UNDER THE LINDENS OF LEYDEN.
The chimes from the spire of the State House rang out an evening hour. There seemed no unusual portent in this daily custom to the ear of workers in the busy city turning homewards at close of day. Yet in that hour on that calm evening of early summer, history was being made for that city, and to its honored name was added an interest for thousands of a future day by the seemingly unimportant event then taking place.
A large canal boat, one of the many that plied between Amsterdam and Leyden, was nearing its mooring at the close of the day’s trip and a number of persons were on the quay apparently awaiting its arrival. The boat was heavily ladened with freight and passengers, the household belongings and persons of a number of families. If some of the members looked a trifle anxious, all seemed happy and still interested in all to be viewed at the end of a pleasant journey that had been full of new sights for the majority. A pleasanter voyage than many had experienced within the year, and with much uncertainty and strangeness eliminated from this landing at Leyden which had harassed their arrival at Amsterdam; for these are the pilgrims from England, to whom the authorities of this city had recently given permission for residence, in reply to a petition sent in their behalf from Amsterdam, by their pastor, John Robinson.
The English were already well known in Leyden and some of this party had been there to rent houses and survey the prospect. More than casual glances were given these new arrivals, for, though evidently poor people and certainly, as yet, unknown, their appearance was distinguished even in their plain clothes of English fashion, different to the gay apparel of the natives.
The accounts of this beginning of their sojourn in a new locality are somewhat meagre, nevertheless they furnish ground for speculation and conclusions not unjustified. Our interest follows the women we already know and others whom we are soon to know, as they once more endeavor to solve the problems of home-keeping with slender resources, their characteristics of patience and courage again to the test. An admonition surely given by their beloved pastor must have dwelt in their thoughts to “stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together ... and in nothing terrified.”
The advantages of living in a prosperous, progressive and highly civilized city were not long in being realized by these women. Though, at first, their homes were in the poorer part of the city, their industry and energy supplementing that of the men, who soon found plenty of employment in the trades of the city, particularly the cloth and silk weaving, enabled them to live fairly comfortably. The markets of fish and vegetables saw them as daily customers, and even the flower market found them as occasional visitors to delight the children as well as themselves. The public schools gave to many of the children more of an education than their mothers had had; this opportunity for free knowledge, as well as the hospitals, homes for the aged, orphan asylums, were some of the marvels of this new life. Books and pictures were so moderate in price as to be available for all.
The contrasts between the conditions which tended towards the benefit and advancement of the plain people in their present home and those which were only for the benefit of the wealthy and aristocratic class in their old home were as easily seen by his companions now as they had been by William Brewster years before.
The objects above all the planning for the routine of practical life were that they might have food and comfort, peace and quiet to worship God.