Kelsey Woods- MNS 3

At the begining of this text Gatta describes the thoughts and feelings of the pilgrams when they first saw land. He says that the pilgrams thought of America as a holy land, that God had lead them here to practice their religion and they were finally free of the tyrrany of England. I think that the pilgrams probably did feel almost a divine sense of relief when finally seeing land. Hope does amazing things for a humans soul and this was hope of an entirely new country based on freedom and puritan ideals. I don't think it would take much divine intervention for this feeling to occur. Theres no telling whether or not God was here when the puritans arrived, but he was alive in them and that gave them the ability to feel like he was standing right next to them. I feel like the level of emotion the settlers felt the first time they saw land can not be matched today. We can feel hopeful, we can see change come about, but to be able to look at a seemingly uninhabited wilderness and the prospect of creating an ideal socitey is no longer possible simpley because there is no part of the world that is inhabitable that is still unexplored.