Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885Various
General
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals
once a general in Cromwell’s army, and, like Whalley his companion in
exile, one of the judges who condemned Charles to death, now forced,
even in that far land, to hide for his life, since an active quest was
maintained, in obedience to the Home Government for both Goffe and
Whalley. For twelve years did good Mr. Russell shelter them, unknown
to all but his own family. Whalley died in his house; but Goffe
subsequently disappeared, and the rest of his career is unknown.
Altogether the hardy band found ample scope for carrying into practice
the noble maxim of the Pilgrim Fathers rehearsed at Leyden: “All great
and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and
must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courages.” In order
to secure protection from Indians and wolves, the little community
built its dwellings, not each isolated on its own farm-lands, but side
by side, so as to form at once the main street; each house having its
“home lot” or strip of “interval,” as the rich meadow-land stretching
down to the river was called, and its “wood-lot” on the hillside.
Having chosen her “select men to direct all the fundamental affairs
of the town, to prevent anything which they judge shall be of damage,
and to order anything which shall be for the good of the town; to
hear complaints, arbitrate controversies, lay out highways, see to
the scouring of ditches, the killing of wolves, and the training
of children,” Northampton proceeded at once to build herself a
meeting-house “of sawen timber 26 feet long and 18 feet wide,” for the
sum of £14 sterling, to be paid in work or corn. There was no clock in
the settlement; so the worshippers were called together, sometimes by
a large cow-bell, sometimes by drum, and finally by trumpet, for the
blowing of which Jedediah Strong had a salary of eighteen shillings
a year. There was no minister for some years; and more finding in
themselves a vocation for preaching than for listening, or at any rate
for criticising than for meekly imbibing, disputes arose, the General
Court was appealed to, and its decision enforced that the service
should consist, besides praying and singing, of “the reading aloud
of known godly and orthodox books;” and for those who failed to obey
with seemly decorum the summons of Mr. Jedediah Strong’s trumpet,
severe was the chastisement. Joe Leonard and Sam Harmon, for instance,
“who were seen to whip and whisk one another with a stick before the
meeting-house door,” were fined five shillings; and Daniel, “for
idle watching about and not coming to the ordinances of the Lord,”
was adjudged worthy of stripes to the number “of five, _well laid
on_.” In 1672 the town voted that there be some sticks set up in the
“meeting-house, with fit persons placed near, to use them as occasion
shall require, to keep the youth from disorder.” Which staves were
fitted with a hare’s foot at one end and his tail at the other; the
former to give a hard rap to misbehaving boys, the latter a gentle
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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