“And the great gift, my friends, the gift that is more than wealth, is the freedom to worship God after our own wills, to plant the first colony for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith. God not only sifted three kingdoms to get the seed for this enterprise, but sifted that seed over again. Every person whom He would not have go at this time to plant the first colony of England, He sent back, even from mid-ocean, in the Speedwell.
“It is given us to establish the principles of self-government and freedom of worship and to deepen and expand the faith. And now, friends, thanks to our hunters, we have a feast prepared of roast goose and fowls, which will make a pleasant change from the dried neat’s tongue and Holland cheese and biscuits of the ship’s diet. We had like to have some deer,”—and here he smiled knowingly. “The men saw some and shot at them but missed them. Thomas Bradford said that one buck over the shoulder was worth three in the bush.”
There was a shout of laughter at the discomfited hunters and then they bowed their heads to say grace and then fell to with many expressions of good-will. It was sweet and comfortable to see such lively and true expressions of dear and unfeigned love.
While they were feasting, Mary Chilton slipped away. Down in a lowly bed lay a mother and a young babe, even as that other mother of old; low and mean and poor the surroundings, but holding the hope, almost divine, of a people.
Mary bent over the brooding mother and in her face was an adoration not of earth but of heaven.
“Susanna, are you asleep?” she said softly.
“No,” said the mother; “I but lie here, wondering what this new land has to give my babe. I am heart-sick with fear.”
Mary put a sprig of bayberries in her slender hand and replied, “Rather, Susanna, ask what your babe will give to the new land. He will give his strength and his faith and his youth. Give him to me a moment.”
And she bore him up to the company.
“Friends,” she said, “I bring to you another Christmas gift. I bring to you a new citizen, born in the land of the free with no heritage of oppression and cruelty.”