It was He Himself, the arch-heretic, Who first broke from the doctrinal curriculum of the priestly caste of His day, to spread His gospel of Freedom to life’s wayfarers—saint and sinner alike. The sword that He brought to break the head of the deadening, self-sufficient, Pharisaical peace, hung suspended the while over the world, awaiting the moment to strike. The sword has descended, and has severed the bonds of the centuries which roll away to give place to the new dispensation. Ex oriente lux! To-day the East itself is just awakening to the dawning of the new day. Almost we hear a voice from heaven, declaiming over the dust of the mediæval world: “Now is Christ risen from the dead, and is become the first fruits of them that slept.” My object in limning the foregoing sketch has been to present to the mind of the reader a setting for the ensuing remarks concerning “The History of the Plymouth Settlement,” as recorded contemporaneously by Governor Bradford, the first cause of which enterprise was one of the most important episodes in the widespread movement whose course we have just been observing,—the episode which, above all others of that epoch, has produced the weightiest consequences in the history of the world. America was discovered by Columbus in 1492; Spain planted colonies on its shores in the 16th Century; English trading settlements were established in Virginia and elsewhere in the latter half of the same century. It is no mere claim of priority that lends historic importance to the foundation by the Pilgrim Fathers of the English colony at New Plymouth. The materialization of their objects was accomplished by the same means as formed the basis of the earlier colonies: a trading enterprise supported by merchants in the home country. What, then, gives this particular project a prominence and significance which so utterly dwarfs its predecessors? It was the motive of its Founders. And what was that motive? Freedom of religious thought and practice, in the first place; of civil rights, in the second. It was the sublime ideal of this little band of Englishmen which gave to the New Plymouth colony (the nucleus of the other New England colonies) the honour and glory of setting its characteristic impress upon the greatest of the new nations of the world—the United States of America. The ideal aimed at we have probably grasped from our preliminary sketch of the general movement of western civilization out of the shackles of feudalism towards religious and civil freedom. But the sacrifice involved in its consummation,—do we realize its significance? Let us try to think what it means.