He that would be content with a mean condition, must not cast his eye upon one that is in a far better estate than himself, but let him look upon him that is lower than he is, and, if he see that such a one beares poverty comfortably, it will help to quiet him; but if that will not do, let him look on his owne unworthynes, and that will make him say with Jacob, I am lesse then the least of thy mercys.
LXI.
Corne is produced with much labour, (as the husbandman well knowes), and some land askes much more paines then some other doth to be brought into tilth, yet all must be ploughed and harrowed; some children (like sowre land) are of so tough and morose a dispo(si)tion, that the plough of correction must make long furrows on their back, and the Harrow of discipline goe often over them, before they bee fit soile to sow the seed of morality, much lesse of grace in them. But when by prudent nurture they are brought into a fit capacity, let the seed of good instruction and exhortation be sown in the spring of their youth, and a plentiful! crop may be expected in the harvest of their yeares.
LXII.
As man is called the little world, so his heart may be cal'd the little Commonwealth: his more fixed and resolved thoughts are like to inhabitants, his slight and flitting thoughts are like passengers that travell to and fro continually; here is also the great Court of justice erected, which is always kept by conscience who is both accuser, excuser, witness, and Judge, whom no bribes can pervert, nor flattery cause to favour, but as he finds the evidence, so he absolves or condemnes: yea, so Absolute is this Court of Judicature, that there is no appeale from it—no, not to the Court of heaven itself—for if our conscience condemn us, he, also, who is greater than our conscience, will do it much more; but he that would have boldness to go to the throne of grace to be accepted there, must be sure to carry a certificate from the Court of conscience, that he stands right there.
LXIII.
He that would keep a pure heart, and lead a blameless life, must set himself alway in the awefull presence of God, the consideration of his all-seeing eye will be a bridle to restrain from evill, and a spur to quicken on to good duties: we certainly dream of some remotenes betwixt God and us, or else we should not so often faile in our whole Course of life as we doe; but he that with David sets the Lord alway in his sight, will not sinne against him.
LXIV.
We see in orchards some trees so fruitful, that the waight of their Burden is the breaking of their limbs; some again are but meanly loaden; and some among them are dry stocks: so it is in the church, which is God's orchard, there are some eminent Christians that are soe frequent in good dutys, that many times the waight thereof impares both their bodys and estates; and there are some (and they sincere ones too) who have not attained to that fruitfullness, altho they aime at perfection: And again there are others that have nothing to commend them but only a gay profession, and these are but leavie Christians, which are in as much danger of being cut down as the dry stock, for both cumber the ground.
LXV.
We see in the firmament there is but one Sun among a multitude of starres, and those starres also to differ much one from the other in regard of bignes and brightnes, yet all receive their light from that one Sun: so is it in the church both militant and triumphant, there is but one Christ, who is the Sun of righteousnes, in the midst of an innumerable company of Saints and Angels; those Saints have their degrees even in this life, Some are Stars of the first magnitude, and some of a lesse degree; and others (and they indeed the most in number), but small and obscure, yet all receive their luster (be it more or less) from that glorious Sun that inlightenes all in all; and, if some of them shine so bright while they move on earth, how transcendently splendid shall they be when they are fixt in their heavenly spheres!
LXVI.
Men that have walked very extravagantly, and at last bethink themselves of turning to God, the first thing which they eye, is how to reform their ways rather than to beg forgivenes for their sinnes; nature lookes more at a Compensation than at a pardon; but he that will not come for mercy without mony and without price, but bring his filthy raggs to barter for it, shall meet with miserable disapointment, going away empty, beareing the reproach of his pride and folly.
LXVII.
All the works and doings of God are wonderfull, but none more awfull than his great worke of election and Reprobation; when we consider how many good parents have had bad children, and againe how many bad parents have had pious children, it should make us adore the Soverainty of God who will not be tyed to time nor place, nor yet to persons, but takes and chuses when and where and whom he pleases: it should alsoe teach the children of godly parents to walk with feare and trembling, lest they, through unbeleif, fall short of a promise: it may also be a support to such as have or had wicked parents, that, if they abide not in unbeleif, God is able to grasse them in: the upshot of all should make us, with the Apostle, to admire the justice and mercy of God, and say, how unsearchable are his wayes, and his footsteps past finding out.
LXVIII.
The gifts that God bestows on the sons of men, are not only abused, but most Commonly imployed for a Clean Contrary end, then that which might be so many steps to draw men to God in consideration of his bounty towards them, but have driven them the further from him, that they are ready to say, we are lords, we will come no more at thee. If outward blessings be not as wings to help us mount upwards, they will Certainly prove Clogs and waights that will pull us lower downward.
LXIX.
All the Comforts of this life may be compared to the gourd of Jonah, that notwithstanding we take great delight for a season in them, and find their Shadow very comfortable, yet their is some worm or other of discontent, of feare, or greife that lyes at root, which in great part withers the pleasure which else we should take in them; and well it is that we perceive a decay in their greennes, for were earthly comforts permanent, who would look for heavenly?
LXX.
All men are truly sayd to be tenants at will, and it may as truly be sayd, that all have a lease of their lives—some longer, some shorter—as it pleases our great landlord to let. All have their bounds set, over which they cannot passe, and till the expiration of that time, no dangers, no sicknes, no paines nor troubles, shall put a period to our dayes; the certainty that that time will come, together with the uncertainty how, where, and when, should make us so to number our days as to apply our hearts to wisedome, that when wee are put out of these houses of clay, we may be sure of an everlasting habitation that fades not away.
LXXI.
All weak and diseased bodys have hourly mementos of their mortality. But the soundest of men have likewise their nightly monitor by the embleam of death, which is their sleep (for so is death often called), and not only their death, but their grave is lively represented before their eyes, by beholding their bed; the morning may mind them of the resurrection; and the sun approaching, of the appearing of the sun of righteousnes, at whose comeing they shall all rise out of their beds, the long night shall fly away, and the day of eternity shall never end: seeing these things must be, what manner of persons ought we to be, in all good conversation?
LXXII.
As the brands of a fire, if once feverered, will of themselves goe out, altho you use no other meanes to extinguish them, so distance of place, together with length of time (if there be no intercourse) will cool the affectiones of intimate friends, though tjere should be no displeasance between them.
LXXIII.
A Good name is as a precious oyntment, and it is a great favor to have a good repute among good men; yet it is not that which Commends us to God, for by his ballance we must be weighed, and by his Judgment we must be tryed, and, as he passes the sentence, So shall we stand.
LXXIV.
Well doth the Apostle call riches deceitfull riches, and they may truely be compared to deceitfull friends who speake faire, and promise much, but perform nothing, and so leave those in the lurch that most relyed on them: so is it with the wealth, honours, and pleasures of this world, which miserably delude men, and make them put great confidence in them, but when death threatens, and distresse lays hold upon them, they prove like the reeds of Egipt that peirce instead of supporting, like empty wells in the time of drought, that those that go to finde water in them, return with their empty pitchers ashamed.
LXXV.
