Prudent in rule, in argument quick, full;
Fervent in prayer, in preaching powerful;
That well did learned Ames record bear,
The like to him he never wont to hear.

'Twas of Geneva's worthies said, with wonder,
(Those worthies three) Farell was wont to thunder;
Viret, like rain, on tender grass to shower;
But Calvin, lively oracles to pour.

All these in Hooker's spirit did remain,

A son of thunder, and a shower of rain,

A pourer forth of lively oracles,

In saving souls, the sum of miracles.

Now blessed Hooker, thou art set on high, Above the thankless world, and cloudy sky; Do thou of all thy labour reap the crown, Whilst we here reap the seed which thou hast sown. to which we may add from John Norton's life, "A taste of the Divine Soliloquies between God and his Soul, from these two transcribed poems left behind him in his study, written with his own hand. The one entituled thus,"—

A THANKFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE.

In mother's womb thy fingers did me make
And from the womb thou didst me safely take:
From breast thou hast me nurst my life throughout,
That I may say I never wanted ought.

In all my meals my table thou hast spread,
In all my lodgings thou hast made my bed:
Thou hast me clad with changes of array,
And chang'd my house for better far away.
In youthful wandrings thou didst stay my slide,
In all my journies thou hast been my Guide:
Thou hast me sav'd from many an unknown danger,
And shew'd me favour, even where I was a stranger.
In both my callings thou hast heard my voice,
In both my matches thou hast made my choice:
Thou gav'st me sons, and daughters, them to peer,
And giv'st me hope thou'lt learn them thee to fear.

Oft have I seen thee look with Mercy's face,
And through thy Christ have felt thy saving grace.
This is the Heav'n on Earth, if any be:
For this, and all, my soul doth worship Thee.

"Another poem, made by Mr. Cotton (as it seemeth), upon his removal from Boston to this wilderness:"

I now may expect some changes of miseries,
Since God hath made me sure

That himself by them all will purge mine iniquities,
As fire makes silver pure.

Then what though I find the deep deceitfulness
Of a distrustful heart!

Yet I know with the Lord is abundant faithfulness,
He will not lose his part.

When I think of the sweet and gracious company
That at Boston once I had,

And of the long peace of a fruitful Ministry
For twenty years enjoy'd:

The joy that I found in all that happiness

Doth still so much refresh me,

That the grief to be cast out into a wilderness
Doth not so much distress me.

For when God saw his people, his own at our town,
That together they could not hit it,

But that they had learned the language of Askelon, And one with another could chip it.

He then saw it time to send in a busy Elf,
A Joyner to take them asunder,

That so they might learn each one to deny himself.
And so to peece together.

When the breach of their bridges, and all their banks arow,

And of him that school teaches;

When the breach of the Plague, and of their Trade also

Could not learn them to see their breaches.

Then God saw it time to break out on their Ministers,

By loss of health and peace;

Yea, withall to break in upon their Magistrates,
That so their pride might cease.

Cotton Mather has written his life in the Magnalia, with great unction and many puns. "If Boston," says he, "be the chief seat of New England, it was Cotton that was the father and glory of Boston," in compliment, by the way, to whose Lincolnshire residence the city was named, and he celebrates the divines who came with him in the ship from England:-"Mr. Cotton, Mr. Hooker, and Mr. Stone, which glorious triumvirate coming together, made the poor people in the wilderness, at their coming, to say, that the God of heaven had supplied them with what would in some sort answer their three great necessities: Cotton for their clothing, Hooker for their fishing, and Stone for their building."

One of Mather's conceits in this "Life" is worthy of Dr. Fuller; it has a fine touch of imagination. "Another time, when Mr. Cotton had modestly replied unto one that would much talk and crack of his insight into the Revelations; "Brother, I must confess myself to want light in those mysteries:"-the man went home and sent him a pound of candles; upon which action this good man bestowed only a silent smile. He would not set the beacon of his great soul on fire at the landing of such a little cockboat."

