{210}
“Our New-England shall tell and _boast_ of her _Winthrop_, a
_lawgiver_ as patient as _Lycurgus_, but not admitting any of _his_
criminal disorders; as devout as Numa, but not liable to any of _his_
heathenish madnesses; a governor in whom the excellences of
_Christianity_ made a most improving addition unto the _virtues_,
wherein, even without _those_, he would have made a _parallel_ for the
great men of _Greece_ or of _Rome_, which the pen of a _Plutarch_ has
eternized.”--Cotton Mather.
The governor’s house stood in the main street (Washington-street),
on the ground now occupied by “South Row.” There was a little court in
front of it; on one side a fine garden; on the other a beautiful lawn,
or, as it was called, “green,” extending to the corner on which the
“Old South” (Church) now stands, and an ample yard and offices in the
rear.
The mighty master of fiction has but to wave his wand to present the
past to his readers with all the vividness and distinctness of the
present; but we, who follow him at an immeasurable distance--we, who
have no magician’s enchantments, wherewith we can imitate the miracles
wrought by the rod of the prophet--we must betake ourselves to the
compass and the rule, and set forth our description as minutely and
exactly as if we were making out an inventory for a salesman. In
obedience to this necessity, we offer the following detailed
description {211} of the internal economy of a Pilgrim mansion, not on
any apocryphal authority, but quoted from an authentic record of the
times.
“In the principal houses was a great hall, ornamented with pictures; a
great lantern; velvet cushions in the window-seat to look into the
garden: on either side a great parlour, a little parlour or study,
furnished with great looking-glasses, Turkey carpets, window-curtains
and valance, picture and a map, a brass clock, red leather-back
chairs, a great pair of brass andirons: the chambers well furnished
with feather beds, warming-pans, and every other elegance and comfort:
the pantry well filled with substantial fare and dainties, Madeira
wine, prunes, marmalade, silver tankards and wine-cups not uncommon.”
If any are incredulous as to the correctness of the above extract, we
assure them that its truth is confirmed by the spaciousness of the
Pilgrim habitations still standing in Boston, and occupied by their
descendants. These Pilgrims were not needy adventurers nor ruined
exiles. Mr. Winthrop himself had an estate in England worth seven
hundred pounds per annum. Some of his associates came from lordly
halls, and many of them brought wealth, as well as virtue, to the
colony.
The rigour of the climate, and the embarrassments incident to their
condition, often reduced the Pilgrims, in their earliest period, to
the wants of extreme poverty; but their sufferings had the dignity and
merit of being voluntary, and are now, as the tattered {212} garments
of the saints are to the faithful, sacred in the eyes of their
posterity.
Our humble history has little to do with the public life of Governor
Winthrop, which is so well known to have been illustrated by the rare
virtue of disinterested patriotism, and by such even and paternal
goodness, that a contemporary witty satirist could not find it in his
heart to give him a harsher name than “Sir John Temperwell.” His
figure (if we may trust to the fidelity of his painter) was tall and
spare; his eye dark blue, and mild in its expression: he had the
upraised brow, which is said to be indicative of a religious
disposition; his hair and his beard, which he wore long, were black.
On the whole, we must confess, the external man presents the solemn
and forbidding aspect of the times in which he flourished; though we
know him to have been a model of private virtue, gracious and gentle
in his manners, and exact in the observance of all gentlemanly
courtesy.
His wife was admirably qualified for the station she occupied. She
recognised, and continually taught to matron and maiden, the duty of
unqualified obedience from the wife to the husband, her appointed lord
and master; a duty that it was left to modern heresy to dispute, and
which our pious fathers, or even mothers, were so far from
questioning, that the only divine right to govern which they
acknowledged was that vested in the husband over the wife. Madam
Winthrop’s matrimonial virtue never degenerated into the slavishness
of fear or the {213} obsequiousness of servility. If authorized and
approved by principle, it was prompted by feeling; and, if we may be
allowed a coarse comparison, like a horse easy on the bit, she was
guided by the slightest intimation from him who held the rein; indeed,
to pursue our humble illustration still farther, it sometimes appeared
as if the reins were dropped, and the inferior animal were left to the
guidance of her own sagacity.
Without ever overstepping the limits of feminine propriety, Madam
Winthrop manifestly enjoyed the dignity of her official station, and
felt that if the governor were the greater, she was the lesser light.
There was a slight tinge of official importance in her manner of
conferring her hospitalities and her counsel; but she seemed rather to
intend to heighten the value of the gift than the merit of the giver.