It is admirable to consider the power of faith, by which all things are (almost) possible to be done; it can remove mountaines (if need were) it hath stayd the course of the sun, raised the dead, cast out divels, reversed the order of nature, quenched the violence of the fire, made the water become firme footing for Peter to walk on; nay more than all these, it hath overcome the Omnipotent himself, as when Moses intercedes for the people, God sath to him, let me alone that I may destroy them, as if Moses had been able, by the hand of faith, to hold the everlasting arms of the mighty God of Jacob; yea, Jacob himself, when he wrestled with God face to face in Peniel: let me go! sath that Angell. I will not let thee go, replys Jacob, till thou blesse me, faith is not only thus potent, but it is so necessary that without faith there is no salvation, therefore, with all our seekings and gettings, let us above all seek to obtain this pearle of prise.
LXXVI.
Some Christians do by their lusts and Corruptions as the Isralits did by the Canaanites, not destroy them, but put them under tribute, for that they could do (as they thought) with lesse hazard, and more profit; but what was the Issue? They became a snare unto them, prickes in their eyes, and thornes in their sides, and at last overcame them, and kept them under slavery; so it is most certain that those that are disobedient to the Commandment of God, and endeavour not to the utmost to drive out all their accursed inmates, but make a league with them, they shall at last fall into perpetuall bondage under them, unlesse the great deliverer, Christ Jesus come to their rescue.
LXXVII.
God hath by his providence so ordered, that no one country hath all Commoditys within itself, but what it wants, another shall supply, that so there may be a mutuall Commerce through the world. As it is with countrys so it is with men, there was never yet any one man that had all excellences, let his parts, naturall and acquired, spirituall and morall, be never so large, yet he stands in need of something which another man hath, (perhaps meaner than himself,) which shows us perfection is not below, as also, that God will have us beholden one to another.
CHAPTER XV.
THE PURITAN REIGN OF TERROR.
The ten years which followed the death of Governor Winthrop early in 1649, were years of steady outward prosperity, yet causes were at work, which gradually complicated the political situation and prepared the necessity for the explanation which the mother country at last peremptorily demanded, Simon Bradstreet being selected as one of the men most capable of suitable reply. So long as Winthrop lived, his even and sagacious course hindered many complications which every circumstance fostered. Even in the fierce dissensions over Anne Hutchinson and her theories, he had still been able to retain the personal friendship of those whom as a magistrate he had most severely judged. Wheelwright and Coddington, who had suffered many losses; Sir Harry Vane, who had returned to England sore and deeply indignant at the colonial action; Clark and Williams, bitter as they might be against Massachusetts principles, had only affection for the gracious and humane governor, who gave himself as freely as he gave his fortune, and whose theories, however impracticable they may at times have seemed, have all justified themselves in later years. Through the early privations and the attempts of some to escape the obligations laid upon them, by the mere fact of having come together to the unknown country, he set his face steadily against all division, and there is no more characteristic passage in his Journal than that in which he gives the reasons which should bind them to common and united action. Various disaffected and uneasy souls had wandered off to other points, and Winthrop gives the results, at first quietly and judicially, but rising at the close to a noble indignation.
"Others who went to other places, upon like grounds, succeeded no better. They fled for fear of want, and many of them fell into it, even to extremity, as if they had hastened into the misery which they feared and fled from, besides the depriving themselves of the ordinances and church fellowship, and those civil liberties which they enjoyed here; whereas, such as staid in their places kept their peace and ease, and enjoyed still the blessing of the ordinances, and never tasted of those troubles and miseries, which they heard to have befallen those who departed. Much disputation there was about liberty of removing for outward advantages, and all ways were sought for an open door to get out at; but it is to be feared many crept out at a broken wall. For such as come together into a wilderness, where are nothing but wild beasts and beast-like men, and there confederate together in civil and church estate, whereby they do, implicitly at least, bind themselves to support each other, and all of them that society, whether civil or sacred, whereof they are members, how they can break from this without free consent, is hard to find, so as may satisfy a tender or good conscience in time of trial. Ask thy conscience, if thou wouldst have plucked up thy stakes, and brought thy family 3000 miles, if thou hadst expected that all, or most, would have forsaken thee there. Ask again, what liberty thou hast towards others, which thou likest not to allow others towards thyself; for if one may go, another may, and so the greater part, and so church and commonwealth may be left destitute in a wilderness, exposed to misery and reproach, and all for thy ease and pleasure, whereas these all, being now thy brethren, as near to thee as the Israelites were to Moses, it were much safer for thee after his example, to choose rather to suffer affliction with thy brethren than to enlarge thy ease and pleasure by furthering the occasion of their ruin."
What he demanded of others he gave freely himself, and no long time was required to prove to all, that union was their only salvation.
He had lived to see the spirit of co-operation active in many ways. Churches were quietly doing their work with as little wrangling over small doctrinal differences as could be expected from an age in which wrangling was the chief symptom of vitality. Education had settled upon a basis it has always retained, that of "universal knowledge at the public cost"; the College was doing its work so effectually that students came from England itself to share in her privileges, and justice gave as impartial and even- handed results as conscientious magistrates knew how to furnish. The strenuous needs and sacrifices of the early days were over. A generation had arisen, knowing them only by hearsay, and for even the humblest, substantial prosperity was the rule. Johnson, in his "Wonder-Working Providence," wrote words that held no exaggeration in their description of the comfort which has, from that day to this, been the characteristic of New England homes. "The Lord hath been pleased to turn all the wigwams, huts, and hovels the English dwelt in at their first coming, into orderly, fair, and well-built houses, well furnished many of them, together with orchards, filled with goodly fruit-trees, and gardens with variety of flowers…. There are many hundreds of laboring men, who had not enough to bring them over, yet now, worth scores, and some, hundreds of pounds. The Lord whose promises are large to His Sion, hath blessed his people's provision, and satisfied her poor with bread, in a very little space. Everything in the country proved a staple commodity. And those who were formerly forced to fetch most of the bread they eat, and the beer they drink, a thousand leagues by sea, are, through the blessing of the Lord, so increased, that they have not only fed their elder sisters, Virginia, Barbadoes and many of the Summer Islands, that were preferred before her for fruitfulness, but also the grandmother of us all, even the fertile isle of Great Britain."
With such conditions the colonists were happy, and as the work of their hands prospered, one might have thought that gentler modes of judgment would have grown with it, and toleration if not welcome have been given to the few dissenting minds that appeared among them. Had Winthrop lived, this might have been possible, but the new generation, fast replacing the early rulers, had their prejudices but not their experience, and were as fierce opponents of any new ism as their fathers had been before them, while their rash action often complicated the slower and more considerate movements of the elders that remained.
For England the ten years in which the Colony had made itself a power, had been filled with more and more agitation and distress. There was little time for attention to anything but their own difficulties and perplexities, the only glances across seas being those of distrust and jealousy. Winthrop happily died before the news of the beheadal of Charles I. had reached New England, and for a time, Cromwell was too busy with the reduction of Ireland and the problem of government suddenly thrust upon him, to do anything but ignore the active life so much after his own heart, in the new venture of which he had once so nearly become a part. It is possible that the attitude of New England for a time based itself on the supposition, that life with them was so thoroughly in harmony with the Protector's own theories that interference was impossible. There were men among them, however, who watched his course warily, and who were not indisposed to follow the example he had set by revolt against hated institutions, but for the most part they went their way, quietly reticent and content to wait for time to demonstrate the truth or error of their convictions. But for the most there was entire content with the present.
