remained with us all our lifetime, and was of good service, and very comfortable to us on all occasions.

My next care, after marriage, was to secure my wife what moneys she had, and with herself bestowed upon me. For I I held it would be an abominable crime in me, and savor of the highest ingratitude, if I, though but through negligence, should leave room for my father (in case I should be taken away suddenly) to break in upon her estate, and deprive her of any part of that which had been and ought to be her own. Wherefore with the first opportunity (as I remember, the very next day, and before I knew particularly what she had) I made my will, and thereby secured to her whatever I was possessed of, as well. all that which she brought, either in moneys or in goods, as that little which I had before I married her; which indeed was but little, yet more [by all that little] than I had ever given her ground to expect with me.

She had indeed been advised by some of her relations to secure, before marriage, some part at least of what she had, to be at her own disposal. Which, though perhaps not wholly free from some tincture of self-interest in the proposer, was not in itself the worst of counsel. But the worthiness of her mind, and the sense of the ground on which she received me, would not suffer her to entertain any suspicion of me: and this laid on me the greater obligation, in point of gratitude, as well as of justice, to regard and secure her; which I did.

I had not been long married before I was solicited by my dear friends Isaac and Mary Penington, and her daughter Guli, to take a journey into Kent and Sussex, to account with their tenants, and overlook their estates in those counties, which, before I was married, I had had the care of; and accordingly the the journey I undertook, though in the depth of winter.

My travels into those parts were the more irksome to me, from the solitariness I underwent, and want of suitable society. For my business lying among the tenants, who were a rustic sort of people, of various persuasions and humors, but not Friends, I had little opportunity of conversing with Friends, though I contrived to be with them as much as I could, especially on the first day of the week.

But that which made my present journey more heavy to me, was a sorrowful exercise which was newly fallen upon me from my father.

He had, upon my first acquainting him with my inclination to marry, and to whom, not only very much approved the match, but voluntarily offered, without my either asking or expecting, to give me a handsome portion at present, with assurance of an addition to it hereafter. And he not only made this offer to me in private, but came down from London into the country on

purpose, to be better acquainted with my friend; and did there make the same proposal to her; offering also to give security to any friend or relation of hers for the performance. Which offer she most generously declined, leaving him as free as she found him. But after we were married, notwithstanding such his promise, he wholly declined the performance of it, under pretence of our not being married by the priest and liturgy. This usage and cvil treatment of us thereupon was a great trouble to me; and when I endeavored to soften him in the matter, he forbid me speaking to him of it any more, and removed his lodging that I might not find him.

The grief I conceived on this occasion was not for any disappointment to myself or to my wife, for neither she nor I had any strict or necessary dependence upon that promise; but my grief was for the cause assigned by him as the ground of it, which was, that our marriage was not by priest or liturgy.

And surely hard would it have been for my spirit to have borne up under the weight of this exercise, had not the LORD been exceeding gracious to me, and supported me with the inflowings of his love and life, wherewith he visited my soul in my travail. The sense whereof raised in my heart a thankful remembrance of his manifold kindnesses in his former dealings with me. And in the evening, when I came to my inn, while supper was getting ready, I took my pen, and put into words what had in the day revolved in my thoughts. And thus it was:

A SONG OF PRAISE.

Thy love, dear Father, and thy tender care,
Have in my heart begot a strong desire,
To celebrate Thy name with praises rare,
That others too Thy goodness may admire,
And learn to yield to what Thou dost require.
Many have been the trials of my mind,

My exercises great, great my distress;
Full oft my ruin hath my foe design'd,

My sorrows then my pen cannot express,
Nor could the best of men afford redress,
When thus beset, to Thee I lift mine eye,

And with a mournful heart my moan did make;
How oft with eyes o'erflowing did I cry,
"My God, my God, O do me not forsake!
Regard my tears! some pity on me take!"

And to the glory of Thy holy name,

Eternal God, whom I both love and fear,

I hereby do declare, I never came

Before Thy throne, and found Thee loth to hear;
But always ready with an open ear.

And tho' sometimes Thou seem'st Thy face to hide,
As one that had withdrawn Thy love from me,
'Tis that my faith may to the full be tried,
And that I thereby may the better see
How weak I am, when not upheld by Thee.
For underneath Thy holy arm I fell,

Encompassing with strength as with a wall,
That, if the enemy trip up my heel,

Thou ready art to save me from a fall:
To Thee belong thanksgivings over all.
And for Thy tender love, my God, my King,
My heart shall magnify Thee all my days,
My tongue of Thy renown shall daily sing,
My pen shall also grateful trophies raise,
As monuments to thy eternal praise.
Kent, the Eleventh Month, 1669.

T. E.

Having finished my business in Kent, I struck off into Sussex, and finding the enemy endeavoring still more strongly to beset me, I betook myself to the Lord for safety, in whom I knew all help and strength was; and thus poured forth my supplication, directed

TO THE HOLY ONE.

