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It wasn’t working.  The spring of 1623 saw the Pilgrims into their third year in America.  But there was a serious problem.  They were hungry:  And because of it they had no energy with which to plow their fields and plant their crops.  They knew winter would come again and with it death by starvation if they didn’t go to the fields.  Yet many of them just seemed unable to get themselves moving.

Recognizing the seriousness of their situation, their Governor, William Bradford, called for a meeting of the leaders of the colony.  They didn’t have to discuss their problem very long until they pinpointed what was wrong:  It was the socialistic economy they were trying to labor under.  They had long known this.  The businessmen who had financed their trip had insisted they live by a common storehouse.  In other words, they were to put all their produce into one storehouse, no matter which family had raised that produce.  Then, they were to take out as little as they could get by with for their own needs, and send the rest of it back to England to their financiers as payment for their debt.  The Pilgrims knew this would not work, but the businessmen insisted this is how they must do it.  The Pilgrims knew the Scripture taught that, “If any would not work, neither should he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10).   And they knew that even Christian people, like themselves, had to know they could “reap what they sowed” if they were to produce well.   However, they felt they had no choice.  They had to Continue reading →