Mather quotes the funeral eulogy on Cotton written by Benjamin Woodbridge,* the first graduate of Harvard, which was probably read by Franklin before he wrote the famous typographical epitaph on himself:

A living, breathing Bible; tables where
Both covenants, at large, engraven were;
Gospel and law, in's heart, had each its column;
His head an index to the sacred volume;
His very name a title-page; and next,
His life a commentary on the text.
O, what a monument of glorious worth,
When, in a new edition, he comes forth,
Without erratas, may we think he'll be
In leaves and covers of eternity!

It was to Cotton New England was indebted for the custom of commencing the Sabbath on Saturday evening. "The Sabbath," says Mather, "he began the evening before: for which keeping of the Sabbath, from evening to evening, he wrote arguments before coming to New England:

*The Rev. Benjamin Woodbridge, the first graduate from Harvard College (1642), was born in 1622. He returned to England and preached at Newbury, Berks, with reputation as a scholar and orator. In 1662 he was ejected, but by particular favor of the king, by whom he was highly esteemed, was allowed to preach privately. He died at Inglefield, Berks, 1684. A few of his sermons were published.

and, I suppose, 'twas from his reason and practice that the Christians of New England have generally done so too."

The life of Cotton was also written by his successor in the Church at Boston, JOHN NORTON, an English curate, who came to America and was settled as the colleague of Ward at Ipswich. While at the latter place, he acquired distinguished literary reputation by the elegant latinity of his Answer to Apollonius, the pastor of the Church in Middlebury, who, at the request of the divines of Zealand, had sent over various questions on Church Government to the clergy of New England. Of this work, published in London in 1648, Dr. Thomas Fuller, that warm appreciator of character, says in his Church history,* of his inquiries into the tenets of the Congregationalists, "that of all the authors I have perused concerning the opinions of these Dissenting Brethren,

none to me was more informative than Mr. John Norton (one of no less learning than modesty), minister in New England, in his answer to Apollonius." Norton, in his services to the state, was charged with a delicate commission from the Puritans of New England to address his Majesty Charles II. on the Restoration. He died suddenly in 1663, shortly after his return from this embassy.

Norton's Life and Death of that deservedly famous Man of God, Mr. John Cotton,t shows a scholar's pen as well as the emotion of the divine, and the warm heart of the friend. It abounds with those quaint learned illustrations which those old preachers knew how to employ so well, and which contrast so favorably with the generally meagre style of the pulpit of the present day. Thus, in introducing Cotton on the stage of life, he treats us to a quaint and poetical essay on youthful education. "Though vain man would be wise, yet may he be compared to the cub, as well as the wild asses' colt. Now we know the bear when she bringeth forth her young ones, they are an ill favored lump, a mass without shape, but by continual licking, they are brought to some form. Children are called infants of the palms (Lam. ii. 20), or educations, not because they are but a span in length, but because the midwife, as soon as they are born, stretcheth out their joints with her hand, that they may be more straight afterwards." A conceit is not to be rejected by these old writers, come from what quarter it may; as George Herbert says

All things are big with jest: nothing that's plain But may be witty, if thou hast the vein. Here is something in another way: "Three ingredients Aristotle requires to complete a man, an innate excellency of wit, instruction, and government; the two first we have by nature, in them man is instrumental; the first we have by nature more immediately from God. This native aptitude of mind, which is indeed a peculiar gift of God, the naturalist calls the sparklings and

*Book xi. sec. 51, 2.

+ Abel being dead yet speaketh; or the Life and Death of that deservedly famous man of God, Mr. John Cotton, late teacher of the Church of Christ, at Boston, in New England. By John Norton, teacher of the same church. London: Tho. Newcomb. 1658. 4to. pp. 51. This work is dated by the author, Boston, Nov. 6, 1657.

seeds of virtue, and looks at them as the principles and foundations of better education. These the godly-wise advise such to whom the inspection of youth is committed, to attend to, as spring masters were wont to make a trial of the virtue latent in waters, by the morning vapors that ascend from them," and in a marginal reference he quotes Clemens Alexandrinus, "Animi nostri sunt agri animati." "Idleness in youth," he says, "is scarcely healed without a scar in age.' When he arrives at Cotton's distinguished college years, he has this picture of a student's life.

