In this contemporary time when the sacred is being rejected in our country, Christians need to acknowledge two precious days that we have opportunity to biblically identify our testimony with God. The first is Thanksgiving Day and the second is Christmas. In this issue we want to present both of these days.
To consider the importance of Thanksgiving Day, we must look back into history at the circumstances that surrounded America's first Thanksgiving.
When King James I of England came to the throne, he opposed religious freedom because he considered any who questioned his religious authority to be inherently questioning the extent of his political authority. He especially despised the Puritan groups who opposed the Church of England. He resolved to purge all such groups from his country. Persecution was especially severe for those groups that chose to separate themselves completely from the Church of England and establish their own churches. These people were called Separatists. Separatists believed strongly in Congregationalism, the theory of church government that says that every body of believers should be independent and self-governing. They opposed any civil authority that interfered with the right of the individual to exercise freedom in religious matters.
One such Separatist group, whose hearts the Lord had touched with a zeal for His truth, organized an independent church in Scrooby, England, in 1606, under the leadership of Pastor John Robinson. Many in this humble congregation later became prominent men, especially Elder William Brewster, postmaster at Scrooby, and William Bradford, who was then only a teenager. Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation later became the first American history book granting Bradford the title, "The Father of American History."
When persecution became severe in England, the Scrooby congregation fled to Holland, where there was freedom of worship. In 1609, about three hundred of these Pilgrims arrived in the Dutch city of Leyden; here they enjoyed religious freedom and a successful life. Over the course of eleven years their number increased to over a thousand. However, because of the growing exposure of the worldliness of their Dutch neighbors upon their children, they realized they could not stay in Holland. Added to this was the growing concern that their children could not receive a proper education in Holland. They began to sense a calling to the New World where they believed they could raise their children free from foreign influences. They also had great hope and inward zeal of laying some good foundation for the propagating and advancing of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world.
In order to make arrangements for getting to the New World, the Pilgrims enlisted the aid of an English Puritan nobleman Sir Edwin Sandys. With his help, in 1620, they secured a patent from the London Company to settle within its territory in Virginia. Because the Pilgrims could not afford to finance the project, they entered into an agreement with a group of businessmen who came to be called the Adventurers. As a result, a company of shareholders was formed. The Adventurers would finance the expedition to America and would share in the profits of the Pilgrims for the first seven years. To help ensure the success of the project, the Adventurers secured additional settlers in England, of whom most were not Separatists.
In Holland the Pilgrims secured the ship Speedwell. Because only a small portion of the congregation in Leyden could be carried on the Speedwell, for the time being, others would have to remain behind. Those remaining would join the first Pilgrims in America as soon as possible. John Robinson, being a faithful pastor, chose to remain behind with the majority of his congregation. His farewell to the departing Pilgrims challenged them to remain faithful to the Truth of the Word of God and to seek diligently to separate truth from error. The Speedwell sailed to England. There the other recruits gathered by the Adventurers were waiting on another ship, the Mayflower. As both ships made two false starts for North America, each time the Speedwell sprang leaks and had to return to port. Finally, it was abandoned forcing as many as possible to crowd onto the Mayflower. The rest were forced to stay behind for a future passage. On September 6, 1620, the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth for the New World; in addition to officers and crew, a hundred and two souls were on board.
Only thirty-five of the passengers aboard the Mayflower were from the Leyden congregation; the other sixty-six from Southampton and London were almost all non-Separatists. The Separatists called these others "Strangers," not implying, however, that they could not live or work with such people. Most of the Strangers were Anglicans ready to leave England, not for religious causes but rather to seek better economic opportunity. Although later historians have in their listings divided the passenger names of the Mayflower into the two groups of Separatists and Strangers, it is interesting to note that Bradford's listing intermingled the two without distinction.
On November 9, 1620, after sixty-six hard days at sea, the Mayflower finally reached the shores of North America. However, a storm had evidently blown her far off course, and she landed much too far north, outside the territory of the London Company in which the Pilgrims had permission to settle. With winter rapidly setting in, the Pilgrims decided it was too late to try to reach Virginia; they would have to stay. On November 11, 1620, they maneuvered the ship into Cape Cod harbor. Bradford later wrote,
Being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean.
Before the settlers went ashore, forty-one men went into the cabin of the Mayflower and drew up and signed what has come to be called the Mayflower Compact. These signers included every adult male among the passengers who was at least 21 years old. The Compact set a precedent of government by consent, or government by the will of the governed. While pleading their continued submission to the King of England, they also consented to pledge submission to the authorities that would be set up in their new land. They sailed farther up the coast from Cape Cod, and landed at Plymouth, called New Plymouth to distinguish it from Plymouth, England, from whence they came. On December 21, 1620, they ventured onto the new land.
When the men left the Mayflower on that December morning, they commenced their exploration of the land. In the providence of God, they came to a parcel of land that had already been cleared. This is where the colonists would establish themselves in the New World. They later discovered the Indians had cleared this land for a settlement, but disease had taken many of them in death. Because the Indians believed the land cursed, they were of no threat to the settlers that first year. None the less, the new Plymouth settlement lost a good number of their own that winter because they were not accustomed to the extremity of hardships that awaited them in this wilderness. John Carver, although elected the first governor of Plymouth, died in 1621 after serving only a few months. William Bradford was then elected and served (with the exception of five years) as governor until his death in 1657.
On a March morning in 1621, an Indian named Squanto came into the village. He spoke the settlers' native tongue having previously spent some time in England. While he was in England, his tribe had been killed by a disease on the very spot of the new settlement. When he returned and found that his tribe had died, Squanto then lived among other tribes. The providence of God established him as a valuable friend to the weary and tried settlers. He taught them how to plant Indian corn, using fish for fertilizer. He showed them how to dig along the rows and across the rows. Eventually the corn came up in the colors of red, blue, yellow, green, and black grains.
By the end of the first summer of 1621, the Lord had given the settlers a good harvest. It was through the private Bible readings of Governor William Bradford that the first Thanksgiving was appointed. Two passages of Scripture were used to stir his heart. The first is found in Deuteronomy 16:13:
Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles . . . after that thou hast gathered in thy corn.
Another passage is found in Deuteronomy 16:14:
And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter . . . and the stranger.
Sometime between September and mid-November three days were set aside for a time of thanksgiving. These days were filled with the reading of Scripture and prayer, as well as the feasting from the bounty of providence. Even approximately ninety Indians were invited for this Feast of Thanksgiving.
In 1789, President George Washington issued a Thanksgiving Day Proclamation to commemorate the first Pilgrim celebration. However, Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, discontinued it, calling Thanksgiving "a kingly practice." It was not until 1826 that Mrs. Hale, the editor of a leading magazine and author of the poem "Mary Had a Little Lamb," began campaigning for the restoration of Thanksgiving as a national holiday. Finally, in 1863, President Lincoln listened seriously to her plea that the North and South "lay aside enmities and strife on Thanksgiving Day." He proclaimed the fourth Thursday of November to be the official "National Thanksgiving Day."
Thus was the beginning of such a day in our nation. Oh, that we would be thankful to God today and every day for all of His goodness and mercy upon our undeserving lives and country. AMEN!