Evidently no hint of a possible and coming Restoration found slightest credence with them, and thus they laid up a store of offences for which they were suddenly to be called to account. When at last the Restoration had been accomplished and Charles II, whose laughing eyes had held less mockery for William Penn than any among the representatives of sects he so heartily despised, turned to question how Quakers had fared in this objectionable and presumptuous Colony of New England, the answer was not one to propitiate, or to incline to any favor. The story is not one that any New Englander will care to dwell upon, even to-day, when indifference is the rule toward all theological dissension, past or present. It is certain that had Winthrop lived, matters could never have reached the extremity they did. It is equally certain that the non-combatants conquered, though the victory was a bloody one. Two sides are still taken to-day, even among New England authorities. For Quakers, there is of course but one, yet in all their statements there seems to be infinitely less bitterness than they might reasonably have shown. That one or two wild fanatics committed actions, which could have no other foundation than unsettled minds, cannot be denied by even the most uncompromising advocate of the Quaker side. But they were so evidently the result of distempered and excited brains, that only a community who held every inexplicable action to result from the direct influence of Satan, could have done anything but pass them by in silent forbearance.
Had John Cotton been alive in the year in which the Quakers chose Boston as their working ground, his gentle and conciliating nature, shown so fully in the trial of Anne Hutchinson, would have found some means of reconciling their theories with such phases of the Puritan creed as were in sympathy with them. But a far different mind held his place, and had become the leading minister in the Colony. John Norton, who had taken Nathaniel Ward's place at Ipswich, was called after twenty years of service, to the Boston church, and his melancholy temperament and argumentative, not to say pragmatical turn of mind, made him ready to seize upon the first cause of offence.
News of the doings of the obnoxious sect in England had been fully discussed in the Colony, and the law passed as a means of protection against the heresies of Anne Hutchinson and her school, and which had simply waited new opportunity for its execution, came into exercise sooner than they had expected.
It is difficult to re-create for our own minds, the state of outraged susceptibility—of conviction that Jehovah in person had received the extremity of insult from every one who dared to go outside the fine points for a system of belief, which filled the churches in 1656. The "Inward Light" struck every minister upon whose ears the horrid words fell, as only less shocking than witchcraft or any other light amusement of Satan, and a day of public humiliation had already been appointed by the General Court, "to seek the face of God in behalf of our native country, in reference to the abounding of errors, especially those of the Ranters and Quakers."
The discussion of their offences was in full height, when in July, 1656, there sailed into Boston harbor a ship from the Barbadoes, in which were two Quaker women, Mary Fisher and Anne Austin.
Never were unwelcome visitors met by a more formidable delegation. Down to the wharf posted Governor and Deputy-Governor, four principal Magistrates, with a train of yeoman supplemented by half the population of Boston, who faced the astonished master of the vessel with orders which forced him to give bonds to carry the women back to the point from whence they came. This might have seemed sufficient, but was by no means considered so. The unhappy women were ordered to goal till the return of the vessel; a few books brought with them were burned by the executioner, and from every pulpit in the Colony came fierce denunciations of the intruders.
They left, and the excitement was subsiding a little when a stronger occasion for terror presented itself in another vessel, this time from England, bearing eight more of the firebrands, four men and four women, besides a zealous convert made on the way from Long Island, where the vessel had stopped for a short time. Eleven weeks of imprisonment did not silence the voices of these self- elected missionaries, and the uncompromising character of their utterances ought to have commended them to a people who had been driven out of England for the identical cause. A people who had fallen to such depths of frenzied fanaticism as to drive cattle and swine into churches and cathedrals and baptize them with mock solemnity, who had destroyed or mutilated beyond repair organs, fonts, stained glass and every article of priestly use or adornment, might naturally have looked with understanding and sympathetic eyes on the women who, made desperate by suffering, turned upon them and pronounced their own preachers, "hirelings, Baals, and seed of the serpent."
The Quakers frowned upon Church music, but not before the Puritan Prynne had written of choirs: "Choirsters bellow the tenor as it were oxen; bark a counterpart, as it were a kennel of dogs; roar out a treble, as it were a sort of bulls; and grunt a bass, as it were a number of hogs." They arraigned bishops, but in words less full of bitterness, than those in which one of the noblest among Puritan leaders of thought, recorded his conviction. Milton, writing of all bishops: "They shall be thrown down eternally, into the darkest and deepest gulf of hell the trample and spurn of all the other damned … and shall exercise a raving and bestial tyranny over them … they shall remain in that plight forever, the basest, the lowermost, the most dejected and down-trodden vassels of perdition."
No word from the most fanatical Quaker who ever appeared before tribunal of man, exceeded this, or thousands of similar declarations, from men as ready for martyrdom as those they judged, and as obstinately bent upon proving their creed the only one that reasonable human beings should hold. The wildest alarm seized upon not only Massachusetts but each one of the confederated colonies. The General Court passed a series of laws against them, by which ship-masters were fined a hundred pounds if a Quaker was brought over by them, as well as forced to give security for the return of all to the point from whence they came. They enacted, also, that all Quakers who entered the Colony from any point should "be forthwith committed to the House of Correction, and at their entrance to be severely whipped, and by the master thereof to be kept constantly to work, and none suffered to converse or speak with them during the time of their imprisonment."
No Quaker book could be imported, circulated or concealed, save on penalty of a fine of five pounds, and whoever should venture to defend the new opinions, paid for the first offence a fine of two pounds; for the second, double that amount and for the third, imprisonment in the House of Correction till there should "be convenient passage for them to be sent out of the land."
Through the streets of Boston went the crier with his drum, publishing the law which was instantly violated by an indignant citizen, one Nicholas Upsall, who, for "reproaching the honored Magistrates, and speaking against the law made and published against Quakers," not only once but with a continuous and confounding energy, was sentenced to pay a fine of twenty pounds, and "to depart the jurisdiction within one month, not to return, under the penalty of imprisonment."
Then came a period in which fines, imprisonments, whippings and now and then a cropping of ears, failed to lessen the numbers who came, with full knowledge of what the consequences must be, and who behaved themselves with the aggressiveness of those bent upon martyrdom. More and more excited by daily defiance, penalties were doubled, the fine for harboring a Quaker being increased to forty shillings an hour, and the excitement rising to higher and higher point. Could they but have looked upon the insane freaks of some of their visitors with the same feeling which rose in the Mohammedan mind, there would have been a different story for both sides. Dr. Palfrey describes the Turk's method, which only a Turk, however, could have carried out: "Prompted by that superstitious reverence which he (the Turk) was educated to pay to lunatics, as persons inspired, he received these visitors with deferential and ceremonious observance, and with a prodigious activity of genuflections and salams, bowed them out of his country. They could make nothing of it, and in that quarter gave up their enterprise in despair."
