Forefathers Day: December 21

The Pilgrims of Plymouth: Our Godly Forefathers Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Galatians 5:1

Introduction

December 21 is the day that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock and began the process of colonizing New England for the glory of God. In Plymouth stands The National Monument to the Forefathers, a monument to the Christian character and faith of this brave group of godly men and women. If you ever travel to Plymouth, don’t miss the opportunity to study this incredible monument. Make sure to have with you the book Plymouth in the Words of Her Founders by Dr. Paul Jehle, Executive Director of the Plymouth Rock Foundation. [1] This book contains an outstanding interpretation of all the symbolism in this powerful witness to our Christian heritage.

Providential View of History

The providential view of history has been the predominant view in Western culture for approximately 500 years, from the 1400’s to 1900. After 1900, the rise of competing views based upon atheism caused both children and adults to forget the hand of God in our history. History is reinterpreted according to a new set of non-Biblical presuppositions.

Let us begin by defining providential history. Noah Webster defines providence:

In theology, the care and superintendence that God exercises over His creatures. He that acknowledges a creation and denies a providence, involves himself in a palpable contradiction; for the same power which caused a thing to exist is necessary to continue its existence. Some persons admit a general providence, but deny a particular providence, not considering that a general providence consists of particulars. A belief in divine providence is a source of great consolation to good men. By divine providence is often understood God himself.

Charles Rollin, a French historian writing in the early 1700’s, produced a multi–volume work on ancient history. Before he launched into his history, he felt it necessary to give the reader his views on the correct understanding and interpretation of history. Accordingly, he wrote a seventeen-page essay on the providential view of history, which he embraced. Following is one portion:

But another object of infinitely greater importance claims our attention. For although profane history treats only of nations who had imbibed all the chimeras of a superstitious worship, and abandoned themselves to all the irregularities of which human nature, after the fall of the first man, became capable; it nevertheless proclaims universally the greatness of theAlmighty, His power, His justice, and, above all, the admirable wisdom with which His providence governs the universe. If the inherent conviction of this last truth raised, according to Cicero’s observation, the Romans above all other nations; we may, in like manner, affirm, that nothing gives history a greater superiority to many other branches of literature, than to see in a manner imprinted in almost every page of it, the precious footsteps and shining proofs of this great truth, viz. that God disposes all events as supreme Lord and sovereign; that he, for reasons inscrutable to all but himself, transfers the government of kingdoms from one nation to another. We discover this important truth in going back to the most remote antiquity, and the origin of profane history; I mean to the dispersion of the posterity of Noah into the several countries of the earth where they settled. Liberty, chance, views of interest, a love for certain countries, and similar motives, were, in outward appearance, the only causes of the different choice which men made in these various migrations. But the Scriptures inform us, that amidst the trouble and confusion that followed the sudden change on the language of Noah’s descendants, God presided invisibly over all their councils and deliberations; that nothing was transacted but by the Almighty’s appointment; and that he alone guided and settled all mankind agreeably to the dictates of his mercy and justice. The Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of the earth. [2]

Rev. S.W. Foljambe, a Baptist minister, preached an Election Sermon in 1876 entitled The Hand of God in American History. Foljambe carefully defined a providential view of history in this published sermon:

The more thoroughly a nation deals with its history, the more decidedly will it recognize and own an over–ruling Providence therein, and the more religious a nation will it become; while the more superficially it deals with its history, seeing only secondary causes and human agencies, the more irreligious will it be . . . The events of history are not accidents. There are no accidents in the lives of men or of nations. We may go back to the underlying cause of every event, and discover in each,God’s overruling and intervening wisdom. It has been said that history is the biography of communities; in another, and profounder sense it is the autobiography of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will (Ephesians 1:11), and who is graciously timing all events in the interests of His Christ, and of the kingdom of God on earth. [3]

As we think about the Pilgrims, and our godly heritage, let us not just look at the events but the hand of God directing their lives. This was the way that they looked at life. Let us marvel at the way God used a small congregation from England to firmly plant the Biblical worldview on our shores as the seed of a great Christian nation.

