The Pilgrims of Plymouth were among the earliest of the Separatists. As such, they knew by bitter experience all the sharpness of persecution. Against them the men in power raged like the heathen. Against them the whole fury of the law was directed. Some were imprisoned, all were impoverished, while their name became a by-word of reproach. For safety and freedom the little band first sought shelter in Holland, where they continued in obscurity and indigence for more than ten years, when they were inspired to seek a home in this unknown Western world. Such, in brief, is their history. I could not say more of it without intruding upon your time; I could not say less without injustice to them. [38] Our Abolitionists and Free-Soilers were Separatists. [39] Like the Republican party.--whose triumph is here foreshadowed. Rarely have austere principles been expressed with more gentleness than from their lips. By a covenant with the Lord, they had vowed to walk in all his ways, according to their best endeavors, _whatsoever it should cost them_,--and also to receive whatsoever truth should be made known from the written word of God. Repentance and prayers, patience and tears, were their weapons. "It is not with us," said they, "as with other men, whom small things can discourage or small discontentments cause to wish themselves at home again." And then again, on another occasion, their souls were lifted to utterance like this: "When we are in our graves, it will be all one, whether we have lived in plenty or penury, whether we have died in a bed of down or on locks of straw." Self-sacrifice is never in vain, and with the clearness of prophecy they foresaw that out of their trials should come a transcendent Future. "As one small candle," said an early Pilgrim Governor, "may light a thousand, so the light kindled here may in some sort shine even to the whole nation." And these utterances were crowned by the testimony of the English governor and historian, whose sympathy for them was as little as that of Hume for the Puritans, confessing it doubtful "whether Britain would have had any colonies in America at this day, if religion had not been the grand inducement,"--thus honoring our Pilgrims.