Eternal GOD! preserver of all those
(Without respect of person or degree)
Who in Thy faithfulness their trust repose,
And place their confidence alone in Thee;
Be Thou my succour; for Thou know'st that I
On Thy protection, LORD, alone rely.

Surround me, Father, with Thy mighty pow'r,
Support me daily by Thine holy arm,

Preserve me faithful in the evil hour,

Stretch forth Thine hand, to save me from all harm.
Be Thou my helmet, breast-plate, sword, and shield,
And make my foes before Thy power yield.
Teach me the spiritual battle so to fight,

That when the enemy shall me beset,
Arm'd cap-a-pie with th' armour of Thy light,
A perfect conquest o'er him I may get;
And with Thy battle-axe may cleave the head
Of him, who bites that part whereon I tread.
Then being from domestic foes set free,

The cruelties of men I shall not fear;

But in Thy quarrel, LORD, undaunted be,
And, for Thy sake, the loss of all things bear.
Yea, though in dungeon lock'd, with joy will sing
An Ode of Praise to Thee, my God,

Sussex, the Eleventh Month, 1669.

my King.

T. E.

As soon as I had dispatched the business I went about, I returned home without delay, and to my great comfort found my wife well, and myself very welcome to her; both which I esteemed as great favors.

Towards the latter part of the summer following, I went into Kent again, and in my passage through London, received the unwelcome news of the loss of a very hopeful youth, who had formerly been under my care for education. It was Isaac Penington, (the second son of my worthy friends Isaac and Mary Penington) a child of excellent natural parts, whose great abilities bespake him likely to be a great man, had he lived to be a man. He was designed to be bred a merchant, and before he was thought ripe enough to be entered thereunto, his parents, at somebody's request, gave leave that he might go a voyage to Barbadoes, only to spend a little time, see the place, and be somewhat acquainted with the sea, under the care and conduct of a choice friend and sailor, John Grove, of London, who was master of a vessel, and traded to that island; and a little venture he had with him, made up by divers of his friends, and by me among the rest. He made the voyage thither very well, found the watery element agreeable, had his health there, liked the place, was much pleased with his entertainment there, and was returning home with his little cargo, in return for the goods he carried out; when, on a sudden, through unwariness, he dropped over board, and (the vessel being under sail with a brisk gale) was irrecoverably lost, notwithstanding the utmost labor, care, and diligence of the master and sailors to have saved him.

This unhappy accident took from the afflicted master all the pleasure of his voyage, and he mourned for the loss of this youth. as if it had been his own, yea, only son; for as he was in him"self a man of a worthy mind, so the boy, by his witty and handsome behaviour in general, and obsequious carriage towards him in particular, had very much wrought himself into his favor.

As for me, I thought it one of the sharpest strokes I had met with, for I both loved the child very well, and had conceived great hopes of general good from him; and it pierced me the deeper, to think how deeply it would pierce his afflicted parents.

Sorrow for this disaster was my companion in this journey, and I travelled the roads under great exercise of mind, revolving in my thoughts the manifold accidents which the life of man was attended with and subject to, and the great uncertainty of all human things; I could find no centre, no firm basis for the mind of man to fix upon, but the Divine power and will of the Almighty. This consideration wrought in my spirit a sort of contempt of what supposed happiness or pleasure this world, or the things that are in, and of it, can of themselves yield, and

raised my contemplation higher; which, as it ripened, and came to some degree of digestion, I breathed forth in mournful accents, thus:

SOLITARY THOUGHTS

ON THE

UNCERTAINTY OF HUMAN THINGS,

OCCASIONED BY

THE SUDDEN LOSS OF AN HOPEFUL YOUTH.

Transibunt cito, quæ vos mansura putatis.

Those things will pass away,
Which ye think will always stay.

What ground, alas! has any man
To set his heart on things below,
Which, when they seem most like to stand,
Fly like an arrow from a bow!

Things subject to exterior sense
Are to mutation most propense.

If stately houses we erect,

And therein think to take delight,
On what a sudden are we check'd,

And all our hopes made groundless quite!
One little spark in ashes lays

What we were building half our days.

If on estate an eye we cast,

And pleasure there expect to find,
A secret providential blast.

Gives disappointment to our mind.
Who now's on top, ere long may feel
The circling motion of the wheel.

If we our tender babes embrace,
And comfort hope in them to have,
Alas, in what a little space,

Is hope, with them, laid in the grave !
Whatever promiseth content,

Is in a moment from us rent.

This world cannot afford a thing,
Which, to a well-composed mind,
Can any lasting pleasure bring,
But in its womb its grave will find.
All things unto their center tend;
What had beginning will have end.

*

* Understand this of natural things.