The Mayflower explorers, along with their leader, William Bradford, knew of the dangers they would soon come to face, but the dissenters put their lives entirely in the hands of their faith in God. The pilgrims mapped out the pros and cons of leaving their home for the promise of something better over-seas. They endured extreme weather conditions traveling to the free world across the Atlantic. Bradford explains that half of the dissenters died from extreme conditions, the harsh winter, before they could make it to the religiously free land; these brave pilgrims became martyrs. For instance, Bradford explains, “The spring now approaching, it pleased God the mortality began to cease amongst them, and the sick and lame recovered apace, which put as it were new life into them; though they had borne their sad affliction with much patience & contentedness, as I think any people could do. But it was the Lord, which upheld them, and had beforehand prepared them; many having long borne the yoke, yea from their youth (Bradford 143).” However, Bradford and his biblical views keep him from sharing personal sufferings throughout the journey. Bradford devoted his himself to God in the religious expedition, which he supposed to do for survival. Consequently, in a self-less scholarly mindset, William Bradford restrained from revealing his wife’s terrible death and focusing on the …show more content…
Bradford and his follower’s believed that if they did good, godly deeds, they will be rewarded for that deed. However, if you do wrong, God will punish you. They viewed at themselves as instruments utilized by God’s will and his will only. For example, Bradford recalls, “But it pleased God before they came half seas over, to smite this young man with a grievous disease, of which he died in a desperate manner, and so was himself the first that was thrown overboard. Thus, his curses lighted on his own head; and it was an astonishment to all his fellows, for they noted it to be the just hand of God upon them” (Bradford 131). This distasteful man was torturing the ill, while traveling overseas, and was threatening to throw their ill bodies over the boat and withhold all of their personal belongings. Consequently, God then punished the retched man by later becoming ill; he was the first body thrown overboard. The Mayflower was damaged during the passage, yet the pilgrims, devoted to God, believed they should keep sailing, for God will not forsake