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 would wish
that his country's existence had otherwise begun? Who would desire the
power of going back to the ages of fable? Who would wish for an origin
obscured in the darkness of antiquity? Who would wish for other
emblazoning of his country's heraldry, or other ornaments of her
genealogy, than to be able to say, that her first existence was with
intelligence, her first breath the inspiration of liberty, her first
principle the truth of divine religion?
Local attachments and sympathies would ere long spring up in the breasts
of our ancestors, endearing to them the place of their refuge. Whatever
natural objects are associated with interesting scenes and high efforts
obtain a hold on human feeling, and demand from the heart a sort of
recognition and regard. This Rock soon became hallowed in the esteem of
the Pilgrims,[8] and these hills grateful to their sight. Neither they
nor their children were again to till the soil of England, nor again to
traverse the seas which surround her.[9] But here was a new sea, now
open to their enterprise, and a new soil, which had not failed to
respond gratefully to their laborious industry, and which was already
assuming a robe of verdure.
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