New England in 1641—Inhabitants—Villages—Churches—Houses—Agriculture—Commerce— Trade—Manufactures—Foreign Influence of the Pilgrims—The Tone of New England in treating with the Long Parliament during the Civil War—Two Rejected Invitations—Consolidation of Colonial Liberty—The Oppressed made Guests of the Commonwealth—The Germ of Union—The UNITED COLONIES OF NEW ENGLAND—Character of the League—Reflections—Colonial Union the Crowning Service of the Pilgrim Fathers to Humanity—The Second Generation—The Work and the Lesson of the Pilgrim Fathers 415 THE PILGRIM FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. CHAPTER I. THE EXODUS. “Nothing is here for tears; nothing to wail Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise or blame; nothing but well and fair.” MILTON, _Samson Agonistes_. The influence of that mysterious triad, the gold eagle, the silver dollar, and the copper cent, has been overestimated. Spiritual forces are more potent than the motors of materialism. The Sermon on the Mount outweighs the law of gravity. Ethics make safer builders than stocks. Two hundred years ago, commercial enterprise essayed to subdue the New World in the interest of greedy trade, hungering for an increase; but though officered by the brightest genius and the highest daring of the age, backed by court favor and bottomed on the deepest bank-vaults of London, the effort failed. Where physical forces balked, a moral sentiment bore off a trophy. The most prosperous of the American colonies were planted by religion. New England is the child of English Puritanism; and yet, paradoxical as it may seem, antedates its birth. Men say that the history of New England dates from 1620. ’Tis a mistake. New England was in the brain of Wickliffe when, in the infancy of Britain, he uttered his first protest against priestcraft and pronounced the Christianity of Rome a juggle. New England, _in esse_, was born in that chill December on Plymouth Rock; New England, _in posse_, was cradled in the pages of the first printed copy of the English Bible. Soil does not make a state; nor does geographical position. That spot of ground which men call Athens does not embrace the immortal city. It bears up its masonry; but the Athens of Socrates and of Plato exists in the _mind_ of every scholar. The intellectual and moral elements which enter into and shape it, these are the real state. In this sense, New England was in the pages of the Puritan publicists, in the psalms of the Lollards, and in the prayers of Bradwardine, centuries before that winter’s voyage into the dreary wilderness.