Governor Winthrop possessed the patriarchal blessing of a numerous
offspring; but, as they were in no way associated with the personages
of our story, we have not thought fit to encumber it with any details
concerning them.
We return from our long digression to the party we left in Governor
Winthrop’s parlour.
The tables were arranged for dinner. Tables, we say, for a side-table
was spread, but in a manner so inferior to the principal board, which
was garnished with silver tankards, _wine-cups_, and rich china, as to
indicate that it was destined for inferior guests. This indication was
soon verified; for, on a servant being sent to announce dinner to
Governor Winthrop, {214} who was understood to be occupied with some
of the natives on state business, that gentleman appeared, attended by
four Indians: Miantunnomoh, the young and noble chief of the
Narragansetts, two of his counsellors, and an interpreter. Hope turned
to Everell to remark on the graceful gestures by which they expressed
their salutations to the company: “Good Heavens!” she exclaimed,
“Everell, what ails you?” for she saw that he was as pale as death.
“Nothing, nothing,” said Everell, wishing to avoid observation, and
turning towards the window: he then added, in explanation to Hope, who
followed him, “these are the first Indians I have seen since my
return, and they brought too vividly to mind my dear mother’s death.”
Governor Winthrop motioned to his Indian guests to take their seats at
the side-table, and the rest of the company, including the elder
Fletcher and Cradock, surrounded the dinner-table, and serving-men and
all reverently folded their arms and bowed their heads while the grace
or prefatory prayer was pronouncing.
After all the rest had taken their seats, the Indians remained
standing; and although the governor politely signified to the
interpreter that their delay wronged the smoking viands, they remained
motionless, the chief drawn aside from the rest, his eye cast down,
his brow lowering, and his whole aspect expressive of proud
displeasure.
The governor rose, and demanded of the interpreter the meaning of
their too evident dissatisfaction.
{215}
“My chief bids me say,” replied the savage, “that he expects such
treatment from the English sagamore as the English receive in the
wigwam of the Narragansett chief. He says that when the English
stranger visits him, he sits on his mat and eats from his dish.”
“Tell your chief,” replied the governor, who had urgent state reasons
for conciliating Miantunnomoh, “that I pray him to overlook the wrong
I have done him: he is right; he deserves the place of honour. I have
heard of his hospitable deeds, and that he doth give more than even
ground to his guests; for our friend, Roger Williams, informed us that
he hath known him, with his family, to sleep abroad to make room in
his wigwam for English visiters.”
Governor Winthrop added the last circumstance partly as a full
confession of his fault, and partly as an apology to his helpmate, who
looked a good deal disconcerted by the disarrangement of her dinner.
However, she proceeded to give the necessary orders; the table was
remodelled, a sufficient addition made, and the haughty chief, his
countenance relaxing to an expression of grave satisfaction, took his
seat at the governor’s right hand. His associates being properly
accommodated at the table, the rest of the company resumed their
stations.
Everell cast his eye around on the various viands which covered the
hospitable board. “Times have mended,” he said, to Madam Winthrop, “in
my absence. I remember once sitting down with my father to a good
man’s table, on which was nothing {216} but a sorry dish of clams; but
our host made up for the defect of his entertainment by the excess of
his gratitude, for, as I remember, he gave thanks that ‘we were
permitted to eat of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in
the sand.’”
Hope Leslie understood so well the temper of the company she was in,
that she instantly perceived a slight depression of their mercury at
what appeared to them a tone of levity in Everell. She interposed her
shield. “What may we expect from the future,” she said, “if now it
seems strange to us that, ten years ago, the best in the colony were
reduced to living upon muscles, acorns, and ground-nuts; and that our
bountiful governor, having shared his flour and meat with the poorest
in the land, had his last batch of bread in the oven, when the ship
with succours arrived? the Lion, or the Blessing of the Bay--which was
it, Master Cradock? for it was you who told me the story,” she added,
bending towards Cradock, who sat opposite to her.
Cradock, who always felt, at the least notice from Hope, an emotion
similar to that of a pious Catholic when he fancies the image of the
saint he worships to bend propitiously towards him--Cradock dropped
his knife and fork, and erecting his body with one of those sudden
jerks characteristic of awkward men, he hit the elbow of a servant,
who was just placing a gravy-boat on the table, and brought the gravy
down on his little brown wig, whence it found its way, in many a
bubbling rill, over his face, neck, and shoulders.
