In William Bradford's OF Plymouth Plantations, the literature comes across as being very effective due to the fact of it being written in a story based form. There are many references to God throughout Bradford's literature which indicates that religion had a major impact on the everyday lives of many if not all. It is believed that their lives are predestined by the hands of God, "But it pleased God before they came half seas over, to smite this young man with grievous disease, of which he died in a desperate manner, and so was himself the first that was thrown overboard. Thus his curses light on his own head, and it was an astonishment to all his fellows for they noted it to be the just hand of God upon him" (21). This meaning that a young man was cursed with a deadly disease and everyone was fine with that because they saw it as being God's way of working things out and it was his destiny to die this way. This Puritan way of seeing things is very different than that of one would see today. When bad was to happen among them they would accept it and move on but when God's goodness showed they all praised him and celebrated. A perfect example is, "Being thus arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element" (22). These few are only blessing God with all their hearts for their safety along the way but seem to forget or neglect the young man that was diseased by God along the way. In that sense God did not deliver them as a whole from all the perils and miseries, just the few that are there now on their knees worshiping. They are just trying to get on God's good side so that nothing bad would to come of them. But wouldn't that just contradict all of their beliefs of being predestined.
