Excerpt from The Pilgrim Fathers: Or the Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, New England, in 1620; With Historical and Local Illustrations of Principles, Providences, and Persons Courteous Reader, be entreated to make a favourable construction of my forwardness, in publishing these ensuing discourses. The desire of carrying the Gospel of Christ into those foreign parts, amongst those people that as yet have had no knowledge nor taste of God, as also to procure unto themselves and others a quiet and comfortable habitation, were amongst other things the inducements unto these undertakers of the then hopeful, and now experimentally known good enterprise for plantation, in New England, to set afoot and prosecute the same: and though it fared with them, as it is common to the most actions of this nature, that the first attempts prove difficult, as the sequel more at large expresseth, yet it hath pleased God, even beyond our expectation in so short a time, to give hope of letting some of them see (though some he hath taken out of this vale of tears) some grounds of hope of the accomplishment of both these ends by them at first propounded. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.