{217}
A murmur of sympathy and suppressed laughter ran around the table; and
while a servant, at his mistress’s bidding, was applying napkins to
Cradock, he seemed only intent upon replying to Miss Leslie. “It was
the Lion, Miss Hope; ha, indeed, a wonderful memory! yes, yes, it was
the Lion. The Blessing of the Bay was the governor’s own vessel.”
“That name,” said Sir Philip Gardiner, in a low tone to Hope Leslie,
next whom he sat, “should, I think, have been reserved, where names
are significant, for a more just appropriation.”
He spoke in a tone of confidential gallantry so discordant with his
demeanour, that the fair listener lost the matter in the manner; and,
turning to him with one of those looks so confounding to a man who
means to speak but to one ear in the company, “What did you say, sir?”
she asked.
“He said, my dear,” said Mrs. Grafton, who sat at the knight’s left
hand, and who would have considered it worse to suppress a compliment
than to conceal treason, “he said, my dear, that you should have been
named the Blessing of the Bay.”
Sir Philip recoiled a little at this flat version of his compliment;
but he had other interests to sustain more important than his knightly
courtesy, and he was just contriving something to say which might
secure him a safe passage past Scylla and Charybdis, when Madam
Winthrop, who was exclusively occupied with the duty of presiding,
begged Sir Philip would change his plate, and take a piece of wild
turkey, which she could recommend as savoury {218} and tender; or a
piece of the venison--the venison, she said, was a present from the
son of their good old friend and ally, Chicatabot, and she was sure it
was of the best.
The knight declined the proffered delicacies, alleging he had already
been tempted to excess by the cod’s head and shoulders--a rarity to a
European.
“But,” said Miss Leslie, “you will not dine on fish alone, and on
Friday too? why, we shall suspect you of being a Romanist.”
If there was anything in the unwonted blush that deepened the knight’s
complexion which might lead an observer to suspect that an aimless
dart had touched a vulnerable point, he adroitly averted suspicion, by
saying “that he trusted temperance and self-denial were not confined
to a corrupt and superstitious Church, and that, for himself, he found
much use in voluntary mortifications of appetite.”
“Fastings oft,” said Cradock, who had been playing the part of a
valiant trencherman, taking liberally of all of the various feast,
“fastings oft are an excellent thing for those who have grace for
them; and yours, Sir Philip, if one may judge from the ruddiness of
your complexion, are wonderfully prospered.” The knight received the
simple compliment with a silent bow.
Cradock turned to Miss Downing, who sat on his right: “Now, Miss
Esther, you do wrong yourself; there is that pigeon’s wing, just as I
gave it to you!”
Hope Leslie looked up with a deprecating glance, {219} as if she would
have said, “Heaven help my tutor! he never moves without treading on
somebody’s toes.”
“Is not Miss Downing well?” asked the elder Fletcher, who now, for the
first time, noticed that she looked unusually pale and pensive.
“Perfectly well,” said Esther.
“Indifferently well, my dear, you mean,” said Madam Winthrop.
“Esther,” she added, “always feeds like a Canary bird; but I never
despair of a young lady: they have all the chameleon gift of living
upon air.”
“Will Miss Downing mend her appetite with wine,” asked young Fletcher,
“and allow me the honour of taking it with her?”
“Everell!” exclaimed Hope, touching his elbow, but not in time to
check him.
“My son!” said his father, in a voice of rebuke.
“Mr. Fletcher!” exclaimed Governor Winthrop, in a tone of surprise.
“What have I done now?” asked Everell of Hope Leslie; but Hope was too
much diverted with his mistake and honest consternation to reply.
“You have done nothing inexcusable, my young friend,” said the
governor; “for you probably did not know that the vain custom of
drinking one to another, has been disused at my table for ten years;
and that our general court prohibited this ‘employment of the creature
out of its natural use’ by their order in the year of our Lord 1639,
four years since; so that the custom hath become quite obsolete with
{220} us, though it may be still in practice among our laxer brethren
of England.”
“With due deference I speak,” said Everell, “to my elders and
superiors; but it really appears to me to border on the Quixotism of
fighting windmills to make laws against so innocent a custom.”
“No vanity is innocent, Mr. Everell Fletcher,” replied the governor,
“as you will yourself, after proper consideration, confess. Tell me,
when but now you would have proffered wishes of health to my niece
Esther, was it not an empty compliment, and not meant by you for an
argument of love, which should always be unfeigned?”
The governor’s proposition appeared to himself to be merely an
abstract metaphysical truth; but to the younger part of his audience,
at least, it conveyed much more than met the ear.