England at the Time of the Pilgrims

The year is 1509, and Henry VIII ascends the throne for a 38–year reign. England is Catholic with church and stated united, and top-down control, resulting in very little liberty for the individual. In 1547, Henry’s son Edward VI, a Puritan, becomes king, providing a short reprieve from the tyranny of Catholic rule. Mary Tudor (Bloody Mary) becomes Queen and persecutes Protestant Christians with the primary goal of reestablishing Catholicism. Thousands of Protestants flee the country and Geneva becomes the center of Bible translation. Such Bible scholars as Anthony Gilby, John Knox and William Whittingham (brother-in-law of John Calvin) work tirelessly to produce Bibles in English, Spanish, French and Italian. The Geneva Bible is produced in just two years and instantly becomes the most popular Bible in England. Mary’s reign is followed by Elizabeth I (Good Queen Bess) who reestablishes religious freedom.

It has been observed that the Geneva Bible became the book that brought about a reformation in three countries— England, Scotland, and America. In Scotland, it became the official Bible by an act of Parliament. In England, it was the book that caused historian John Green to observe, “England became a people of a book and that book was the Bible.”

The Puritans recognized the corruption in the state church and wanted to reform and purify it. A group of Puritans began to have different ideas of how to live and relate to the existing ecclesiastical structures. They became known as the Separatists because they wanted to separate themselves from the corruption of the church rather than try to reform it from within; the most famous of these Separatists were known as the Pilgrims. Leonard Bacon, American Congregational preacher and writer of the 1800s, describes the differences between the two:

In the old world on the other side of the ocean, the Puritan was a Nationalist, believing that a Christian nation is a Christian church, and demanding that the Church of England should be thoroughly reformed; while the Pilgrim was a Separatist, not only from the Anglican Prayer-book and Queen Elizabeth’s episcopacy, but from all national churches. Between them there was sharp contention . . . The Pilgrim wanted liberty for himself and his wife and little ones, and for his brethren, to walk with God in aChristian life as the rules and motives of such a life were revealed to him from God’s Word. For that he went into exile; for that he crossed the ocean; for that he made his home in a wilderness. The Puritan’s idea was not liberty, but right government in church and state — such government as should not only permit him, but also compel other men to walk in the right way. [4]

William Bradford, who became the governor of the Pilgrims, kept a diary that later became one of the most authoritative sources on the history of the Pilgrims. One of the earliest pieces of literature written in America, it became known as The History of Plymouth Plantation. Bradford relates the spiritual awakenings of those who became known as the Pilgrims:

When as by the travell and diligence of some godly and zealous preachers, and God’s blessing on their labours, as in other places of the land, so in the North parts, many became inlighted by the word of God, and had their ignorance and sins discovered unto them, and began by his grace to reforme their lives, and make conscience of their ways, the worke of God was no sooner manifest in them, but presently they were both scoffed and scorned by ye prophane multitude . . . and ye poor people were so vexed with apparators, and pursuants, and ye comissarie courts, as truly their affliction was not smale . . . and whose harts ye Lord had touched wth heavenly Zeale for his trueth, they shooke of this yoake of antichristian bondage, and as yeLords free people, in ye fellowship of ye gospel, to walke in all his wayes. [5]

Pilgrim Defined

Not surprisingly, the name “Pilgrim” comes from the Scriptures:

Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against your soul; (I Peter 2:11)

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:13–16)

Noah Webster defines a pilgrim as, “A wanderer; a traveler; in scripture, one that has only a temporary residence on earth. Hebrews 11.” [6]

Pilgrims Forced to Flee Their Country

The Pilgrims were not allowed to worship God freely, according to the dictates of their conscience. After experiencing much persecution, and not seeing any other solution, the Pilgrims decided they would leave England and go to Holland, where they anticipated being able to practice their faith without harassment. But as Bradford relates, even though England persecuted them, it did not want them to leave either:

But these things did not dismay them (though they did some times trouble them) for their desires were sett on ye ways of God, and to injoye his ordinances; but they rested on his providence, and knew whom they had believed. Yet this was not all, for though they could not stay, yet were ye not suffered to goe, but ye ports and havens were shut against them, so as they were faine to seeke secrete means of conveance, & to bribe & fee ye mariners, & give exterordinarie rates for their passages. And yet were they often times betrayed (many of them), and both they & their goods intercepted & surprised, and therby put to great trouble & charge, of which I will give an instance or tow, & omitte the rest. [7]

The behavior of the Pilgrims during these trials was so exemplary, that their cause became famous, and Bradford concludes, that it “occasioned many to looke into ye same; and their godly carriage & Christian behaviour was such as left a deep impression in the minds of many.” [8]

Life In Holland

The Pilgrims first lived in Amsterdam, Holland with their pastor, John Robinson, and Mr. William Brewster, an elder. After one year they moved to Leyden, Holland:

So as they grew in knowledge & other gifts & graces of ye spirite of God, & lived together in peace, & love, and holiness; and many came unto them from diverse parts of England, so as they grew a great congregation. [9]

After eleven years in Leyden, the Pilgrims were contemplating moving to the New World. The reasons were varied and included the following:

1. In Holland, both parents and children were forced to do hard labor.
   
2. War with Spain was probable, so they would have to suffer the hardships of war.
   
3. Their children were English, and yet they were becoming more and more like the Dutch.

   But was most lamentable, and of all sorrows most heavie to be borne, was that many of their children, by these occasions, and ye great licentiousness of youth in yt countrie, and ye manifold temptations of the place, were drawn away by evill examples into extravagante & dangerous courses, getting ye raines off their neks, & departing from their parents . . . to ye great greefe of their parents and dishonour of God. . . . So that they saw their posteritie would by in danger to degenerate & be corrupted. [10]

   
   
4. The final reason Bradford lists makes it clear that one of their primary motivations for coming to the New World was, to spread the gospel: Lastly, (and which was not least,) a great hope & inward zeal they had of laying some good foundation, or at least to make some way thereunto, for ye propagating & advancing ye gospel of ye kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of ye world; yea, though they should be but even as stepping-stones unto others for ye performing of so great a work. [11]

They decided to go to the northern parts of Virginia with the help of the Virginia Company. There were many objections to this plan, including the possibility of famine, nakedness, want and sickness, the great cost, and the possibility of harm at the hands of the Indians. Bradford records this inspiring answer to these objections:

It was answered, that all great & honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both enterprisedand overcome with answerable courages. It was granted ye dangers were great, but not desperate; the difficulties were many,but not invincible. For though their were many of them likely, yet they were not certaine; it might be sundrie of ye thingsfeared might never befale; others by providente care & ye use of good means, might in a great measure be prevented; and all ofthem, through ye help of God, by fortitude and patience, might either be borne or overcome. [12]

Pastor John Robinson

Their pastor, John Robinson, decided not to accompany them, since a great part of his congregation was remaining in Holland. In his parting message, among other things, he taught them about self and civil government:

And first, as we are daly to renew our repentance with our God, espetially for our sines known, and generally for our unknowne trespasses, so doth ye Lord call us in a singular maner upon occasions of shuch difficultie & danger as lieth upon you, to a more narrow search & carefull reformation of your ways in his sight . . . Now next after this heavenly peace with God & our owne consciences, we are carefully to provide for peace with all men what in us lieth, espetially with our associates, &for yt watchfullnes must be had, that we neither at all in our selves doe give, no nor easily take offence being given by others. . . Lastly, wheras you are become a body politik, using amongst your selves civille governmente, and are not furnished with any persons of spetiall eminencie above ye rest, to be chosen by you into office of government, let your wisdome & godliness appeare, not only in chusing shuch persons as doe entirely love and will promote ye comone good, but also in yeelding unto them all due honour & obedience in their lawfull administrations; [13]

Rough Seas

One hundred-two Pilgrims and strangers were cramped into a very small space below the deck of the Mayflower for sixty-six days of rough weather, crossing the Atlantic Ocean. One child was born during the journey; his parents named him Oceanus. There was one Pilgrim death, Dorothy Bradford, the wife of the Pilgrims’ future governor and chronicler, William Bradford. At one point the main beam of the ship cracked and the small ship was in great peril; providentially the Pilgrims brought along a “great iron screw” which was used to make the repair.

