Even before the Reformation Foxe tells of “secret multitudes who tasted and followed the sweetness of God’s Holy Word, and whose fervent zeal may appear by their sitting up all night in reading and hearing.” But we must be content to trace our ancestry and our love of liberty to the early years of the seventeenth century, at which time, as we may now all read in the clear lettering of Bradford’s own pen, “truly their affliction was not smale; which notwithstanding they bore sundrie years with much patience, till they were occasioned to see further into things by the light of y^{e} word of God. How not only these base and beggerly ceremonies were unlawfull, but also that y^{e} lordly & tiranous power of y^{e} prelats ought not to be submitted unto; which thus, contrary to the freedome of the gospell, would load & burden mens consciences, and by their compulsive power make a prophane mixture of persons and things in the worship of God. And that their offices & calings, courts and cannons &c. were unlawfull and antichristian; being such as have no warrante in y^{e} word of God; but the same that were used in poperie & still retained.” So these brave men, whose hearts the Lord had touched with heavenly zeal for His truth, “as y^{e} Lords free people joined them selves into a church estate, in y^{e} felowship of y^{e} gospell, to walke in all his wayes, made known, or to be made known unto them, according to their best endeavours, whatsoever it should cost them, the Lord assisting them. And that it cost them something this ensewing historie will declare.” The charming scene of these secret meetings is now well known. In the little village of Scrooby, where the three shires of Nottingham, York and Lincoln join their borders, then stood a stately manor-house, once the favorite hunting-seat of the archbishops of York. Under this hospitable but already somewhat crumbling roof William Brewster, who had been appointed “Post” of Scrooby in 1590, welcomed these sufferers for conscience sake. Hither they stole through the green country lanes, from far around to listen to the “illuminating ministry” of Richard Clyfton, “a grave & reverêd preacher who under God had been a means of y^{e} conversion of many. And also that famous and worthy man, Mr. John Robinson, who afterwards was their pastor for many years till y^{e} Lord tooke him away by death.” Here, too, from the neighboring hamlet of Austerfield, came the lad William Bradford, already eager for spiritual guidance. [Illustration: THE EARLY NORMAN DOORWAY AT AUSTERFIELD CHURCH.]