Miss Downing blushed deeply, and Everell attempted, in vain, to
stammer a reply. Hope Leslie perceived the pit, and essayed a safe
passage over it. “Esther,” she said, “Everell shall not be our knight
at tilt or tournament, if he cannot use the lance your uncle has
dropped at his feet. Are there not always, Everell, in your heart,
arguments of love unfeigned when you drink to the health of a fair
lady?”
Before Everell had time to reply except by a sparkling glance, the
governor said, “This is somewhat too light a discussion of a serious
topic.”
This rebuke quenched at once the spark of gayety Hope had kindled; and
the dinner, never a prolonged meal in this pattern mansion, was
finished without {221} any other conversation than that exacted by the
ordinary courtesies of the table.
After the repast was ended, the Indian chief took his leave with much
fainter expressions of attachment than he had vouchsafed on a former
visit, as the governor had afterward occasion to remember.
The party dispersed in various directions, and the governor withdrew,
with the elder Fletcher, to his study. When there, Governor Winthrop
lighted his pipe, a luxury in which he sparingly indulged; and then,
looking over a packet of letters, he selected one and handed it to Mr.
Fletcher, saying, “There is an epistle from Brother Downing which your
son has brought to me. Read it yourself; you will perceive that he has
stated his views on a certain subject, interesting to you and to us
all; and stated them directly, without any of the circumlocution and
ambiguity which a worldly-minded man would have employed on a like
occasion.”
Mr. Downing introduced the important topic of his epistle, which Mr.
Fletcher read with the deepest attention, by saying that “Fletcher,
junior, returns to the colony a fit instrument, as I trust, to promote
its welfare and honour. He is gifted with divers and goodly talents,
and graced with sufficient learning.
“I have often been sorely wounded at hearing the censures passed on
our brother Fletcher for having sent his son into the bosom of a
prelatical family, but I confidently believe the youth returns to his
own country with his Puritan principles uncorrupted; although, it is
too true, as our stricter brethren often {222} remark, that he has
little of the outward man of a ‘Pilgrim indeed.’
“He is, Brother Winthrop, a high-metalled youth, and on this account I
feel, as you doubtless will, the urgency of coupling him with a member
of the congregation, and one who may, in all likelihood, accomplish
for him that precious promise of the apostle, ‘the believing wife
shall sanctify the unbelieving husband.’
“I have already taken the first step towards bringing about so
desirable an end, by inviting the young man to my house, where he
spent two months of the summer. I then favoured his intimate
intercourse with my well-beloved daughter Esther, whose outward form I
may say, without boasting, is a fit temple for the spirit within.”
Mr. Downing then proceeded to state some circumstances already known
to the reader, and particularly dwelt on Everell’s remaining at his
house during his daughter’s dangerous illness; touched lightly on
their having had an interview, very affecting to both parties, and in
regard to the particulars of which, both, with the shyness natural to
youth, had been silent; and finally set forth, in strong terms, the
concern evinced by Everell while Esther’s recovery was doubtful.
“Notwithstanding,” the letter proceeded to say, “these circumstances
are so favourable to my wishes, I have some apprehensions; and
therefore, brother, I bespeak your immediate interposition in behalf
of the future spiritual prosperity of this youth. He {223} hath been
assiduously courted by Miss Leslie’s paternal connexions, and I have
reason to believe they have solicited him to marry her and bring her
to England. But, without such solicitation, the marriage is a probable
one. Miss Leslie is reported here to be wanting in grace--a want that
I fear would not impoverish her in young Fletcher’s estimation; and to
be a maiden of rare comeliness--a thing precious in the eyes of youth,
too apt to set a high price on that which is but dust and ashes. The
young lady is of great estate too; but that, I think, will not weigh
with the young man, for I discern a lofty spirit in him that would
spurn the yoke of Mammon. Nor do I think, with some of our brethren,
that ‘gold and grace did never yet agree.’ Yet there are some who
would make this alliance a ground of farther scandal against our
brother Fletcher. It is whispered that his worldly affairs are not so
prosperous as we could wish. Mark me, brother, my confidence in him is
unmoved, and I think, and am sure, that he would not permit his son to
espouse this maiden, with the dowry of a queen, if thereby he
endangered his spiritual welfare. But, brother, you in the New World
are as a city set on a hill. Many lie in wait for your halting, and
all appearance of evil should be avoided. On this account and many
others, Brother Fletcher and all of us should duly prize that medium
and safe condition for which Agur prayed.