He is now in the place of improvement, amongst his spaλo, beset with examples, as so many objects of better emulation. If he slacken his pace, his quicken it, there are still those which are before. compeers will leave him behind; and though he phies of Miltiades suffer him not to sleep. Cato, Notwithstanding Themistocles excelleth, yet the trothat Helluo, that devourer of books, is at Athens. Ability and opportunity are now met together; unto both which industry actuated with a desire to know, being joined, bespeaks a person of high expectation. The unwearied pains of ambitious and unquiet wits, are amongst the arrangements of ages. Asia and Egypt can hold the seven wonders; but the books, works, and motions of ambitious minds, the whole world cannot contain. It was an illicit

aspiring after knowledge, which helped to put forth Eve's hand unto the forbidden fruit: the less marvel if irregenerate and unelevated wits have placed their summum bonum in knowledge, indefatigably pursuing it as a kind of deity, as a thing ruinous, yea, as a kind of mortal-immortality. Diogenes, Democritus, and other philosophers, accounting large estates to be an impediment to their proficiency in knowledge, dispossessed themselves of rich inheritances, that they might be the fitter students; preferring an opportunity of study before a large patrimony. Junius, yet ignorant of Christ, can want his country, necessaries, and many comforts; but he must excel. "Through desire a man having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom," Prov. xviii. 1. The elder Plinius lost his life in venturing too near to search the cause of the irruption of the hill Vesuvius. It is true, knowledge excelleth other created excellences, as much as life excelleth darkness; yet it agreeth with them in this, that neither can exempt the subject thereof from eternal misery. Whilst we seek knowledge with a selfish interest, we serve the decree; and self being destroyed according to the decree, we hence become more able to serve the command.

Cotton was on one occasion a correspondent of Cromwell, on an application in 1651 for the encouragement of the Gospel in New England. The reply of the Lord Protector-For my esteemed Friend, Mr. Cotton, Pastor of the Church at Boston, in New England: These-is characteristic of his bewildered dogmatic godliness. "What is the Lord adoing? What prophecies are now fulfilling? Indeed, my dear Friend, between you and me, you know not me," and the like. Carlyle, in his Oliver Cromwell, has printed the letter and prefaced it with this recognition of the old divine"Reverend John Cotton is a man still held in some remembrance among our New England Friends. A painful Preacher, oracular of high Gospels to New England; who in his day was well seen to be connected with the Supreme Powers of this Universe, the word of him being as a

live-coal to the hearts of many. He died some years afterwards;-was thought, especially on his deathbed, to have manifested gifts even of Prophecy, a thing not inconceivable to the human mind that well considers Prophecy and John Cotton."*

He frequently bestowed large sums on widows and orphans, and on one occasion when there was a scarcity at Southampton, on Long Island, joined with a few others in despatching "a whole bark's load of corn of many hundred bushels" to the relief of the place.

THOMAS HOOKER.

T. Hocker

THOMAS HOOKER was born at Marfield, Leicestershire, in 1586. He was educated at Cambridge, became a fellow of Emanuel college, and, or leaving the university, a popular preacher in London. In 1626 he removed to Chelmsford, Essex. After officiating as "lecturer" for four years in this place, in consequence of nonconformity with the established church he was obliged to discontinue preaching, and, by request, opened a school, in which he employed John Eliot, afterwards the Apostle to the Indians, as his usher. He not long after went over to Holland, where he remained three years, preaching at Amsterdam and Rotterdam. He then emigrated to Massachusetts, arriving at Boston, with Mr. Cotton and Mr. Stone, Sept. 4, 1633, and became the pastor of the congregation at Newtown, or Cambridge, with Mr. Stone as his assistant. "Such multitudes," says Cotton Mather, "flocked over to New England after them that the plantation of Newtown became too straight for them," and in consequence Hooker, with one hundred of his followers, penetrated through the wilderness to the banks of the Connecticut, where they founded Hartford. A difference of opinion on minor points of church government with his clerical associates had its share in effecting this removal. Neither distance nor difference, however, led to any suspension of friendly intercourse, Hooker occasionally visiting and preaching in Massachusetts Bay, where he was always received by admiring crowds.

