On September 16th, 1620, the Mayflower, crammed with 102 Pilgrims and other
passengers seeking a new life and religious liberties in America, sailed from
Plymouth, England "into the pages of history."
On November 19, 1620, a shout went up: "Land!" Everyone rushed on deck. Barely
visible many miles away a strip of shoreline could be seen.
Two days later the vessel reached Provincetown Bay in Massachusetts. As the ship
found its way to the vast bay and dropped anchor the Pilgrims saw stretching before
them a dark forbidding wall of forest.
These liberties didn't come all at once. Much was learned the hard way. An example
was the Pilgrims' experiment with communal farming, which caused them to almost
starve during the first two years. Some worked some did not.
Facing their third year of starvation, the elders of Plymouth demanded the
institution of a biblically based free enterprise system in order to prevent the
total destruction of their colony. In other words communal land was divided into
privately owned farms.
Governor Bradford tells us in his Diary that "this made all hands very industrious,
and gave far better content...."
This solution to poverty was another beacon pointing the way. In Bradford's words:
"As one small candle may light a thousand so the light kindled here has shown unto
many, yea, in some sort, to our whole nation" (History of Plymouth Plantation).
That light did keep on shining, and the nation kept growing and prospering. As Saint
Francis of Assisi advised: "Start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible,
and suddenly you are doing the impossible."