“One more reason I would suggest, and then commend the business to thy
guidance, who art justly {224} termed, by friend and foe, the Moses of
God’s people in the wilderness.
“It seemeth to me, the motive of Miss Leslie’s mother, in going with
her offspring to the colony, should be duly weighed and respected.
Could her purpose, in any other way, be so certainly accomplished as
by uniting her daughter speedily with a godly and approved member of
the congregation?”
Every sentence of this letter stung Mr. Fletcher. He repeatedly threw
it down, rose from his seat, and after taking two or three turns
across the study, screwed his courage to the sticking point, and
returned to it again. Governor Winthrop’s attention appeared to be
riveted to a paper he was perusing, till he could no longer, from
motives of delicacy to his friend, affect to abstract his attention
from him. Mr. Fletcher finished the letter, and leaning over the
table, covered his face with his hands. His emotion could not be
hidden. The veins in his temples and forehead swelled almost to
bursting, and his tears fell like rain-drops on the table. Governor
Winthrop laid his hand on his friend’s arm, and by a gentle pressure
expressed a sympathy that it would have been difficult to imbody in
words.
After a few moments’ struggle with his feelings, Mr. Fletcher subdued
his emotion, and turning to Governor Winthrop, he said, with dignity,
“I have betrayed before you a weakness that I have never expressed but
in that gracious Presence where weakness is not degradation. Thus has
it ever pleased Him, who knows the infirmity of my heart, to try me.
{225} From my youth my path hath been hedged up with earthly
affections. Is it that I have myself forged the fetters that bind me
to the earth? Is it that I have given to the creature what I owed to
the Creator, that one after another of my earthly delights is taken
from me? that I am thus stripped bare? Oh! it has been the thought
that came unbidden to my nightly meditations and my daily reveries,
that I might live to see these children of two saints in heaven
united. This sweet child is the image of her blessed mother. She was
her precious legacy to me, and she hath been such a spirit of love and
contentment in my lone dwelling, that she hath inwrought herself with
every fibre of my heart.”
“This was natural,” said Governor Winthrop.
“Ay, my friend, and was it not inevitable? I did think,” he continued,
after a momentary pause, “that in their childhood, their affections,
as if instinct with their parents’ feelings, mingled in natural union;
if their hearts retain this bent, I think it were not right to put a
force upon them.”
“Certainly not,” replied his friend; “but the affections of youth are
flexible, and may be turned from their natural bent by a skilful hand.
It is our known duty to direct them heavenward. In taking care for the
spiritual growth of our young people, who are soon to stand in their
father’s places, we do, as we are bound, most assuredly build up the
interests of our Zion. I should ill deserve the honourable name my
brethren have given me if I were not zealous over our youth. In
fearing any opposition {226} from the parties in question, I think, my
worthy brother, you disquiet yourself in vain. It appeareth from
Downing’s letter that there hath been tender passages between your son
and his daughter Esther; and even if Hope Leslie hath fed her fancies
with thoughts of Everell, yet I think she would be forward to advance
her friend’s happiness; for, notwithstanding she doth so differ from
her in her gay carriage, their hearts appear to be knit together.”
“You do my beloved child but justice; what is difficult duty to others
hath ever seemed impulse in her; and I have sometimes thought that the
covenant of works was to her a hinderance to the covenant of grace;
and that, perhaps, she would hate sin more for its unlawfulness if she
did not hate it so much for its ugliness.”
Governor Winthrop thought his friend went a little too far in
magnifying the virtue of his favourite. “Pardon,” he said, “the wounds
inflicted by a friend; they are faithful. I have thought the child
rests too much on _performances_; and you must allow, brother, that
she hath not--I speak it tenderly--that passiveness that, next to
godliness, is a woman’s best virtue.”
“I should scarcely account,” replied Mr. Fletcher, “a property of
soulless matter a virtue.” This was spoken in a tone of impatience
that indicated truly that the speaker, like an over-fond parent, could
better endure any reproach cast on himself than the slightest
imputation on his favourite. Governor Winthrop was not a man to shrink
from inflicting {227} what he deemed a salutary pain because his
patient recoiled from his touch; he therefore proceeded in his
admonition.
“Partiality is dangerous, as we see in the notable history of David
and Absalom, and elsewhere; and perhaps it was your too great
indulgence that imboldened the child to the daring deed of violating
the law by the secret release of the condemned.”
“That violation rests upon suspicion, not proof,” said Mr. Fletcher,
hastily.