Because they had been blown off course and landed further north than they had anticipated, they would be living in an area not covered by their Virginia Company patent. It was therefore necessary for them to devise their own government. The resulting first act was to draw up what has been named the Mayflower Compact, part of which follows:

In ye the name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten . . . having undertaken, for ye glorie of God, and advancemente of ye Christian faith, and honour of our king & countrie, a voyage to plant ye first colonie in ye Northerne parts ofVirginia, doe by these presents solemnly & mutually in ye presence of God, and one of another, covenant & combine ourselves together into a civill body politick, for our better ordering & preservation & furtherance of ye ends aforesaid; and by virtue hear of to enacte, constitute, and frame such just & equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions, & offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete & convenient for ye generall good of ye Colonie, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. [14]

Notice several observations concerning this remarkable document:

1. This was the first governmental document since the writing of the Old Testament that advocated the idea of Christian self–government.
2. The people, who were voluntarily uniting, formed a covenant to make and obey a set of laws.
3. This document, with the principles that it contained, became the seed for our state and federal constitutions. It was a further step in principles of liberty in line with the Magna Carta (1517), the English Petition of Right (1628) and the English Bill of Rights (1689).

Survival

Consider the situation that the Pilgrims and strangers faced. They had no friends to welcome them. There were no houses, motels or restaurants. They faced hostile Native Americans. They had arrived in New England in the winter (they made landfall on November 20th and landed at their final destination at Plymouth Rock on December 21st). The ship’s crew wanted them to hurry and build shelter so they could return to England. Bradford relates this:

for which way soever they turnd their eys (save upward to ye heavens) they could have litle solace or content in respecte ofany outward objects . . . What could now sustaine them but ye spirite of God & his grace? May not & ought not the childrenof these fathers rightly say: Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in thiswilderness; but they cried unto ye Lord, and he heard their voice, and looked on their adversitie, &c. Let them therefore praiseye Lord, because he is good, & his mercies endure for ever . . . Let them confess before ye Lord his loving kindness, and hiswonderfull works before ye sons of men. [15]

The first winter was unspeakably difficult, with the result that half of this brave band (50) died of exposure and scurvy. At one point there were only six or seven who were healthy, among them Captain Miles Standish and Priscilla Mullins, who lovingly took care of the rest. Through the help of God, they carried on. As Bradford relates, “But a man’s way is not in his own power; God can make ye weake to stand; let him also that standeth take heed least he fall.” [16] In the spring, there was an opportunity to return to Holland. None left!

Native Americans

On the 16th of March, an American Indian named Samoset walked boldly into their plantation and asked in English, “Do you have some beer?” Samoset had a friend named Squanto (Tisquantum) who had been captured by an English sea captain and taken to England. He had been brought back to his homeland speaking English. Squanto’s tribe (the Patuxets), who were very fierce and had lived in the area where the Pilgrims landed, had been mysteriously wiped out by a plague a few years before the Pilgrims arrived. Squanto became a very special instrument in the hands of God to assist the Pilgrims in survival.

The Pilgrims were soon in contact with Massasoit, chief of the neighboring Wampanoag tribe. They made an agreement with Massasoit that the Pilgrims and Indians would live peaceably. They agreed that they would respect each other’s property and they devised penalties if either violated this rule. This remarkable treaty lasted over 50 years, the lifetimes of the Pilgrim Fathers.

What is the Common Understanding of Who the Pilgrims Were?

