Lessons to Be Learned From the Pilgrims
Four hundred years ago, before setting foot on that famous rock, 41 passengers aboard the Mayflower signed the Mayflower Compact, a document of immeasurable influence on the country that would become the United States of America.
The pious congregation of Christians known to history as Pilgrims were in their own time called Separatists, for their schism with the greater Church of England. Dissension from the Church of England was illegal during the reign of King James the First, and the king was determined to brook no effrontery to his royal highness. To enforce his egotistical and tyrannical will, James sent agents far and wide into the country to round up those Separatists reportedly meeting in secret in small groups to avoid detection by the king’s sycophantic spies.
Fearing imprisonment or worse at the hands of the royal agents, 400 English Separatists fled their beloved England. They sailed surreptitiously to Holland (leaving England without permission was a crime), where the atmosphere was more accommodating to those given to alternative (read: unofficial) interpretations of the Word of God. The Dutch were historically more tolerant of religious dissidents and would permit, within limits, pilgrims of many religious creeds to assemble without fear of reprisal or persecution.
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