One of the most treasured traditions of Thanksgiving in Plymouth is the Pilgrims’ Progress—a recreation of the original Pilgrims’ march to Sunday meeting, followed by a brief presentation of their worship. Many of the participants in the march are devoted Evangelical Christians, home educators, Christian school students, and defenders of America’s providential history.

The Pilgrims’ Progress proceeds past Plymouth Rock and up Leyden Street—America’s oldest street.

In the past, radical groups have assembled to disrupt the march, but this year the Pilgrims’ Progress occurred without incident.

Only about seven women from the Mayflower made it through the first winter. They became the mothers to an entire nation—with more than thirty million descendants.

The Pilgrims’ Progress marched past the resting place of America’s great spiritual Founding Father, Governor William Bradford, the author Of Plymouth Plantation. (The reprint of this important document was the second book ever published by Vision Forum).

The Pilgrims’ Progress ends on Old Burial Hill, where many heroes of early American history are buried, and where the Pilgrims built their fort. The service begins with the singing of the “Old Hundredth” —the 100th Psalm, sung to the Geneva translation version.

The men of the Pilgrim congregation (like the men of the 1607 church at Jamestown) were expected to bring their firearms with them to Sunday service.

Like some modern Christians, the Pilgrims have been wrongly stereotyped for their modest clothing, which most certainly was not drab or colorless, any more than it was uniform in style.

Pastor Gary Marks replicating a sermon of the much beloved Elder William Brewster of the Pilgrim congregation.

My own Christopher Robin beside an eighteenth century grave marker.

A view of Plymouth from atop the Pilgrims’ Burial Hill.