Just to cite one example of revisionist history, consider the falsehood that schoolchildren learn about the Pilgrims as they are prepared to take the Virginia SOL exams:

By contrast, the English settlers usually wound up on poor terms with the local people. The colonists who sailed to Virginiaand Massachusetts did not bring enough food for their first winters. The Virginians failed to plant sufficient crops and had torely on local Indians to feed them. The Pilgrims in Massachusetts got help from the local Indians. To stop the colonists fromstealing their food, the Indians taught the colonists how to grow their own. Within a few years, however, the Indians wouldfind that the colonists were taking over more and more of their land. [17]

The Pilgrims and Liberty

In a very real sense our 1776 Declaration of Independence began with the Pilgrims, as they declared their independence from man, who had tyrannized them, and claimed absolute and total dependence on God. They had laid the foundation for our Biblical constitutional republic by practicing Christian self–government, and by writing and implementing a constitution based upon the word of God (in 1636 they completed the writing of a constitution).

Dr. Charles Wolfe, President of the Plymouth Rock Foundation, elaborates on the six kinds of liberty planted in this nation by the Pilgrims:

1. Spiritual Liberty, 1600, England. 
   Convinced they had a God–given right to own, read and interpret their own Bibles(which was then against the law), the Pilgrims studied the Scriptures and concluded that merely attending the Church of England and acknowledging its creed, was not enough; they had to know the Word, admit their sin, receive Christ as Lord of their lives, seek first the kingdom of God, and thus experienced spiritual liberty. As self-governing Christian men and women, thePilgrims continued to develop the character traits that make for prosperity—industry, conscientious work habits, frugality, and thrift, traits that would come in mighty handy twenty years later in coping with adversity in the New England wilderness.
   
2. Religious liberty, 1606, Holland. 
   When the religious and governmental authorities discovered what was going on, the pastor who induced them to get their own Bibles and receive Christ as Lord, was removed from his pulpit. The Pilgrims in turn formed their own church, in the splendid manor house of their elder, William Brewster. But they were soon found out, 49 arrested, and imprisoned. When finally released, they fled to Holland, where they had real religious liberty. But Holland enjoyed an undisciplined, worldly freedom that was corrupting their children. And so the Pilgrims took off for America.
   
3. Political liberty, 1620, Cape Cod. 
   While still aboard their ship, the Pilgrims transmuted their covenant for church self government into the world’s first contract for civil self–government, the Mayflower Compact. Only half of the 100-plus passengers were Pilgrims, the rest were strangers, members of the Church of England who admired the Pilgrims, wanted to come, and had special occupational abilities, such as carpenters, roof thatchers, and military leaders, making them of much practical value.
   
4. Defense of liberty, 1621, Cape Cod and Plymouth. 
   The Pilgrims were idealists but not naïve. They chose an outstanding military leader before they left Holland, and the Pilgrim militia practiced regularly, first in the Old World, then in the New.From previous bad experiences with white men, the Indians, at the famed First Encounter with the Pilgrims, tried to kill all the Pilgrims off. The Pilgrims picked up their loaded muskets, shot back with deadly accuracy, and soon convinced the natives that these white men really knew how to defend themselves, and were not to be messed with. In the following months and years, the Pilgrims made peace with the Indians, proved themselves to be the best friends the Indians ever had, and formed a peace treaty that was kept for fifty years, throughout the lifetimes of the signers. The defense of liberty paid off.
   
5. Economic liberty, 1623. 
   At first the Pilgrims were obligated to practice communal agriculture, under an agreement insisted upon by the English merchants who put up the money for the expedition, hoping to make a profit. It wasn’t that these English businessmen believed in socialism, they just thought it would be convenient for them as investors if all the Pilgrims owned the land in common, threw everything they produced into the common store-house, took out of it equally, only what people needed to stay alive and healthy, and called the remainder the investor’s profit. The Pilgrims objected to this socialist arrangement, yet the merchants insisted. But the first year under communal agriculture they planted only 26 acres and nearly starved to death. The second year, knowing they were under obligation to the communal system, . . . planted 60 acres, but still went desperately hungry. Convinced they had made a bad bargain, contrary to everybody’s best interests, and against their own Biblical belief, in 1623, the Pilgrims switched to private property and individual enterprise. They made each family responsible for itself, planted 184 acres, and never went hungry again. With communal enterprise behind them, the success of individual enterprise proven, the Pilgrim economy was soundly based, and went into high gear. [18]
   
