It was not a time in which
mythical personages or incredible legends could flourish, and such
things we do find in the history of New England. There was nevertheless
a romantic side to this history, enough to envelop some of its
characters and incidents in a glamour that may mislead the modern
reader. This wholesale migration from the smiling fields of merry
England to an unexplored wilderness beyond a thousand leagues of sea was
of itself a most romantic and thrilling event, and when viewed in the
light of its historic results it becomes clothed with sublimity. The men
who undertook this work were not at all free from self-consciousness.
They believed that they were doing a wonderful thing. They felt
themselves to be instruments in accomplishing a kind of "manifest
destiny." Their exodus was that of a chosen people who were at length
to lay the everlasting foundations of God's kingdom upon earth. Such
opinions, which took a strong colour from their assiduous study of the
Old Testament, reacted and disposed them all the more to search its
pages for illustrations and precedents, and to regard it as an oracle,
almost as a talisman. In every propitious event they saw a special
providence, an act of divine intervention to deliver them from the
snares of an ever watchful Satan.
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