IT is well known that the Pilgrim Fathers, weary of their perils at sea and eager for a foothold on shore, refused to disembark at Plymouth Rock on the day of their arrival, because inasmuch as the day was Saturday, they could not reach the land and establish themselves before the night that brought in the Lord’s Day. Their mast was broken in three places, their rudder was disabled, the fierce wind was driving sleet and snow in their faces, yet when they found themselves on Saturday at Clark’s Island not far from the coveted shores of the mainland, they would not cross the intervening water nor begin their home-making on the Lord’s Day. Instead they waited in the December cold and discomfort till Monday ere they landed at Plymouth Rock. They stayed on Clarks’ Island because they wished to obey the Fourth Commandment. Such was their interpretation of works of necessity and mercy on their Day of Rest. Dr Alexander Mackenzie has well said—”If I were to build a monument to the Pilgrims, one which should generously represent the character of the men, it should be on Clark’s Island. It was the indulgence of their fondest desires to step on Plymouth Rock. They had not come in that wintry time, to lose a day of waiting hard by the place where they were to abide. But they stayed on Clark’s Island because they loved God and reverenced His law. That persistence and that principle—the lingering there because the next day was the Sabbath—I think is more heroic than the comparatively tame act of stepping their foot upon the shore they had crossed the sea to find.”—”Bulletin” of the New York Sabbath Committee.