left the pleasant abodes of their fathers, and some
emotions they suppressed, when the white cliffs of their native country,
now seen for the last time, grew dim to their sight. They were acting,
however, upon a resolution not to be daunted. With whatever stifled
regrets, with whatever occasional hesitation, with whatever appalling
apprehensions, which might sometimes arise with force to shake the
firmest purpose, they had yet committed themselves to Heaven and the
elements; and a thousand leagues of water soon interposed to separate
them for ever from the region which gave them birth. A new existence
awaited them here; and when they saw these shores, rough, cold,
barbarous, and barren, as then they were, they beheld their country.
That mixed and strong feeling, which we call love of country, and which
is, in general, never extinguished in the heart of man, grasped and
embraced its proper object here. Whatever constitutes _country_, except
the earth and the sun, all the moral causes of affection and attachment
which operate upon the heart, they had brought with them to their new
abode. Here were now their families and friends, their homes, and their
property. Before they reached the shore, they had established the
elements of a social system,[7] and at a much earlier period had settled
their forms of religious worship. At the moment of their landing,
therefore, they possessed institutions of government, and institutions
of religion: and friends and families, and social and religious
institutions, framed by consent, founded on choice and preference, how
nearly do these fill up our whole idea of country! The morning that
beamed on the first night of their repose saw the Pilgrims already _at
home_ in their country. There were political institutions, and civil
liberty, and religious worship. Poetry has fancied nothing, in the
wanderings of heroes, so distinct and characteristic. Here was man,
indeed, unprotected, and unprovided for, on the shore of a rude and
fearful wilderness; but it was politic, intelligent, and educated man.
Every thing was civilized but the physical world. Institutions,
containing in substance all that ages had done for human government,
were organized in a forest. Cultivated mind was to act on uncultivated
nature; and, more than all, a government and a country were to commence,
with the very first foundations laid under the divine light of the
Christian religion. Happy auspices of a happy futurity! Who