The Provincetown book

authorized by Scripture." So they said. They were Separatists, for they had renounced the established church of England. They were Independents and Congregationalists, each parish electing its own officers, and each parish independent of every other and of all authority but itself. Their opponents, in derision, called them Puritans as being too pure to live on this planet. They were prisoners in England, for conscience' sake. They were exiles in Holland, "harried out of the land." They were Pilgrims on their way to a new world and a new era. They were the minority; the greater part were left behind with John Robinson in Holland. They were the signers of the Compact drawn up in the cabin of the Mayflower, in Province- town Harbor, November 11, 1620, O. S. The Compact IN THE name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign, Lord King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith etc., having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith and the honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern part of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for the better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid: and by virtue hereof do enact, constitute and frame such just and equal...