The General Court was the despairing body at this time. Months had passed, and severity had simply multiplied the numbers to be dealt with. But one remedy remained to be tried, a remedy against which Simon Bradstreet's voice is said to have been the only one raised, and the General Court, following the advice of Endicott and Norton, passed the vote which is still one of the darkest blots on the old records—
"Whereas, there is an accursed and pernicious sect of heretics lately risen up in the world who are commonly called Quakers, who take upon them to be immediately sent of God and infallibly assisted; who do speak and write blasphemous things, despising government and the order of God in church and commonwealth, speaking evil of dignities, reproaching and reviling magistrates and the ministers of the Gospel, seeking to turn the people from the faith, and to gain proselytes to their pernicious ways; and whereas the several jurisdictions have made divers laws to prohibit and restrain the aforesaid cursed heretics from coming amongst them, yet notwithstanding they are not deterred thereby, but arrogantly and presumptuously do press into several of the jurisdictions, and there vent their pernicious and devilish opinions, which being permitted, tends manifestly to the disturbance of our peace, the withdrawing of the hearts of the people from their subjection to government, and so in issue to cause division and ruin if not timely prevented; it is therefore propounded and seriously commended to the several General Courts, upon the considerations aforesaid, to make a law that all such Quakers formerly convicted and punished as such, shall (if they return again) be imprisoned, and forthwith banished or expelled out of the said jurisdiction, under pain of death; and if afterwards they presume to come again into that jurisdiction, then to be put to death as presumptuously incorrigible, unless they shall plainly and publicly renounce their cursed opinions; and for such Quakers as shall come into any jurisdiction from any foreign parts, or such as shall arise within the same, after due conviction that either he or she is of that cursed sect of heretics, they be banished under pain of severe corporal punishment; and if they return again, then to be punished accordingly, and banished under pain of death; and if afterwards they shall yet presume to come again, then to be put to death as aforesaid, except they do then and there plainly and publicly renounce their said cursed opinions and devilish tenets."
This was not the first time that death had been named as the penalty against any who returned after banishment, and it had proved effectual in keeping away many malcontents. But the Quakers were of different stuff, the same determined temper which had made the Puritan submit to any penalty rather than give up his faith, being the common possession of both.
In an address made to the King, partly aggressive partly apologetic in tone, the wretched story sums itself up in a single paragraph: "Twenty-two have been banished upon pain of death. Three have been martyred, and three have had their right ears cut. One hath been burned in the hand with the letter H. Thirty-one persons have received six hundred and fifty stripes. One was beat while his body was like a jelly. Several were beat with pitched ropes. Five appeals made to England were denied by the rulers of Boston. One thousand, forty-four pounds' worth of goods hath been taken from them (being poor men) for meeting together in the fear of the Lord, and for keeping the commands of Christ. One now lieth in iron fetters condemned to die."
That Massachusetts felt herself responsible for not only her own safety but that of her allies, and that this safety appeared to be menaced by a people who recognized few outward laws, was the only palliation of a course which in time showed itself as folly, even to the most embittered. The political consequences were of a nature, of which in their first access of zeal, they had taken no account. The complaints and appeals of the Quakers had at last produced some effect, and there was well-grounded apprehension that the sense of power which had brought the Colony to act with the freedom of an independent state, might result in the loss of some of their most dearly-prized privileges. The Quakers had conquered, and the magistrates suddenly became conscious that such strength as theirs need never have dreaded the power of this feeble folk, and that their institutions could never fall before an attack from any hands save those of the King himself, toward whom they now turned with an alarmed deprecation. The Puritan reign of terror for New England was over, its story to this generation seeming as incredible as it is shameful. Brutality is not quite dead even to-day, but there is cause for rejoicing that, for America at least, freedom of conscience can never again mean whipping, branding and torturing of unnamable sorts for tender women and even children. Puritan and Quaker have sunk old differences, but it is the Quaker who, while ignoring some phases of a past in which neither present as calm an expression to the world as should be the portion of the infallibility claimed tacitly by both sides, is still able to write:
"The mission of the Puritans was almost a complete failure. Their plan of government was repudiated, and was succeeded by more humane laws and wiser political arrangements. Their religion, though it long retained its hold in theory, was replaced by one less bigoted and superstitious. It is now a thing of the past, a mere tradition, an antiquated curiosity. The early Quakers, or some of them, in common with the Puritans, may illustrate some of the least attractive characteristics of their times; but they were abreast, if not in advance, of the foremost advocates of religious and civil freedom. They were more than advocates—they were the pioneers, who, by their heroic fortitude, patient suffering and persistent devotion, rescued the old Bay Colony from the jaws of the certain death to which the narrow and mistaken policy of the bigoted and sometimes insincere founders had doomed it. They forced them to abandon pretentious claims, to admit strangers without insulting them, to tolerate religious differences, and to incorporate into their legislation the spirit of liberty which is now the life-blood of our institutions. The religion of the Society of Friends is still an active force, having its full share of influence upon our civilization. The vital principle—'The Inward Light'—scoffed at and denounced by the Puritans as a delusion, is recognized as a profound spiritual truth by sages and philosophers."
Through it all, though Simon Bradstreet's name occurs often in the records of the Court, it is usually as asking some question intended to divert attention if possible from the more aggressive phases of the examination, and sooth the excited feelings of either side. But naturally his sympathies were chiefly with his own party, and his wife would share his convictions. There is no surprise, therefore, in finding him numbered by the Quakers as among those most bitterly against them.
It is certain that Simon Bradstreet plead for moderation, but some of the Quaker offences were such as would most deeply wound his sense of decorum, and from the Quaker standpoint he is numbered among the worst persecutors.
In "New England Judged by the Spirit of the Lord," a prominent Quaker wrote: "Your high-priest, John Norton, and Simon Bradstreet, one of your magistrates, … were deeply concerned in the Blood of the Innocents and their cruel sufferings, the one as advising, the other as acting," and he writes at another: point "Simon Bradstreet, a man hardened in Blood and a cruel persecutor."
There is a curious suggestiveness in another count of the same indictment. "Simon Bradstreet and William Hathorn aforesaid were Assistant to Denison in these executions, whose Names I Record to Rot and Stink as of you all to all Generations, unto whom this shall be left as a perpetual Record of your Everlasting Shame."
William Hathorn had an unwholesome interest in all sorrow and catastrophe, the shadow of these evil days descending to the representative Nathanael Hawthorne, whose pen has touched Puritan weaknesses and Puritan strength, with a power no other has ever held, but the association was hardly more happy for Bradstreet then, than at a later day when an economical Hathorn bundled him out of his tomb to make room for his own bones.
CHAPTER XVI.
HOME AND ABROAD.
In the midst of all this agitation and confusion Anne Bradstreet pursued her quiet way, more disposed to comment on the misdoings of the Persians or Romans than on anything nearer home, though some lines in her "Dialogue between Old England and New," indicate that she followed the course of every event with an anxious and intelligent interest. In 1657, her oldest son had left for England, where he remained until 1661, and she wrote then some verses more to be commended for their motherly feeling than for any charm of expression:
UPON MY SON SAMUEL HIS GOEING FOR ENGLAND, NOVEM. 6, 1657.
Thou mighty God of Sea and Land,
I here resigne into thy hand
The Son of prayers, of vowes, of teares,
The child I stayed for many yeares.
Thou heard'st me then and gave'st him me;
Hear me again, I give him Thee.