With the exception of these visits, the remainder of his life was spent at the colony he had founded. He enjoyed throughout his career a great reputation as a pulpit orator, and several stories are told by Mather of wonders wrought by his prayers and sermons. On one occasion, while preaching in "the great church of Leicester (England), one of the chief burgesses in the town much opposed his preaching there; and when he could not prevail to hinder it, he set certain fidlers at work to disturb him in the church porch or churchyard. But such was the vivacity of Mr. Hooker, as to proceed in what he was about, without either the damping of his mind or the drowning of his voice; whereupon

the man himself went unto the church door to overhear what he said," with such good result that he begged pardon for his offence, and became a devout Christian. His bearing was so dignified that it was said of him, "he could put a king in his pocket."

His charities were as liberal as his endowments.

* Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, with Elucidations, i. 8.

Hooker's Residence at Hartford.

"He would say," remarks Mather, "that he should esteem it a favor from God, if he might live no longer than he should be able to hold up lively in the work of his place; and that when the time of his departure should come, God would shorten the time, and he had his desire." A few days' illness brought him to his deathbed. His last words were in reply to one who said to him, "Sir, you are going to receive the reward of all your labors," "Brother, I am going to receive mercy." A little after he closed his eyes with his own hands, "and expired his blessed soul into the arms of his fellow-servants, the holy angels," on July 7, 1647.

Two hundred of his manuscript sermons were sent to England by John Higginson, the minister of Salem, himself a man of some literature, who died in 1708, at the extreme age of ninety-two years, seventy-two of which he had passed in the ministry. Nearly one hundred of these sermons were published; and he was also the author of several tracts, and of a Survey of the Sum of Church Discipline, which was published in London, 1648, under the care of Dr. Thomas Goodwin, who declares that to praise either author or work, "were to lay paint upon burnished marble, or add light unto the sun."+

The Application of Redemption by the Effectual Work of the Word and Spirit of Christ, for the Bringing Home of Lost Sinners to God, which was printed from the author's papers, written with his own hand, and attested to be such in an epistle by Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye, had reached a second edition in London in 1659. It

is a compact small quarto of seven hundred pages, exhibiting his practical divinity in the best manner of the Puritan school. One of his most popular works was The Poor Doubting Christian drawn to Christ; a seventh edition was published in Boston, 1743.

FROM THE APPLICATION OF REDEMPTION.

Follow sin by the fruits of it, as by the bloody footsteps, and see what havoc it makes in every place wherever it comes: go to the prisons, and see so many malefactors in irons, so many witches in the dungeon; these are the fruits of sin; look aside, and there you shall see one drawn out of the pit where he was drowned; cast your eye but hard by, and behold another lying weltering in his blood, the knife in his throat, and his hand at the knife, and his own hands become his executioner; thence go to the place of execution, and there you shall hear many prodigal and rebellious children and servants upon the ladder, leaving the last remembrance of their untimely death, which their distempers have brought about. I was born in a good place where the gospel was preached with plainness and power, lived under godly masters and religious parents; a holy and tender-hearted mother I had, many prayers she made, tears she wept for me, and those have met me often in the dark in my dissolute courses, but I never had a heart to hear and receive. All you stubborn and rebellious, hear and fear, and learn by my harms; hasten from thence into the wilderness, and see Corah, Dathan, and Abiram going down quick to hell, and all the people flying and crying lest we perish also; Lo, this rebellion hath brought; Turn aside but to the Red sea, and behold all the Egyptians dead upon the shore; and ask who slew them? and the story will tell you a stubborn heart was the cause of their direful confusion: From thence send your thoughts to the cross where our Saviour was crucified, he who bears up heaven and earth with his power, and behold those bitter and brinish tears, and hideous cries, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? And make but a peephole into hell, and lay your ear and listen to those yellings of the devils and damned, cursing the day that ever they were born, the means that ever they enjoyed, the mercies that ever they did receive, the worm there gnawing, and never dies, the fire there burning, and never goes out, and know this sin hath done, and it will do so to all that love it and live in it.

