips and a little gathering of mist in the eyes, as they think of the story of suffering, of sorrow, of peril, of exile, of death, and of lofty triumph, which that book tells,—which the hand of the great leader and founder of America has traced on those pages. There is nothing like it in human annals since the story of Bethlehem. These English men and English women going out from their homes in beautiful Lincoln and York, wife separated from husband and mother from child in that hurried embarkation for Holland, pursued to the beach by English horsemen; the thirteen years of exile; the life at Amsterdam ‘in alley foul and lane obscure’; the dwelling at Leyden; the embarkation at Delfthaven; the farewell of Robinson; the terrible voyage across the Atlantic; the compact in the harbour; the landing on the rock; the dreadful first winter; the death roll of more than half the number; the days of suffering and of famine; the wakeful night, listening for the yell of the wild beast and the war-whoop of the savage; the building of the State on those sure foundations which no wave nor tempest has ever shaken; the breaking of the new light; the dawning of the new day; the beginning of the new life; the enjoyment of peace with liberty,—of all these things this is the original record by the hand of our beloved father and founder.” After its discovery and identification, an edition was published in the year 1856, under the editorship of Charles Deane, by the Massachusetts Historical Society, based on a transcript made from the original document in London. A photographic facsimile of the manuscript was issued in 1896, in both London and Boston; and upon receipt of the original by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1897, a resolution was passed providing for the printing and publication of a carefully collated edition, together with a report of the proceedings connected with its return from England to America. This edition was duly issued in 1901, and it is from that as a basis that I have prepared the present modernization. My purpose is obvious. To many, the reading of the mediæval English of the original, to which all preceding editions have adhered, would be so laborious as to preclude them from becoming acquainted with it. I have endeavoured to preserve, as far as possible, the atmosphere of the time, while accurately rendering the thought in current language. * * * * *