“And why,” replied Governor Winthrop, smiling, “is it permitted to
rest on suspicion? from respect to our much-suffering Brother
Fletcher, and consideration of the youth of the offender, we have
winked at the offence. But we will pass that; I would be the last to
lift the veil that hath fallen over it; I only alluded to it to
enforce the necessity of a stricter watch over this lawless girl.
Would it not be wise and prudent to take my brother’s counsel, and
consign her to some one who should add to affection the authority of a
husband?”
Governor Winthrop paused for a reply, but receiving none, he
proceeded: “One of our most promising youth hath this day discoursed
to me of Hope Leslie, and expressed a matrimonial intent towards her.”
“And who is this?” demanded Mr. Fletcher.
“William Hubbard--the youth who hath come with so much credit from our
prophets’ school at Cambridge. He is a discreet young man, steeped in
learning, and of approved orthodoxy.”
{228}
“These be cardinal points with us,” replied Mr. Fletcher, calmly, “but
they are not like to commend him to a maiden of Hope Leslie’s temper.
She inclineth not to bookish men, and is apt to vent her childish
gayety upon the ungainly ways of scholars.”
Thus our heroine, by her peculiar taste, lost at least the golden
opportunity of illustrating herself by a union with the future
historian of New-England.
After a little consideration the governor resumed the conversation.
“It is difficult,” he said, “to suit a maiden who hath more whim than
reason: what think you of Sir Philip Gardiner?”
“Sir Philip Gardiner! a new-comer of to-day! and old enough to be the
father of Hope Leslie!”
“The fitter guide for her youth. Besides, brother, you magnify his
age: he is still on the best side of forty. He is a man of good
family, who, after having fought on the side where his birth naturally
cast him, hath been plucked, as a brand from the burning, by the
preaching and exhortation of the godly Mr. Wilkins; and feeling, as he
declares, a pious horror at the thought of imbruing his hands any
farther in blood, he hath come to cast his lot among us, instead of
joining our friends in England.”
“Hath he credentials to verify all these particulars?”
Governor Winthrop coloured slightly at an interrogatory that implied a
deficiency of wariness on his part, and replied, “That he thought the
gentleman scarcely needed other than he carried in his language {229}
and deportment, but that he had come furnished with a letter of
introduction satisfactory in all points.”
“From whom?” inquired Mr. Fletcher.
“From one Jeremy Austin, who expresseth himself as, and Sir Philip
says is, a warm friend to us.”
“Is he known to you?”
“No; but I think I have heard him mentioned as a well-willer to our
colony.”
This was not perfectly satisfactory to Mr. Fletcher, but he forbore to
press the point farther, and turned his attack to that part of the
suggestion that appeared most vulnerable. “Methinks,” he said, “you
are over-hasty in proposing to match Hope Leslie with this stranger.”
“Nay, I meant not a formal proposition. I noted that Sir Philip was
struck with Hope’s outward graces. He is an uncommon personable man,
and hath that bearing that finds favour in maidens’ eyes, and the
thought came to me that he may have been sent here, in good time, to
relieve all our perplexities; and, to confess the truth, brother, if I
may use the sporting language of our youth, I am impatient to put
jesses on this wild bird of yours while she is on our perch. But, to
be serious, and surely the subject doth enforce us to it, I am
satisfied that you will not oppose any means that may offer to secure
the lambs of our flock in the true fold.”
“I shall oppose nothing that will promote the spiritual prosperity of
those dear to me as my own soul. I have no reason to doubt my son’s
filial obedience; he hath never been wanting; and, though {230} both
he and I have fallen under censure, I see not that I erred in sending
him from me, since I but complied with the last request of his sainted
mother, and that compliance deprived me of the only child left of my
little flock. I speak not vauntingly; but let not those who have
remained in Egypt condemn him who has drank of the bitterest waters of
the wilderness.” Mr. Fletcher, finding himself again yielding to
irrepressible emotions, rose and hastily left his more equal-tempered
and less interested friend.
Thus did these good men, not content with their magnanimous conflict
with necessary evils, involve themselves in superfluous trials.
Whatever gratified the natural desires of the heart was questionable,
and almost everything that was difficult and painful assumed the form
of duty. As if the benevolent Father of all had stretched over our
heads a canopy of clouds instead of the bright firmament, and its
glorious host, and ever-changing beauty, and had spread under our feet
a wilderness of bitter herbs instead of every tree and plant yielding
its good fruit. But we would fix our eyes on the bright halo that
encircled the Pilgrim’s head, and not mark the dust that sometimes
sullied his garments.