He's mine, but more, O Lord thine own,
For sure thy Grace is on him shown.
No friend I have like Thee to trust,
For mortall helps are brittle Dust.
Preserve O Lord, from stormes and wrack,
Protect him there and bring him back;
And if thou shall spare me a space,
That I again may see his face,
Then shall I celebrate thy Praise,
And Blesse thee for't even all my Dayes.
If otherwise I goe to Rest,
Thy Will bee done, for that is best;
Perswade my heart I shall him see
Forever happefy'd with Thee.
There were others of much the same order on his return, in 1661, but her feelings centered then on the anxieties and dangers of the course which had been resolved upon. The enemies of the Colony were busy in London, and the King was strongly inclined to take very decisive measures for its humiliation. Explanations must be made by some one who had had personal experience in every case now used against them, and after long and troubled consultation the Colonial Government reluctantly decided to send two Commissioners to England, selecting John Norton and Simon Bradstreet as best capable of meeting the emergency.
There was personal peril as well as political anxiety. The King constitutionally listened to the first comer rather than the second, and had already sided with the Quakers. To Norton it seemed a willful putting of his head into the lion's jaws, and he hesitated, and debated, and at last, from pure nervousness fell violently ill. The ship which was to carry them waited, and finally as it seemed impossible for him to rally his forces, began unlading the provisions sent on board. The disgusted Government officers prepared explanatory letters, and were on the point of sending them when Mr. Norton came to his senses, and announced that the Lord had "encouraged and strengthened his heart," and he went decorously on board.
The mission, though pronounced by some Quaker historians a failure, was in reality after many delays and more hard words a tolerable success. The King was still too uncertain of his own position to quarrel with as powerful a set of friends as the Massachusetts Colony were now disposed to prove themselves, and the Commissioners returned home, bearing a renewal of the charter, though the letters held other matters less satisfactory to the Puritan temper. The King required an oath of allegiance from all, and that "all laws and ordinances … contrary or derogative to his authority and government should be annulled and repealed."
Toleration was made obligatory, and one clause outraged every Puritan susceptibility; that in which it was ordered that, "in the election of the Governor or Assistants, there should be only consideration of the wisdom and integrity of the persons to be chosen, and not of any faction with reference to their opinion or profession."
Governor Dudley's shade must have looked with amazed dismay and wrath upon this egg, which could hardly fail to "a Toleration hatch," filled with every evil his verses had prophesied, and there were many of the same mind. But popular dissatisfaction in time died away, as no ill results came from the new methods, which were ignored as often as possible, and the working of which could not be very effectually watched in England. Simon Bradstreet, though censured by many, pursued his quiet way, thankful to be safely at home again with his head in its proper place, and his wife rejoiced over him in various poems which celebrated the letters he wrote, and every detail of his coming and going.
The summer of 1666 brought one of the sharpest trials her life had ever known, the destruction of her house by fire taking place in July. Each change of location to one of her tenacious affections and deep love of home, had been a sharp wrench, and she required long familiarity to reconcile her to new conditions. Though the first and greatest change from England to America would seem to have rendered all others trivial and not to be regarded, she had shrank from each as it came, submitting by force of will, but unreconciled till years had past. In Andover she had allowed herself to take firm root, certain that from this point she would never be dislodged, and the house had gradually become filled not only with treasured articles of furniture and adornments, but with the associations to which she always clung. There were family portraits and heirlooms brought from the old home in Lincolnshire; a library of nearly eight hundred volumes, many of them rare editions difficult to replace, as well as her own special books and papers.
For these last there was no hope of renewal. Many of them were the work of her early womanhood; others held the continuation of her Roman Monarchy; small loss to the world at large, but the destruction of a work which had beguiled many hours of the bodily suffering from which she was seldom free. The second edition of her poems, published after her death, held an apology found among her papers, for the uncompleted state of this monarchy, in which she wrote:
To finish what's begun was my intent,
My thoughts and my endeavors thereto bent;
Essays I many made but still gave out,
The more I mus'd, the more I was in doubt:
The subject large my mind and body weak,
With many more discouragements did speak.
All thoughts of further progress laid aside,
Though oft persuaded, I as oft deny'd,
At length resolv'd when many years had past,
To prosecute my story to the last;
And for the same, I, hours not few did spend,
And weary lines (though lanke) I many pen'd:
But 'fore I could accomplish my desire
My papers fell a prey to th' raging fire.
And thus my pains with better things I lost,
Which none had cause to wail, nor I to boast.
No more I'le do, sith I have suffer'd wrack,
Although my Monarchies their legs do lack:
No matter is't this last, the world now sees
Hath many Ages been upon his knees.
The disaster finds record in the Rev. Simon Bradstreet's diary:
"July 12, 1666. Whilst I was at N. London my father's house at Andover was burnt, where I lost my Books and many of my clothes, to the valieu of 50 or 60 pounds at least; The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken, blessed bee the name of the Lord. Tho: my own losse of books (and papers espec.) was great and my fathers far more being about 800, yet ye Lord was pleased gratiously many wayes to make up ye same to us. It is therefore good to trust in the Lord"
The "newe house" built at once and furnished with the utmost elegance of the time, Simon Bradstreet's prosperity admitting the free expenditure he always loved, could by no means fill the place of the old. She looked about each room with a half-expectation that the familiar articles with which so much of her outward life had been associated, must be in the old places, and patiently as she bore the loss, their absence fretted and saddened her. One of her latest poems holds her sorrow and the resignation she came at last to feel:
"In silent night when rest I took,
For sorrow neer I did not look,
I waken'd was with thundring nois
And Piteous shreiks of dreadfull voice;
That fearfull sound of fire and fire,
Let no man know is my desire.
I, starting up the light did spye,
And to my God my heart did cry
To strengthen me in my Distress
And not to leave me succourlesse,
When coming out, beheld a space,
The flame consume my dwelling place.
And, when I could no longer look,
I blest his name that gave and took,
That layd my goods now in the dust;
Yea so it was, and so 'twas just.
It was his own; it was not mine
ffar be it that I should repine.
He might of All justly bereft
But yet sufficient for us left.
When by the Ruines oft I past,
My sorrowing eyes aside did cast,
And here and there the places spye
Where oft I sate, and long did lye.
Here stood that Trunk and there that chest;
There lay that store I counted best;
My pleasant things in ashes lye,
And them behold no more shall I.
Vnder thy roof no guest shall sitt,
Nor at thy Table eat a bitt.
No pleasant tale shall 'ere be told,
Nor things recounted done of old.
No Candle 'ere shall shine in Thee,
Nor bridegroom's voice ere heard shall bee.
In silence ever shalt thou lye;
Adieu, Adieu; All's vanity.
Then streight I 'gin my heart to chide,
And did thy wealth on earth abide?
Dids't fix thy hope on mouldering dust,
The arm of flesh dids't make thy trust?
Raise up thy thoughts above the skye
That dunghill mists away may flie.
Thou hast a house on high erect,
Fram'd by that mighty Architect
With glory richly furnished,
Stands permanent tho: this be fled.
'Its purchased and paid for too
By him who hath enough to doe.
A prise so vast as is unknown
Yet by his gift is made thine own.
