The Irascible Pilgrim

Ray Stevenson as Stephen Hopkins in Saints & Strangers (2015)

Pastor’s Epistle—November, A.D. 2019 C

In the Year of Our Lord 1609, the 300-ton vessel Sea Venture, en route to Jamestown, Virginia, shipwrecked on Bermuda, the “Isle of Devils.” Stephen Hopkins, a minister’s clerk then in his late twenties, pointed out to his fellow castaways that, according to their charter, the Captain was in charge aboard the Sea Venture and the Governor was in charge in Virginia—but here they found themselves neither aboard ship nor in Virginia. Perhaps, then, they should consider voting in order to determine their next move.

For this temerity, the Governor sentenced Hopkins to hang as a mutineer.

Stephen begged tearfully for his life and for his family, and thereby managed to receive a last-minute pardon; though for his audacity he became immortalized as the drunken fool Stephano in Shakespeare’s shipwreck-comedy The Tempest. Hopkins, however, was neither a fool nor a mutineer. He simply happened to be right.

Years later, after they’d all been rescued and become mildly famous for their misadventures, Hopkins made his way back from Jamestown to England and found himself, in 1620, once again setting out for the New World in a little ship called The Mayflower. He was a Stranger, one of the non-Puritans sent along by the company financing the Pilgrims’ voyage in order to ensure profitability. He was also the only passenger with experience in North America. His brush with death in Bermuda helped to shape the Mayflower Compact; there would be no question as to who was in charge this time.

Hopkins would go on to prove himself one of Plymouth Colony’s most useful and capable citizens, well-versed in hunting, fighting, and wilderness survival. He could speak some Native American languages, and when Squanto joined the Pilgrims’ settlement he lodged in Hopkins’ home.

Later in life, Hopkins firmly established himself as a leading member of the now-prospering New England community—he was in the top 5% tax bracket, and served on the Governor’s Council for at least five consecutive terms—though he had a falling out when, at 55, he severely beat a man half his age. (The court fined him, but refrained from recording the inciting cause. I can’t help but suspect it had something to do with one of his several daughters.) After that, Hopkins opened a tavern and became something of a malcontent, serving beer on the Lord’s Day and suchlike. He never had been Puritan, after all.

Today Hopkins is having a bit of a renaissance in historical studies of early America and of our nascent democratic spirit. Some of Hopkins’ more famous modern descendants include Richard Gere, Norman Rockwell, Tennessee Williams, Taylor Swift, Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle, Avril Lavigne, Ethan Hawke, and Ryan Stout. Moreover, without Hopkins’ experience, grit, and general orneriness, it’s unlikely that Plymouth Colony would have survived as it did, which would change profoundly the history of New England, Thanksgiving, and the United States of America. And to think—it all could have ended on an island in the loop of a noose.

My point is simply this: every human life touches innumerable others. Our actions radiate out into the world and down through the ages like ripples on a pond. No matter how humble or how exalted the life we lead, we can never be sure, here below, exactly what our purpose may be in the pattern of the grand design. Small acts of kindness, of mercy, of generosity may result, centuries from now, in wonders the likes of which we cannot imagine within the brevity of our lifetime. In a real sense, there are no individuals: we are all of us compilations of every ancestor, every neighbor, every love, every friend we’ve ever had, every book we’ve ever read, and every wise word we’ve ever heard.

So be kind. Be selfless. Be adventurous. Be a Pilgrim, if not a Puritan. You never know whose life you will save, or whose world you’ll improve, when you strew good seed all along the path that you trod. Until the Resurrection, that is—when all shall be revealed in its fullness and its beauty, and all we Pilgrims shall be welcomed home again.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.