Religious faith must ever be the motive power of humanity, and whatever might become of despotism, with or without, it is absolutely essential to democracy.
Governor Hughes of New York, at the Champlain Tercentenary, Vermont, July 9, 1909.
Religion is the only thing upon which to rest our salvation in these times. It is religious principles to which our Commonwealth owes its greatness.
Governor Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts, at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Lord's Day League, Boston, 1920.
ON reaching the age of twenty-one, our Bradford became the possessor of his native estate in England, which he sold, as then useless for him to hold. But well he knew, that the recantation of his faith would restore him to independence and presumably to the favor of the Austerfield community. What lay in the future for him he could not conceive. He took the sale money and ventured in some commercial enterprise, but did not prosper in it. His career was to be of more importance than the business of a merchant.
After turning twenty-two, he was admitted, on proof and security, a citizen of Leyden, as William Bradford, Englishman. In the end of the next year his marriage bans were published, and he was registered as a worker in fustian, a coarse cloth of cotton and flax. On December 20, 1613, he wedded Dorothy May, aged sixteen, formerly of Cambridge, and probably the granddaughter of John May, Bishop of Carlisle in 1577. Her autograph, "Dority May," appears in her marriage contract. Bradford, when in America later, had friendly correspondence with her father in Holland.
While in Leyden now, he had the joy of perceiving the rapid growth of the Puritan fellowship there, numbering finally almost three hundred. Purchasing considerable land, they settled in a community by themselves. Robinson, their spiritual head, was held in much esteem throughout the city, for his noble character and fine abilities. Bradford in written eulogy ascribes to him "ye tender love & godly care of a true pastor."
Yet in spite of the hospitality of Holland, the condition was not normal nor the prospects ideal, for an English settlement among those of foreign speech. The rising generation would naturally affiliate with their neighbors, entering the Dutch army and society; and the outcome promised to be a blend of blood and customs. The truce between Holland and Spain would be over in 1619; and the Thirty Years War was already rising in Europe. Wishing to preserve their national character and distinct religious order, they meditated emigration as a colony. In this the foreign missionary motive was also strong, freely acknowledged, and always remembered. "A great hope & inward zeall they had," Bradford later recorded, "of laying some good foundation, or at least to make some way thereunto, for ye propagating & advancing ye gospell of ye kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of ye world; yea, though they should be but even as stepping-stones unto others for ye performing of so great a work."
They were dissuaded from the tropical enticements of Spanish American neighborhoods by the recollection of Spain's interests and ambitions there. The vote was indeed close, to go to any part of the strange western world; and our hero, being in favor of it, may have been required to turn the hesitating weight of opinion that way.