FROM THE DOUBTING CHRISTIAN DRAWN TO CHRIST.

Many a poor soul mourns and cries to heaven for mercy, and prays against a stubborn, hard heart, and is weary of his life, because this vile heart remains yet in him; and yet haply gets little or no redress. The reason is, and the main wound lies here, he goes the wrong way to work; for, he that would have grace must (first of all) get Faith, Faith will bring all the rest: buy the field and the pearl is thine; it goes with the purchase. Thou must not think with thine own struggling to get the mastery of a proud heart; for that will not do: But let thy faith go first to Christ, and try what that can do. There are many graces necessary in this work; as meekness, patience, humility, and wisdom: Now faith will fetch all these, and possess the soul of them. Brethren, therefore if you set any price upon these graces, buy the field, labor for faith; get that and you get all. The apostle saith, 2 Cor. iii. 18: We all with open face beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory. The Lord Christ is the glass, and the glorious grace of God in Christ, is that

glory of the Lord: Therefore, first behold this grace in Christ by faith (and thou must do so before thou canst receive grace). First, see humility in Christ, and then fetch it thence: First see strength and courage in him, whereby to enable thy weak heart, and strength will come; there fetch it, and there have it. Would you then have a meek, gracious, and humble heart? I dare say for some of you that you had rather have it than anything under heaven, and would think it the best bargain that ever you made; which is the cause why you say, "Oh, that I could once see that day, that this proud heart of mine might be humbled: Oh, if I could see the last blood of my sins, I should then think myself happy, none more, and desire to live no longer." But is this thy desire, poor soul? Then get faith, and so buy the whole, for they all go together: Nor think to have them upon any price, not having faith. I mean patience, and meekness, and the humble heart: But buy faith, the field, and you have the pearl. Further, would you have the glory of God in your eye, and be more heavenly minded? Then look to it, and get it by the eye of faith: Look up to it in the face of Jesus Christ, and then you shall see it; and then hold you there: For there, and there only, this vision of the glory of God is to be seen, to your everlasting peace and endless comfort. When men use to make a purchase, they speak of all the commodities of it, as, there is so much wood, worth so much; and so much stock, worth so much; and then they offer for the whole, answerable to these severals. So here; there is item for an heavenly mind, and that's worth thousands; and, item for an humble heart, and that's worth millions: and so for the rest. And are those graces so much worth? What is faith worth then? Hence we may conclude and say, Oh, precious faith! precious indeed, that is able, through the spirit of Christ, to bring so many, nay, all graces with it: As one degree of grace after another, grace here and happiness for ever hereafter. If we have but the hearts of men (I do not say of Christians) methinks this that is spoken of faith should provoke us to labor always, above all things, for this blessed grace of God, the grace of faith.

JOHN WINTHROP,

THE first Governor of Massachusetts, was descended from a highly honorable English family, and born at the family seat at Groton, county of Suffolk, January 12, 1587.* His father, Adam Winthrop, was an accomplished lawyer; and the following, from his pen, reprinted in the Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, shows him to have been possessed of poetic feeling.

VERSES MADE TO THE LADIE MILDMAY AT YE BIRTH OF HER
SONNE HENERY.

MADAME: I mourn not like the swan
That ready is to die,
But with the Phoenix I rejoice,
When she in fire doth fry.

