This blog is about as long as the Pilgrims winter voyage to Cape Cod. But I trust it is worth reading to our generation in preparation for Thanksgiving.
Years ago we visited Plymouth, Massachusetts. There I ran across the book Of Plymouth Plantation; William Bradford’s personal journal of the pilgrims coming to our shores in 1620 to escape persecution from King James I of England. Bradford became the governor of the pilgrims less than a year later when Governor Carver and his wife suddenly died in 1621. Bradford lead the group both as governor and as a spiritual example for thirty years. His personal record of those years is priceless but largely forgotten in our modern culture.
Bradford’s statue stands in Plymouth as a reminder of our country’s unique beginning and one of America’s key leaders worth remembering.
I couldn’t put his journal down as I read Bradford’s record of the Pilgrims from England to Holland and eventually to America. His use of Scripture was prolific. It was almost like reading the Bible. He quoted verses showing his belief that God was guiding this small group in the New World in spite of the difficulties they encountered. For example, William Bradford and his Dorothy left their young son behind in Holland in hopes they could send for him when things were safely established. That would be years later. Before departing the company had a “solemn meeting and day of humiliation to seek the Lord for His direction” Bradford wrote that their pastor spoke on I Samuel 23:3,4 where David asked God for help against the Philistines. That is how they viewed the challenge ahead.
The trials they endured are worth meditating on at Thanksgiving before we stuff ourselves at dinner. The Pilgrims departed England on September 6th, 1620. This meant dangerous winter storms for their tiny and primitive 80 foot long ship. I toured the full sized replica of the Mayflower while in Plymouth on a winter day. Their quarters were a cold, wet, dark, small, and drafty place for 102 people to live in for 66 days. Storms during the voyage put them in danger and a proud crewman made it worse as he took advantage of their sea sickness and told them “he hoped to help to cast half of them overboard before they came to their journey’s end…” Ironically he became the first to contract a “grievous disease, of which he died in a desperate manner, and so was himself the first that was thrown overboard.” The Pilgrims saw this as the “just hand of God.”
The Mayflower II at dock in Plymouth on a sunny day (of which the Pilgrims saw few of). This exact replica of the original Mayflower was built in England and sailed to America in 1955 for the Plymouth Plantation museum.
They arrived in Cape Cod on November 11, 1620 and soon sent search parties ashore to seek a place to settle. Bradford returned to the Mayflower from one of these expeditions and was saddened to learn his young wife Dorothy had fallen overboard and drowned. He spoke little off this grief, but did remarry a year later.
The Pilgrims eventually found a place to winter and proceeded ashore to begin a settlement. It was a terrible and bleak winter with little food and much disease and cold. People were dying almost daily and by the end of winter half of them were buried.
One morning during our stay in Plymouth I went up on the hill near our motel to watch the sun rise over the Atlantic and read my Bible. As I sat down on a bench in a dilapidated cemetery, to my amazement a large marker near me marked the grave of William Bradford. Within feet were smaller headstones for various pilgrims and crewmen of the Mayflower. Many had Scripture on them. God guided me to that spot to help me see what the Lord did through these brave people and is still doing in America today. Since then I have read quotes from his book to our family every Thanksgiving before we give thanks. Keep reading for one of them.
We know the first thanksgiving was about a year later and was a happy event. But there was still hard work and dangers to deal with. They were not the first Europeans to come to these shores. A settlement in Jamestown preceded them. But Plymouth would be recognized as the first because of their tenacious faith in God and the nature of their government. Therefore, it is said, “Plymouth is America’s home town.”
What happened to Bradford’s journal? It was passed down and eventually stolen in the looting of the Old South Church in Boston by a British soldiers in the 1776 war. It was probably sold for pennies to a bookstore in London where the Bishop of London saw a good deal and bought it. Eventually we learned of it and someone pleaded for it to be returned. It was released to be sent back to America as a gesture of good will following the assassination of President Garfield. Thanks England! Upon receiving it in 1897 U.S. Senator Hoar from Massachusetts read it and said the manuscript was “the most precious on earth,” with the exception of the Four Gospels. When Governor Wolcott of Massachusetts was presented with it he said, “for countless years to come…these mute pages shall eloquently speak of high resolve, great suffering and heroic endurance made possible by an absolute faith in the overuling providence of Almighty God.” If you want to see Bradford’s original manuscript it is now on display at the Massachusetts State House.
The Pilgrim story didn’t stop at Plymouth. It continued in the lives of their descendants of which there are over 35 million identified. Notable ones are these U.S. presidents: John Adam, John Quincy Adams, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Calvin Coolidge, James Garfield, Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Zachary Taylor and several vice presidents plus eight statesmen and women. There are also about thirty-seven notable celebrities, writers and poets, and one royal. Of these you are sure to know those like Noah Webster, Henry Longfellow, Dick Van Dyke, Grandma Moses, Katharine Hepburn, Clint Eastwood, Marilyn Monroe and a few other notorious one I won’t mention.
If you don’t think you can affect the world through your descendants then think again, begin to pray, bring your kids to Sunday School and church, read them the Bible and be Thankful to God you were born in America!
In closing here is a poem by Bradford you might want to read before Thankgiving dinner.
From my years young in days of youth,
God did make known to me his truth,
And call'd me from my native place
For to enjoy the means of grace
In wilderness he did me guide,
And in strange lands for me provide.
In fears and wants, through weal and woe,
As pilgrim passed I to and fro:
Oft left of them whom I did trust;
How vain it is to rest on dust!
A man of sorrows I have been,
And many changes I have seen.
Wars, wants, peace, plenty have I known;
And some advanc'd, others thrown down.
The humble, poor, cheerful and glad;
Rich, discontent, sower and sad:
When fears with sorrows have been mixed,
Consolations came betwixt.
Faint not, poor soul, in God still trust,
Fear not the things thou suffer must;
For, whom he loves he doth chastise,
And then all tears wipes from their eyes.
Farewell, dear children, whom I love,
Your better father is above:
When I am gone, he can supply;
To him I leave you when I die.
Fear him in truth, walk in his ways,
And he will bless you all your days.
My days are spent, old age is come,
My strength it fails, my glass near run:
Now I will wait when work is done,
Until my happy change shall come,
When from my labors I shall rest
With Christ above for to be blest.
Are you a Thankful Pilgrim? Have a happy and thankful Thanksgiving. Let me know what you think.
Want to know more? YouTube has the entire reading of Bradford’s writings which is eleven hours long. Easy to listen to in more modern English.
Or just buy a copy of Of Plymouth Plantation and read it for yourself. Then pass it to your kids.
Note next Sunday there is only Adult School and the Worship service but no children’s Sunday School due to the Thanksgiving Holiday.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING from Nancy and our family!.
-Pastor Mark Suko