6. Constitutional liberty, 1636. 
   Thus in 1636, not working only from theory, no matter how sound, but drawing also on some fifteen years of experience in self-government in the new world, the Pilgrims held a kind of mini-constitutional convention, which framed the Laws of the Pilgrims, also known as the Laws of Plymouth, a basic constitution that was revised from time to time but never abandoned. The preamble to the 1671 version, introduced “with grace and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ,” began this way:
   
   It was the great privilege of Israel of old, and so acknowledged by them (Nehemiah 9:13) that God gave them right judgments and true laws, which are so far good and wholesome as by how much they are derived from and agreeable to, the ancient platform of God’s law. [19]

To these six types of liberty, I add one more: educational liberty. The Pilgrims and Puritans gave their children a Biblically–based education provided for by parents, not civil government. Thus a practice was born in our nation that lasted over 200 years, up to the early 1800’s. The first educational institution built in America was Harvard College, and its purpose was to develop ministers of the gospel so that the Pilgrims and Puritans would be assured to always have godly and educated men to lead them spiritually. They stated this:

After God had carried us safe to New England, and wee had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our lively–hood, rear’d convenient places for Gods worship, and settled the Civill Government: One of the next things we longed for, and looked after was to advance Learning, and perpetuate it to Posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate Ministry to the Churches, when our present Ministers lie in the dust . . . Rules, and Precepts that are observed in the Colledge . . . Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and JesusChrist which is eternall life, John 17:3, and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning . . . [20]

Conclusion

These inspiring words of William Bradford are inscribed on the Forefathers Monument in Plymouth, Massachusetts: “Thus out of small beginnings . . . as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation, let the glorious name of Jehovah have all the praise.”

Celebrate Forefathers Day with Your Family!

• Read a good book about the Pilgrims together as a family. Suggestions are listed below. Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims of Plymouth The Mayflower Pilgirms by Edmund Janes Carpenter Stories of the Pilgrims by Margaret B. Pumphrey
• Adapt the ideas for celebrating from the Thanksgiving chapter.
• Visit the The National Monument to the Forefathers in Plymouth Center, Massachusetts and tour the re-created settlement of Plimoth Plantation (plimoth.org).
• Enjoy and perform the play, “The Steadfast Faith of the Pilgrims” on page 118 of this book.

Endnotes 

1. Paul Jehle, Plymouth in the Words of Her Founders (San Antonio, TX: Vision Forum Ministries, 2002) 
2. Charles Rollin, The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Macedonians, and Grecians (New York, New York: George Long, 1827), 13, 14 
3. Verna M. Hall, The Christian History of the American Revolution: Consider and Ponder (San Francisco, CA: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1966), 46 
4. Verna M. Hall, The Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America, Vol. 1: Christian Self-Government (San Francisco, CA: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1966), 182 
5. Ibid, 185 
6. Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (San Francisco, CA: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1967) 
7. Verna M. Hall, The Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America, Vol. 1: Christian Self-Government (San Francisco, CA: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1966), 186 
8. Ibid, 188 
9. Ibid, 190 
10. Ibid, 192–193 
11. Ibid, 193 
12. Ibid, 194 
13. Ibid, 200 
14. Ibid, 204 
15. Ibid, 203 
16. Ibid, 212 
17. Vivienne Hodges, Virginia SOL Coach World History and Geography 1500 to Present (New York, NY: Educational Design, 2002), 56 
18. Charles H. Wolfe, The Pilgrims’ Twelve Steps To Economic Prosperity, unpublished essay 
19. Charles H. Wolfe, Who Were The Pilgrims? Letter From Plymouth Rock, (September/October 2002), 5 
20. Verna M. Hall, The Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America, Vol. 1: Christian Self-Government (San Francisco, CA: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1966), 240B 

The Original of this essay appeared as a circular email download, December 3, 2020, from the Foundation of American Christian Education.

© 2020 Used by Permission