5. Various sects sprang up, called by various names, differing among themselves upon minor points, but agreeing more or less in dissent from the full, unquestioned rule and service of the Episcopal Church. Against all these dissenters the laws acted as against the Catholics. Not only must Englishmen be Protestants, they must be Protestants of the Church of England. Bodies were organized to keep strict watch of the non-conformists. They were forbidden their simpler church worship and fined if they did not attend that of the English Church. They were "scoffed and scorned by the profane multitude, and so vexed, as truly their affliction was not small."
JOHN ROBINSON'S CONGREGATION.
6. Among that division of the non-conformists called Puritans was a little congregation at Scrooby, a town in north England. The pastor was John Robinson, wise, kind, dignified, scholarly; and his helper in church work and government was Elder William Brewster, a college man who had served at the royal court. For the rest, the congregation were mainly Bible-reading farmers, who wished only to live in peace according to Bible teaching. Royal servants were watchful, and an open church was out of the question; but every Sunday they met for service wherever they could, sometimes in Elder Brewster's big house, sometimes out-doors, anywhere so that they might listen to their beloved pastor. During the week they worked their farms, thinking and talking of the iniquities of the Catholics, the impurities of the Episcopalians, the hard ways that beset the Puritans, and the righteous God who looked down upon it all to record and avenge.
7. Quiet as such a simple church in a corner of England must have been, it was not left undisturbed. Priests of the dominant church and officers of the civil service soon pounced down with the demand that the Puritan farmers stop all this "new-fangledness," and return to the ways of the loyal church. John Robinson's people, however, had no notion of giving up their new-fangledness. They possessed a full share of English obstinacy, and, backed in it by their consciences, were not likely to surrender at once. So their troubles began. They were hunted and persecuted on every side. Some were clapped into prisons, others had their houses beset and watched night and day, and hardly escaped their hands, and the most were fain to fly and leave their houses and habitations and the means of their livelihood.
8. What shall we do? thought the distressed farmers. We can not live in such persecution. We will have to go away. Give up? Indeed, no! We shall not belie our consciences for any man. Since God is behind us, we will not conform. And, under opposition and injustice, Puritan lips set themselves rigid, Puritan hearts closed against the persecutors, strong reaction from the beautiful ceremonies and graceful living that could hide such unbrotherliness became almost worship of unloveliness and hardship. In after years the lives of their descendants were shaped into a narrow severity, not drawn from the sweetness and light of the gospel which they read, but from the bitter fountains of their early sufferings and wrongs.
9. What shall we do? cried the harassed farmers. We will have to leave our home and go to Holland, where others like us have already gone, and where, we hear, is freedom of religion for all men. Yet how should they get there? "for, though they could not stay, yet were they not suffered to go." And, if they should get there, how could they, who "had only been used to a plain country life and the innocent trade of husbandry," manage to live in a country where people spoke an outlandish language instead of good English, and earned their money by trade.
10. Somehow God would help. Give up their religion they would not. They set about going. They bribed ship captains, feed the sailors, paid unreasonable rates for passage, and then, deserted by these same captains and sailors, tried it again with others, were betrayed into the hands of officers who rifled them of what money they had left and turned them over to prison. Hard luck! Set free from prison, they bargained with a Dutchman to take them in his ship to Holland, but as they were going aboard a company of armed men surprised them, and the Dutchman, afraid to be seen in such company, hastily sailed away with half the "Pilgrims," leaving the rest terrified on the shore.
11. "Take us back!" cried the men. "Don't you see our wives and children crying after us!" But the Dutchman was afraid of the soldiers. "What will they do without us!" cried the men, straining their eyes to see all that was happening on shore. "Our goods are not yet aboard—take us back!" No use. The Dutchman sailed away, and the soldiers carried off the frightened women and children to prison. When the authorities had them safely locked up, they did not know what to do with silly women and helpless children, who cried for their husbands and fathers, and when asked concerning their homes cried the more and declared they hadn't any; and, after making themselves sufficient trouble, they solved the important problem by letting the ridiculous creatures go again. The Dutchman's ship, through a terrible storm, came to land. The distressed husbands sought the distressed wives, and troublous wanderings ended in reunion. So were they continually thwarted; but, by one means or another, determined wills bent circumstances to their end, and at last they reached Holland.
12. Strangers as they were, destitute, all unused to the new life and people, they had trouble enough at first, but they wasted little time staring at the new world. It was a world they were to become a part of as soon as possible, and, with characteristic earnestness, they fell to work at any thing they found to do. After a year in Amsterdam they settled in Leyden. They made them homes. They learned as best they could the uncouth language. They taught their farmer hands unaccustomed crafts, and applied their farmer heads to the mysteries of trade.
13. Elder Brewster, with the tastes and habits of a gentleman, a rapidly diminishing property, and a large family of children, looked about for work, and presently obtained pupils whom he taught English after an original method. Later he set up a printing-press, and in printing Puritan books, forbidden to be published in England, found plenty to do. Mr. Robinson visited his people and was busy for their welfare, preached, studied, wrote books; he was a kind friend and helper, and a scholar besides, and proud of him were his devoted flock.