On the eve of departure a solemn fast was held. “Let us seek of God,” said these disciples so shortly to be severed by the sullen sea, “a right way for us and for our little ones and for all our substance.” Is it strange that New England is moral and well-ordered and devout, when it was begotten of a fast and a prayer? Robinson gave the departing members of his exiled flock “a farewell, breathing a freedom of opinion and an independence of authority such as then was hardly known in the world;”[110] and this he intermixed with practical directions for the future guidance of the Pilgrim voyagers. He chose that beautiful text in Ezra, “And there, at the river by Ahava, I proclaimed a fast, that we might humble ourselves before God, and seek of him a right way for us, and for our children, and for all our substance.”[111] Unhappily, “but a brief outline of that remarkable sermon has been preserved. We would gladly give whole shoals of printed discourses in exchange for that one homily. While, however, the larger part is lost in the long silence of the past, the fragments of this great man’s farewell utterances are gathered up and preserved among our richest relics.”[112] Never was there a more affecting occasion. A Christian congregation, welded together alike by a common faith and a common misfortune, was about to be rent asunder. Some of their number, thrice exiled, were soon to essay the settlement of an unknown and legendary wilderness. These dear wanderers they might never see again with their mortal eyes; and even should they meet them once more on the shores of time, years must intervene before the greeting. Strange thoughts and anxious chased each other across the troubled mirror of each countenance. All eyes were dim with tears; all hands were clasped; the pastor’s heart was full. Amidst the painful silence, broken by a frequent sob, the low, sweet voice of Robinson was heard quivering upon the sympathetic air: “Brethren, we are now ere long to part asunder, and the Lord knoweth whether I shall live ever to see your faces more. But whether the Lord hath appointed it or not, I charge you before God and his blessed angels to follow me no farther than I have followed Christ. If God should reveal any thing to you by any other instrument of his, be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth of my ministry, for I am very confident the Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth out of his holy word. Miserably do I bewail the state and condition of the reformed churches, who are come to a period in religion, and will go no farther than the instruments of their reformation.