Ther's wealth enough, I need no more;
Farewell my Pelf, farewell my Store.
The world no longer let me Love,
My hope and Treasure lyes Above."
The fortunes of the new house were hardly happy ones. With the death of his wife Governor Bradstreet left it in possession of a younger son, Captain Dudley Bradstreet, who was one of the most important citizens of Andover, having been "selectman, colonel of militia, and magistrate," while still a young man. His father's broad yet moderate views and his mother's gentle and devoted spirit seem to have united in him, for when the witchcraft delusion was at its height, and even the most honored men and women in the little community were in danger of their lives, he suddenly resolved to grant no more warrants for either apprehension or imprisonment. This was shocking enough to the excited popular mind, but when he added to such offence a plea, which he himself drew up for some of the victims, who, as they admitted, had made confession of witchcraft "by reason of sudden surprisal, when exceedingly astonished and amazed and consternated and affrighted even out of reason," there was no room left for any conviction save that he was under the same spell. Loved as he had been by all the people whom he had served unselfishly for twenty years, the craze which possessed them all, wiped out any memory of the past or any power of common sense in the present, and he fled in the night and for a long time remained in hiding. The delusion ended as suddenly as it had begun, a reaction setting in, and the people doing all in their power to atone for the suspicion and outrage that had caused his flight. Placable and friendly, the old relations were resumed as far as possible, though the shadow had been too heavy an one ever to pass entirely.
Another terror even greater had come before the century ended: An act of treachery had been commited by a citizen of Andover, a Captain Chubb, who had in 1693 been in command of Fort Pemaquid, and having first plied a delegation of Penobscot Indians with liquor, gave orders for their massacre while still in their drunken sleep. In an after attack by French and Indians upon the fort, he surrendered on promise of personal safety, and in time, returned to Andover, disgraced, but abundantly satisfied to have saved his scalp.
The rest of the story is given by Cotton Mather in the Magnalia:
"The winter, (1693) was the severest that ever was in the memory of Man. And yet February must not pass without a stroke upon Pemquid Chub, whom the Government had mercifully permitted after his examination to retire unto his habitation in Andover. As much out of the way as to Andover there came above thirty Indians about the middle of February as if their errand had been for vengeance upon Chub, whom, with his wife they now massacred there." Hutchinson comments gravely: "It is not probable they had any knowledge of the place of his abode, but it caused them greater joy than the taking of many towns. Rapin would have pronounced such an event the immediate judgement of Heaven. Voltaire, that in the place of supposed safety, the man could not avoid his destiny."
The towns mustered hastily, but not before the flames of the burning buildings had arisen at many points, and terrified women and children had been dragged from their beds and in one or two cases murdered at once, though most were reserved as captives. Dudley Bradstreet and his family were of this latter number. The house was broken into and plundered; his kinsman who attempted defence, cut down on the spot, and the same fate might have overtaken all, had not an Indian who had received some special kindness from the colonel, interfered and prevented the butchery. The family were carried some fifty rods from the house and then released and allowed to return, and by this time the soldiers were armed and the party routed. No sense of safety could be felt then, or for many years thereafter, and from terror and other causes, the house was in time forsaken by its natural owners and passed into other hands, though no tenant, even of sixty years standing has had power to secure to it any other title than that which it still holds—"the Bradstreet house."
* * * * *
For its first occupants possession was nearly over. The vitality which had carried Anne Bradstreet through longer life than could have been imagined possible, was nearly exhausted.
Constant weakness and pain and occasional attacks of severe illness marked all the later years of her life, which for the last three, was a weariness to herself, and a source of suffering to all who saw her suffer. Certain that it could not last long, she began at one time the little autobiographical diary, found among her papers after death, and containing the only personal details that remained, even these being mere suggestions. All her life she had been subject to sudden attacks of faintness, and even as early as 1656, lay for hours unconscious, remaining in a state of pitiful weakness many days thereafter. One of these attacks found record on a loose paper, added by one of her sons to the manuscript book of "Religious Reflections," and showing with what patience she met the ills for the overcoming of which any physician of the time was powerless, and against which she made a life-long resistance. It was the beginning of a battle which has ever since held its ground in New England, to "enjoy poor health," yet be ready for every emergency, being a state of things on which the average woman rather prides herself, medicine, quack or home- brewed, ranking in importance with the "means of grace."
SUBMISSION AND RELIANCE.
"July 8th, 1656. I had a sore fitt of fainting, which lasted 2 or 3 days, but not in that extremity which at first it took me, and so moch the sorer it was to me, because my dear husband was from home (who is my chiefest comforter on Earth); but my God, who never failed me, was not absent, but helped me, and gratiously manifested his Love to me, which I dare not passe by without Remembrance, that it may bee a support to me when I shall have occasion to read this hereafter, and to others that shall read it when I shall possesse that I now hope for, that so they may bee encourage'd to trust in him who is the only Portion of his Servants. O Lord, let me never forgett thy Goodness, nor question thy faithfullness to me, for thou art my God: Thou hast said, and shall not I believe it? Thou hast given me a pledge of that Inheritance thou hast promised to bestow upon me. O, never let Satan prevail against me, but strengthen my faith in Thee, 'till I shall attain the end of my hopes, even the Salvation of my Soul. Come, Lord Jesus; come quickly."
DELIVERANCE FROM A FITT OF FAINTING.
Worthy art Thou O Lord of praise!
But ah! it's not in me;
My sinking heart I pray thee raise,
So shall I give it Thee.
My life as Spider's webb's cut off,
Thos fainting have I said,
And liveing man no more shall see,
But bee in Silence layd.
My feblee Spirit Thou didst revive,
My Doubting Thou didst chide,
And tho: as dead mad'st me alive,
I here a while might 'bide.
Why should I live but to thy Praise?
My life is hid with Thee;
O Lord no longer bee my Dayes,
Then I may froitfull bee.
"August 28, 1656. After much weaknes and sicknes when my spirits were worn out, and many times my faith weak likewise, the Lord was pleased to uphold my drooping heart, and to manifest his Love to me; and this is that which stayes my Soul that this condition that I am in is the best for me, for God doth not afflict willingly, nor take delight in grieving the children of men: he hath no benefitt by my adversity, nor is he the better for my prosperity; but he doth it for my Advantage, and that I may be a Gainer by it. And if he knowes that weaknes and a frail body is the best to make mee a vessell fitt for his use, why should I not bare it, not only willingly but joyfully? The Lord knowes I dare not desire that health that sometimes I have had, least my heart should bee drawn from him, and sett upon the world.
"Now I can wait, looking every day when my Saviour shall call for me. Lord, grant that while I live I may doe that service I am able in this frail Body, and bee in continual expectation of my change, and let me never forget thy great Love to my soul so lately expressed, when I could lye down and bequeath my Soul to thee, and Death seem'd no terrible Thing. O, let mee ever see thee, that Art invisible, and I shall not bee unwilling to come, tho: by so rough a messenger."
