"Let us thank God for that He hath led us into a land of corn, and guided us for so many weary days, over so many dreary miles," said William Brewster, the elder of the pilgrims.
John Carver, who was chosen on the _Mayflower_ as their governor, arose and out of a full heart thanked God for His mercies, as Elder Brewster had recommended.
The _Mayflower_ weighed anchor in the morning to carry her brave freight to their new home. The wind set hard against her, and it was the second day before she entered Plymouth harbour, as they resolved to name their new habitation, a name already bestowed by Captain Smith, and the name of their final port of embarkation in England.
No sign of life met them as the pilgrims disembarked. Silently, with full realization of what lay before them, and how fraught with significance this beginning was, the pilgrims passed from the ship that had so long been their home, and set foot--men, women, and children--upon the soil of America.
A deep murmur arose when the last person was landed, and it happened that Constance Hopkins was the last to step from the boat to the rock on which the landing was made, and to jump light-heartedly to the sand, amid the tall, dried weeds that waved on the shore.
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow," said Elder Brewster, solemnly. The pilgrim band of colonists sang the doxology with bowed heads.
Three days later the shores of the harbour echoed to the ring of axes, the sound of hammers, as the first house was begun, the community house, destined to shelter many families and to store their goods.
"Merry Christmas, Father!" said Constance, coming up to her father in the cold of the early bleak December morning.
"S-s-sh!" warned her father, finger upon lip. "Do you not know, my daughter, that the keeping of Christmas is abjured by us as savouring of popery, and that to wish one merry at yuletide would be reckoned as unrighteousness among us?"
"Ah, but Father, you do not think so! You do not go with all these opinions, and can it be wrong to be merry on the day that gladdened the world?" Constance pleaded.
"Not wrong, but praiseworthy, to be merry under our present condition, to my way of thinking," said Stephen Hopkins, glancing around at the drab emptiness of land and sky and harbour beyond. "Nay, child, I do not think it wrong to rejoice at Christmas, nor do I hold with the severity of most of our people, but because I believe that it will be good to begin anew in a land that is not oppressed, nor torn by king-made wars and sins, I have cast my lot, as has Myles Standish, who is of one mind with me, among this Plymouth band, and we must conform to custom. So wish me Merry Christmas, if you will, but let none hear you, and we will keep our heresies to ourselves."