17. After some eleven or twelve years of this life in Leyden the Puritans began to grow restless. Holland was not home to them, and they were lonely. Some of them were growing old, and the somber burden of poverty and exile began to weary the brave shoulders. The children were growing up, and hard work and cramped life pressed all too severely upon the young natures, so that they either threw off the yoke and turned to bad ways or, bearing it patiently, missed the chance of education and grew old before their time. They feared to stay longer in this foreign country lest the children should learn from the Dutch to break the Sabbath, should lose their native language, should cease to be Englishmen. 18. Perhaps it would be best to move again and settle in some land under the flag of dear England--harsh England, that would not grant them peace at home. Though they should have to go to most distant regions, they would cheerfully go, and consider themselves God's missionaries there, if only they might have the protection of England's king. They would go and break the way for others of their countrymen less strong, and in America, if need be, prepare an English home for Englishmen. 19. Gravely the elders talked together. The uncongenial life had been cheerfully borne; a new uprooting and uncertain change would be as steadfastly carried through, once they were sure God willed it. And at last it seemed best to decide upon removal. "The dangers were great but not desperate, the difficulties were many but not invincible--and all of them, through the help of God, by fortitude and patience, might either be borne or overcome." Sturdy courage! O England, to exile such sons! 20. Where, then, should they go? "I will guide thee," reads the promise of the Puritan's Bible, and to God they turn in prayer for direction. A general meeting is held, and much discussion results in the decision to cross the Atlantic to Virginia, Great Britain's vast new realm. They would not settle near the colony already planted there, for that was of the Episcopal Church and might molest them; but away by themselves somewhere--anywhere, if only they might nestle in a remote corner of their king's dominions, and on English soil be free to follow their own conscience. God and the king was the loyal thought--yet, if there _must_ be choice, the king shall not be first.