Thus these two great princes and the colonists’ old pastor left this world about the same time: Death makes no difference. Captain Standish further brought them notice of the death of their early friend, Mr. Cushman, whom the Lord took away also this year, and who had been their right hand with their friends, the adventurers, and for many years had undertaken all their business with them to great advantage. He had written to the Governor but a few months before of the serious illness of Mr. James Sherley, one of the chief friends of the plantation, who lay at the point of death, praising his love and helpfulness in everything, and much bemoaning the loss his death would be to them, for he was the stay and life of the whole business; also that he proposed to come over this year and spend the rest of his days with them. But he who thus wrote of another’s illness, knew not his own death was so near. It shows that a man’s ways are not in his own power, but in His hands, Who has the issue of life and death. Man may propose, but God doth dispose. Their other friends from Leyden wrote many sad letters to them, lamenting the heavy loss of their pastor, and though they would gladly come to them, they saw no probability of it, but concluded that all their hopes were at an end; and besides, many, being aged, began to drop away by death. They were greatly perplexed—and not without cause. But they took courage, and the Lord so helped them, Whose work they had in hand, that now when they seemed at the lowest ebb they began to rise again; and being stripped as it were of all human helps and props, by His divine providence they were not only upheld and sustained, but their example was both honoured and imitated by others; as the sequel will show if the Lord spare me life and time to unfold it.