The year was 1862. The bloody seven-day battle at Harrison Landing, also called the Peninsular Campaign in Virginia, had just concluded. General Daniel Butterfield had lost 600 men and was wounded himself. He thought that the traditional bugle call to mark the end of the day, known as “Lights Out,” was too formal and not…
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Remember the one who fell overboard from the Mayflower? John Howland, the young man whose life was almost snuffed out in 1620, is John Howland the man in 1634 – in command of a post 170 miles north of Plymouth, refereeing a political dispute, driving away a threat to Plymouth’s wellbeing, and coming out of…
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You may recall the sad saga of Rev. John Lyford we chronicled in the June e-news of this year. In summary, the Pilgrim congregation in Plymouth had been taught by Pastor John Robinson in Leyden to discern the character of their leaders, not just their knowledge. This is why it took a while for the…
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John Hancock, at 24 years of age, witnessed the coronation of King George III (who was 22) in London on September 22, 1761. Hancock had graduated from Harvard in 1754 and was on a business trip for his uncle, Thomas. He was there when George II died, and he wrote his uncle that he hoped…
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To set the context for this story, we need to rehearse the theology of the Pilgrim Church in relation to its minister. Pastor John Robinson had taught them in Leiden that “a company of faithful people thus covenanting together are a church, though they be without any officers among them.” Robinson had taught that “if…
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The spring of 1624 in Plymouth brought a contrast of character that provides lessons today for both the youngest of children all the way to those old enough to have experienced these observations first-hand. Bradford writes, “They began now highly to prize corn as more precious than silver, and those that had some to spare…
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In the spring of 1624, the Pilgrims realized that changing the “common course and condition” (communal farming) to a private initiative where each family was responsible to produce its own corn was wise. Bradford writes, “…Having found the benefit of last year’s harvest, and setting corn for their particular, having thereby with a great deal…
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Battles inspire us when we rehearse the ideas worthing dying for. Texas was initially owned by Spain, but as George McAlister writes, “Three major independent factors changed the destiny of Texas.” They were U.S. independence from Britain in 1781, U.S. acquisition of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, and the independence of Mexico from…
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On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at the now-famous March on Washington. About two thirds of the way into his speech, he paraphrased Amos 5:24 when he said, “We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” Amos the prophet, writing in 760 B.C.,…
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On January 10, 1920, the League of Nations was founded by the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. The initial covenant of the League was signed on June 28, 1919 as a part of the Treaty of Versailles. One of the chief architects of both the Treaty and the League, and the…
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On December 2, 1823, the Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed by President Monroe. It was the culmination of key ideas drawn from the Bible and articulated in the Reformation. Three words came to define the foreign policy of America and the application of the Monroe Doctrine: independence (rejecting interdependence), neutrality (rejecting intermeddling), and interposition (rejecting interventionism.)…
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Most people may be aware that the “teddy bear” has some relation to President Theodore Roosevelt. However, the embedded lessons that can be learned can be seen as lessons from the Pilgrims in 1620 who planted a church in covenant with Christ and one another. They were willing to endure hardship, “whatsoever it should cost…
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On October 21, 1797, the USS Constitution was launched in Boston Harbor after two previous failed attempts. The Naval Armament Act, signed by George Washington on March 27, 1794, authorized six frigates. She was the third to be completed, preceded by United States and Constellation. The other three were Congress, Chesapeake, and President. Essentially this…
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When William Bradford, over 10 years after the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, pondered the real mission of the Leyden Church migrating to the new world, he wrote that: “A great hope and inward zeal they had for the propagating and advancing the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the…
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The Pilgrims and the Puritans celebrated two types of prayer services: fasting (and humiliation), as well as thanksgiving. As I wrote in my book, Journey of Faith: “To the Pilgrim, as well as the Puritan, everything was religious, but a prayer and fast day was called in the spring (regularly by 1694), to confess sin…
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