My soul doth praise the Lord,
And magnify his name,

For this sweet child which in your womb
He did most finely frame.

And on a blessed day

Hath made him to be born.
That with his gifts of heavenly grace,
His soul he might adorn.

*Mather (Magnalia, Ed. 1853, i. 119) has it June, and is followed by Eliot. January is the true date from the family record.

VERSES TO HER SON.

Ah, me! what do I mean

To take my pen in hand?

More meet it were for me to rest,
And silent still to stand.

For pleasure take I none
In any worldly thing,

But evermore methinks I hear
My fatal bell to ring.

Yet when the joyful news

Did come unto my ear,
That God had given to her a son,
Who is my nephew dear,

My heart was filled with joy,
My spirits revived all,

And from my old and barren brain
These verses rude did fall.

Welcome, sweet babe, thou art
Unto thy parents dear,

Whose hearts thou filled hast with joy,
As well it doth appear.

The day even of thy birth,

When light thou first didst see, Foresheweth that a joyful life Shall happen unto thee.

For blessed is that day,

And to be kept in mind;

On which our Saviour Jesus Christ
Was born to save mankind.

Grow up, therefore, in grace,
And fear his holy name,
Who in thy mother's secret womb
Thy members all did frame,

And gave to thee a soul,

Thy body to sustain, Which, when this life shall ended be, In heaven with him shall reign.

Love him with all thy heart,

And make thy parents glad,
As Samuel did, whom of the Lord
His mother Anna had.

God grant that they may live
To see from thee to spring
Another like unto thyself,
Who may more joy them bring.
And from all wicked ways,

That godless men do trace,
Pray daily that he will thee keep
By his most mighty grace.
That when thy days shall end,
In his appointed time
Thou mayest yield up a blessed soul,
Defiled with no crime.

And to thy mother dear

Obedient be, and kind;

Give ear unto her loving words,
And print them in thy mind.

Thy father also love,
And willingly obey,

He

He was chosen leader of the colony formed in England to proceed to Massachusetts Bay, and, having converted an estate yielding an income of six or seven hundred pounds into cash, left England, and landed at Salem, June 12, 1630. Within five days he made, with a few companions, a journey of twenty miles through the forest, which resulted in the selection of the peninsula of Shawmut as the site of Boston. During the first winter, the colonists suffered severely from cold and hunger. The Governor endured his share of privation with the rest, living on acorns, ground-nuts, and shellfish. devoted himself with unsparing assiduity to the good of the commonwealth, and was annually elected Governor until 1634, and afterwards from 1637 to 1640, 1642 to 1644, and 1648 to his death, which occurred in consequence of a cold, followed by a fever, March 26, 1649. His administration of the government was firm and decided, and sometimes exposed him to temporary unpopularity. He bore opposition with equanimity, and served the state as faithfully in an inferior official or private position as when at its head. He opposed the doctrines of Anne Hutchinson and her followers, and was active in their banishment, but at the same time used his influence in the synod called to consider their doctrines, in favor of calm discussion and cool deliberation.

His private character was most amiable. On one occasion, having received an angry letter, he sent it back to the writer with the answer: "I am not willing to keep by me such a matter of provocation." Soon after, the scarcity of provisions forced this person to send to buy one of the Governor's cattle. He requested him to accept it as a gift, upon which the appeased opponent came to him, and said, "Sir, your overcoming yourself hath overcome me."

During a severe winter, being told that a neighbor was making free with his woodpile, he sent for the offender, promising to "take a course with him that should cure him of stealing." The "course" was an announcement to the thief that he was to help himself till the winter was over. It was his practice to send his servants on errands to his neighbors at meal times, to spy out the nakedness of the land, for the benevolent purpose of relieving them from his own table.

*These lines are preserved in a Miscellany of Poetry of the time, now No. 1598 of the Harleian MSS. (British Museum). Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Third Series, x. 152.