Weir, Embarkation of the Pilgrims
United States Capitol rotunda, Washington, DC

The original Pilgrim Fathers of Plymouth Rock were separatists. They thought the church back in England was doomed, irrecoverably corrupt, and they wanted to escape from it. They came to America in the spirit of hermits, leaving a wicked world to seek their own salvation in the wilderness. John Winthrop saw things quite differently. He did not wish to separate himself from the Anglican church. He thought it reddemable. But, because of its weekness, the redemptive act could take place only in New England. Therefore the New England colony was to be a pilot church and state, which would create and ideal spiritual and secular community, whose example should in turn convert and save the old world too. He set out these ideas to his fellow-travelers in a shipboard sermon, in which he emphasized the global importance of their mission in a striking phrase: 'We must consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.'