The list opens with John Milton, whose lofty words are like an overture
to the great drama of emigration, with its multitudes in successive
generations. If not a prophet, he has yet struck a mighty key-note in
our history.
The author of “Paradise Lost,” of “Comus,” and the heroic Sonnets,
needs no special mention beyond the two great dates of birth and
death. He was born 9th December, 1608, and died 8th November, 1674. The
treatise from which I quote was written in 1641.
“What numbers of faithful and free-born Englishmen and good
Christians have been constrained to forsake their dearest
home, their friends and kindred, whom nothing but the wide
ocean and the savage deserts of America could hide and shelter
from the fury of the bishops! Oh, Sir, if we could but see the
shape of our dear mother England, as poets are wont to give
a personal form to what they please, how would she appear,
think ye, but in a mourning weed, with ashes upon her head and
tears abundantly flowing from her eyes, to behold so many of
her children exposed at once and thrust from things of dearest
necessity, because their conscience could not assent to things
which the bishops thought indifferent?… Let the astrologer be
dismayed at the portentous blaze of comets and impressions in
the air, as foretelling troubles and changes to states; I shall
believe there cannot be a more ill-boding sign to a nation
(God turn the omen from us!) than when the inhabitants, to
avoid insufferable grievances at home, are enforced by heaps to
forsake their native country.”[268]
Here in a few words are the sacrifices made by our fathers, as they
turned from their English homes, and also the conscience which prompted
and sustained them. Begun in sacrifice and in conscience, their empire
grew and flourished with constant and increasing promise of future
grandeur.