Through all the long sickness the family life went on unchanged, save in the contracting circle, from which one child and another passed. There was still strength to direct the daily round of household duties, and to listen with quick sympathy to the many who came to her trouble. There was not only the village life with its petty interests, but the larger official one of her husband, in which she shared so far as full knowledge of its details allowed, Simon Bradstreet, like Governor Winthrop, believing strongly in that "inward sight" which made women often clearer judges than men of perplexed and knotty points. Two bits of family life are given in a document still in existence and copied by the New England Historical and Genalogical Register for 1859. To it is appended the full signature of Anne Bradstreet, in a clear, upright hand, of singular distinctness and beauty when compared with much of the penmanship of that period. But one other autograph is in existence. It is evident from the nature of the document, that village life had its infelicities in 1670, quite as fully as to-day, and that a poem might have grown out of it, had daily life been thought worthy of a poem.
"This witnesseth, that wee heard good(tm) Sutton say, there was noe horses in his yard that night in wch Mr Bradstreetes mare was killed, & afterwards that there was none that he knew of; but being told by Mr Bradstreete that hee thought hee could p've hee drave out some, then hee sd, yes, now I remembr there was 3 or 4.
"Further, wee testifie the sd. Sutton sd. att yt tyme there was noe dogg there, but his wch was a puppy, & Mr Danes that would not byte.
ANNE BRADSTREET
MERCY BRADSTREET
DUDLEY BRADSTREET
JOHN BRADSTREET
EDWARD WHITTINGTON
ALEXANDER
SESSIONS
[his marke]
ROBTE. RB BUSELY."
Law was resorted to in even small disagreements with a haste and frequency excellent for the profession employed, but going far to intensify the litigious spirit of the day, and tolerant as Simon Bradstreet was in all large matters, his name occurs with unpleasant frequency in these petty village suits. This suit with goodman Sutton was but one of many, almost all of which arose from the trespasses of animals. Fences were few, and though they were viewed at intervals by the "perambulators," and decided to be "very sufficient against all orderly cattle," the swine declined to come under this head, and rooted their way into desirable garden patches to the wrath and confusion of their owners, all persons at last, save innholders, being forbidden to keep more than ten of the obnoxious animals. Horses, also, broke loose at times, and Mr. Bradstreet was not the only one who suffered loss, one of the first tragedies in the little town, being a hand to hand fight, ending in a stabbing of one of the parties, both of whom belonged to good families and were but lightly judged in the trial which followed. They were by no means a peaceful community, and if the full truth be told, a week of colonial life would prove to hold almost as large a proportion of squabbles as any town record of to-day.
The second one gives some difficulties connected with the marriage of Governor Bradstreet's daughter Mercy, which took place Oct. 31, 1672, but not till various high words had passed, and sufficient hard feeling been engendered to compel the preparing of the affidavit, which probably, whatever its effect may have been on the parents, did not touch the happiness of the young pair for whose respective rights they had debated.
"When Mr. Johnathan Wade of Ipswich came first to my house att Andover in the yeare 72, to make a motion of marriage betwixt his son Nathaniel and my daughter Mercy hee freely of himself told mee what he would give to his son vz. one halfe of his Farme att Mistick and one third p't of his land in England when hee dyed, and that hee should have liberty to make use of p't of the imp'ved and broken upp ground upon the sd Farme, till hee could gett some broken upp for himselfe upon his owne p't and likewis | that hee should live in and have the use of halfe the house, and untill he had one | of his owne built upon his p't of the farme. I was willing to accept of his | offer, or at least sd. nothing against it; but p'p'ounded that hee would make | his sd soil a deede of guift of that third p't of his land in England to enjoy to | him and his heires after his death. This hee was not free to doe, but sd. it was | as sure, for he had soe putt it into his will, that his 3 sons should have | that in England equally devyded betwixt them, vz. each a 3 p't. I objected | he marry | againe and have other children, wich hee thought a vaine obieccon. Much | othr discourse there was about the stocke on the Farme, &c., but remayneing unwilling | to give a deede for that in England, saying he might live to spend it, and often | repeating hee had soe ordered it in his will, as aforesd., wch hee should never altr without | great necessity, or words to that purpose. Soe wee p'ted for that tyme leaveing | that mattr to further consideracon. After hee came home hee told sev'all of my | Friends and others as they informed me, that hee had p'ffered to give his son Nathaniel bettr then 1000 lb | and I would not accept of it. The next tyme hee came to my house, after some | discourse about the premises and p'esining his resolucon as form'ly ingaged, and left it to him to add wt he pleased | towards the building of him a house &c., and soe agreed that the young p'sons might | p'ceede in marriage with both or Consents, wch accordingly they did. S. BRADSTREET."
"The Honble Simon Bradstreet Esqr | made Oath to the truth of the above written Sept. 21th, 1683, before Samuell Nowell, Assistant.
"The interlines [as aforesaid], line 19th, and [as they informed me] line 22th, were before the Oath was made."
The brackets are in the original and were used as quotations marks. Governor Bradstreet's name and all above it are in his handwriting; all below it is in Mr. Nowell's.
Another Mercy Bradstreet, niece of the Mercy whose name figures in the foregoing statement, and the daughter of the oldest son, married Dr. James Oliver, from whom are descended Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and Wendell Phillips, while Lucy, the daughter of Simon, the second son, became the ancestress of Dr. Channing and of Richard N. Dana, the poet and his distinguished son. Many of the grandchildren died in infancy, and the pages of the second edition of their grandmother's poems are sprinkled with elegies long and short, upon the babies almost as well loved as her own, though none of them have any poetical merit. But her thoughts dwelt chiefly in the world for which she longed, and there are constant reminders of what careless hold she kept upon the life which had come to be simply a burden to be borne with such patience as might be given her.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE END.
Through all these later years Anne Bradstreet had made occasional records, in which her many sicknesses find mention, though never in any complaining fashion.
Now and then, as in the following meditation, she wrote a page full of gratitude at the peace which became more and more assured, her doubting and self-distrustful spirit retaining more and more the quietness often in early life denied her:
MEDITATIONS WHEN MY SOUL HATH BEEN REFRESHED WITH THE CONSOLATIONS WHICH THE WORLD KNOWES NOT.
Lord, why should I doubt any more when thou hast given me such assured Pledges of thy Love? First, thou art my Creator, I thy creature; thou my master, I thy servant. But hence arises not my comfort: Thou art my ffather, I thy child. Yee shall [be] my Sons and Daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Christ is my brother; I ascend unto my ffather and your ffather, unto my God and your God. But least this should not be enough, thy maker is thy husband. Nay, more, I am a member of his Body; he, my head. Such Priviledges, had not the Word of Truth made them known, who or where is the man that durst in his heart have presumed to have thought it? So wonderfull are these thoughts that my spirit failes in me at the consideration thereof; and I am confounded to think that God, who hath done so much for me should have so little from me. But this is my comfort, when I come into Heaven, I shall understand perfectly what he hath done for me, and then shall I be able to praise him as I ought. Lord, haveing this hope, let me pruefie myself as thou art Pure, and let me bee no more affraid of Death, but even desire to be dissolved, and bee with thee, which is best of all.
