lad of sixteen or so, when the Scrooby churchr was formed.[1] Already one of the leaders in the practical affairs of the church when scarcely more than a lad, he developed into a man of sound judgment, as well as morals, and one whose counsel was to be invaluable to the little colony in the New World, the fortunes of which he was to share and chronicle. A student, and a writer of a singularly pure English style, he seems also to have made himself familiar with Dutch, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, if we may believe Cotton Mather's statement, which is, in part, borne out by other evidence.[2]
The persecution that the little band underwent before the year of their attempt to emigrate to Holland was, in the main, from neither church nor state, but only such as they had to suffer from the scoffs and jeers of their more easy-going and more commonplace neighbors and companions. In 1607, however, some one or more of these latter, possibly from a neighborly desire to pay off a grudge, apparently laid a complaint before the ecclesiastical authorities, of which the Commissioners of the Province of York had to take note; and in November, Neville, Brewster, and seven others were cited to appear. Neville, who did so, was allowed to testify without taking the usual oath, and, after a short confinement, was released without further trial. Fines were imposed upon the others for non-appearance, but beyond that no action seems to have been taken, nor were any efforts made to apprehend them.
According to the standards of the day, they were treated with leniency, and there is little to indicate that they were "harried from the land," or that either the civil or ecclesiastical authorities were anxious to interfere with them.[3]Justly dreading, however, what might happen, rather than what had happened, and, perhaps, partly influenced by some of the
- ↑ J. Hunter, The Founders of New Plymouth (London, 1854), pp. 101-15.
- ↑ Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana (ed. Hartford, 1855), vol. 1, p. 113.
- ↑ R. G. Usher, The Pilgrims and their History (New York, 1918), pp. 19 ff.; F. J. Powicke, "John Robinson and the Beginning of the Pilgrim Movement," Harvard Theological Review, July, 1920, pp. 261f. This article contains a criticism of Usher's somewhat extreme position.
