America's Prophet Read Online Free PDF Page A

these ideals appear throughout the Bible, they are introduced with Moses: the prophet who stands up to the mightiest king ever known; the individual to whom God entrusts the Ten Commandments; and the figure stopped short of his ultimate destination when he disobeys God’s word.
    Among Protestants, Moses was arguably the preeminent figure of the Hebrew Bible. Luther himself was frequently compared to him. As the centenary of Luther’s posting the Ninety-five Theses approached in 1617, an occasion for which Protestants invented the century as a landmark of historical measurement, the German monk was hailed as Europe’s Moses, the man who led the chosen people out from papal bondage. The Pilgrims took the Protestants’ interest in Hebrew Scripture to its ultimate extreme by reenacting Moses’ journey. By foisting themselves across the sea on an “errand into thewilderness” of America, ordinary citizens could now cast themselves as actors in the greatest drama ever conceived. In effect, everyone could now be Moses. As John Milton wrote in 1644, “The time seems come, wherein Moses the great Prophet may sit in heaven rejoicing to see that…all the Lord’s people are become prophets.”

    Title page of the 1560 edition of the Geneva Bible, which depicts the Israelites camped before the Red Sea. (Courtesy of The Library of Congress)
    “Protestants viewed themselves as living in biblical time,” Jim Baker explained as we walked toward Pulpit Rock. “To them, theBible represents the original church, and they want to be a part of it. In coming to God’s New Israel, they viewed themselves as re-creating God’s original kingdom that had been occluded by the manmade church.”
    For Pilgrims and Puritans who came to America, the Exodus story took on an even deeper resonance because they were breaking away not simply from the Catholic Church but from the Church of England as well.
    “There’s very little precedent for what they did,” Jim said, “and they realized that their actions were not going to go over very well with the authorities. Therefore you’ve got to convince yourself—and everybody else—that breaking away from England was a good idea. To do that, you go back to the source, like a lawyer citing precedent. The Bible was the ultimate source, and the Exodus the ultimate example.”
     
    PULPIT ROCK IS located in a small clearing, surrounded by clover, dandelions, and daisies. It’s a granite boulder that weighs about thirty tons and was deposited here during the last glacier period, when retreating ice ferried down chunks of granite from New Hampshire. Plymouth Rock arrived in the same way. Neither boulder appears in contemporaneous accounts; they were added to the story more than a century after the Pilgrims landed.
    Once the men of the Old Colony Club had assembled, a member climbed to the top of Pulpit Rock and began tapping out a tune on a snare drum. He later told me he had played a similar song upon the arrival of the Mayflower II in 1957 when the captain sidled up to him and said, “Laddie, could you pick up the pace. We haven’t had a bath in sixty days.”
    Then Harold Boyer, at ninety-seven, the senior member of the club, was hoisted to the summit. “Friends of the Old Colony Club,” he said. “When I first became a member, I was attracted by the fellowship, but also the responsibility to perpetuate the memory of the Pilgrims.”
    He carefully recapitulated the Pilgrims’ story, from their departure from Holland to their landing on Cape Cod to the dawning of their first day on Clark’s Island. “They were ready to set out the next day, Sunday,” he said, “and seek a permanent place for landing. But Sunday was the Sabbath, so they set aside every other thing and worshiped. The first service in the New World.” He pointed out a carving on Pulpit Rock that said ON THE SABBOTH DAY WEE RESTED .
    “Today, my friends, Americans have lost connection with the Pilgrims. We have forgotten the