Of the same nature are the fragments of diary which follow:
July 8th, 1656. I had a sore fitt of fainting which lasted 2 or 3 days, but not in that extremity which at first it took me, and so much the sorer it was to me because my dear husband was from home (who is my chiefest comforter on Earth); but my God, who never failed me, was not absent, but helped me, and gratiously manifested his Love to me, which I dare not passe by without Remembrance, that it may be a support to me when I shall have occasion to read this hereafter, and to others that shall read it when I shall posesse that I now hope for, that so they may bee encourag'd to trust in him who is the only Portion of his Servants.
O Lord, let me never forget thy Goodness, nor question thy faithfulness to me, for thou art my God: Thou hast said and shall I not beleive it?
Thou hast given me a pledge of that Inheritance thou hast promised to bestow upon me. O, never let Satan prevail against me, but strengthen my faith in Thee 'till I shall attain the end of my hopes, even the Salvation of my Soul. Come, Lord Jesus; come quickly.
What God is like to him I serve,
What Saviour like to mine?
O, never let me from thee swerve,
For truly I am thine.
Sept. 30, 1657. It pleased God to viset me with my old Distemper of weakness and fainting, but not in that sore manner sometimes he hath. I desire not only willingly, but thankfully, to submitt to him, for I trust it is out of his abundant Love to my straying Soul which in prosperity is too much in love with the world. I have found by experience I can no more live without correction than without food. Lord, with thy correction give Instruction and amendment, and then thy strokes shall bee welcome. I have not been refined in the furnace of affliction as some have been, but have rather been preserved with sugar then brine, yet will He preserve me to His heavenly kingdom.
Thus (dear children) have yee seen the many sicknesses and weaknesses that I have passed thro: to the end that, if you meet with the like, you may have recourse to the same God who hath heard and delivered me, and will doe the like for you if you trust in him: and, when he shall deliver you out of distresse, forget not to give him thankes, but to walk more closely with him then before. This is the desire of your Loving Mother, A. B.
With this record came a time of comparative health, and it is not till some years later that she finds it necessary to again write of sharp physical suffering, this being the last reference made in her papers to her own condition:
May 11, 1661. It hath pleased God to give me a long Time of respite for these 4 years that I have had no great fitt of sickness, but this year, from the middle of January 'till May, I have been by fitts very ill and weak. The first of this month I had a feaver seat'd upon me which, indeed, was the longest and sorest that ever I had, lasting 4 dayes, and the weather being very hott made it the more tedious, but it pleased the Lord to support my heart in his goodness, and to hear my Prayers, and to deliver me out of adversity. But alas! I cannot render unto the Lord according to all his loving kindnes, nor take the cup salvation with Thanksgiving as I ought to doe. Lord, Thou that knowest All things, know'st that I desire to testefye my thankfulnes, not only in word, but in Deed, that my Conversation may speak that thy vowes are upon me.
The diary of "Religious Reflections" was written at this period and holds a portrait of the devout and tender mind, sensitive and morbidly conscientious, but full of an aspiration that never left her. The few hints as to her early life are all embodied here, though the biographer is forced to work chiefly by inference:
TO MY DEAR CHILDREN:
This Book by Any yet unread,
I leave for you when I am dead,
That, being gone, here you may find
What was your living mother's mind.
Make use of what I leave in Love
And God shall blesse you from above.
A. B.
MY DEAR CHILDREN: Knowing by experience that the exhortations of parents take most effect when the speakers leave to speak, and those especially sink deepest which are spoke latest—and being ignorant whether on my death-bed I shall have opportunity to speak to any of you, much lesse to All—thought it the best, whilst I was able to compose some short matters, (for what else to call them I know not) and bequeath to you, that when I am no more with you, yet I may bee dayly in your remembrance, (Although that is the least in my aim in what I now doe) but that you may gain some spiritual Advantage by my experience. I have not studied in this you read to show my skill, but to declare the Truth—-not to sett forth myself, but the Glory of God. If I had minded the former, it had been perhaps better pleasing to you,—but seing the last is the best, let it bee best pleasing to you. The method I will observe shall bee this—I will begin with God's dealing with me from my childhood to this Day. In my young years, about 6 or 7 as I take it, I began to make conscience of my wayes, and what I knew was sinful, as lying, disobedience to Parents, &c., I avoided it. If at any time I was overtaken with the like evills, it was a great Trouble. I could not be at rest 'till by prayer I had confest it unto God. I was also troubled at the neglect of Private Dutyes, tho: too often tardy that way. I also found much comfort in reading the Scriptures, especially those places I thought most concerned my Condition, and as I grew to have more understanding, so the more solace I took in them.
In a long fitt of sicknes which I had on my bed I often communed with my heart, and made my supplication to the most High who sett me free from that affliction.
But as I grew up to bee about 14 or 15 I found my heart more carnall, and sitting loose from God, vanity and the follyes of youth take hold of me. About 16, the Lord layed his hand sore upon me and Smott mee with the small pox. When I was in my affliction, I besought the Lord, and confessed my Pride and Vanity and he was entreated of me, and again restored me. But I rendered not to him according to the benefitt received.
After a short time I changed my condition and was marryed, and came into this Contry, where I fond a new world and new manners, at which my heart rose. But after I was convinced it was the way of God, I submitted to it and joined to the church at Boston.
After some time I fell into a lingering sicknes like a consumption, together with a lamenesse, which correction I saw the Lord sent to humble and try me and doe mee Good: and it was not altogether ineffectual.
It pleased God to keep me a long time without a child, which was a great grief to me, and cost mee many prayers and tears before I obtained one, and after him gave mee many more, of whom I now take the care, that as I have broght you into the world, and with great paines, weaknes, cares, and feares, brought you to this, I now travail in birth again of you till Christ bee formed in you.
Among all my experiences of God's gratious Dealings with me I have constantly observed this, that he hath never suffered me long to sitt loose from him, but by one affliction or other hath made me look home, and search what was amisse so usually thos it hath been with me that I have no sooner felt my heart out of order, but I have expected correction for it, which most commonly hath been upon my own person, in sicknesse, weaknes, paines, sometimes on my soul, in Doubts and feares of God's displeasure, and my sincerity towards him, sometimes he hath smott a child with sicknes, sometimes chastened by losses in estate,—and these Times (thro: his great mercy) have been the times of my greatest Getting and Advantage, yea I have found them the Times when the Lord hath manifested the most love to me. Then have I gone to searching, and have said with David, Lord search me and try me, see what wayes of wickednes are in me, and lead me in the way everlasting; and seldom or never, but I have found either some sin I lay under which God would have reformed, or some duty neglected which he would have performed. And by his help I have layed Vowes and Bonds upon my Soul to perform his righteous commands.
If at any time you are chastened of God, take it as thankfully and Joyfully as in greatest mercyes, for if yee bee his yee shall reap the greatest benefit by it. It hath been no small support to me in times of Darkness when the Almighty hath hid his face from me, that yet I have had abundance of sweetness and refreshment after affliction, and more circumspection in my walking after I have been afflicted. I have been with God like an untoward child, that no longer than the rod has been on my back (or at least in sight) but I have been apt to forgett him and myself too. Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep thy statutes.
I have had great experience of God's hearing my Prayers, and returning comfortable Answers to me, either in granting the thing I prayed for, or else in satisfying my mind without it; and I have been confident it hath been from him, because I have found my heart through his goodnes enlarged in thankfullnes to him.