Memoirs of an American Lady: With Sketches of Manners and Scenery in America, as They Existed Previous to the RevolutionGrant, Anne MacVicar
History
Memoirs of an American Lady: With Sketches of Manners and Scenery in America, as They Existed Previous to the Revolution
Grant, Anne MacVicar
Indians of North America; New York (State) -- Social life and customs -- To 1775; Schuyler, Catalina, 1701-1778 or 1779
to return, and he did not, as he had promised, either write or return in
an English ship, his congregation remained for a great while unsupplied,
while his silence gave room for the most anxious and painful
conjectures: these were not soon removed, for the intercourse with
Holland was not frequent or direct. At length, however, the sad reality
was but too well ascertained. This victim of lost popularity had
appeared silent and melancholy to his ship-mates, and walked constantly
on deck. At length he suddenly disappeared, leaving it doubtful whether
he had fallen overboard by accident, or was prompted by despair to
plunge into eternity. If this latter was the case, it must have been the
consequence of a temporary fit of insanity; for no man had led a more
spotless life, and no man was more beloved by all that were intimately
known to him. He was, indeed, before the fatal affront, which made such
an undue impression on him, considered as a blessing to the place; and
his memory was so beloved, and his fate so regretted, that this, in
addition to some other occurrences falling out about the same time,
entirely turned the tide of opinion, and rendered the thinking as well
as the violent party, more averse to innovations than ever. Had the
Albanians been Catholics, they would probably have canonized M.
Freylinghausen, whom they considered as a martyr to levity and
innovation. He prophesied a great deal; such prophecy as ardent and
comprehensive minds have delivered, without any other inspiration but
that of the sound, strong intellect, which augurs the future from a
comparison of the past, and a rational deduction of probable
consequences. The affection that was entertained for his memory induced
people to listen to the most romantic stories of his being landed on an
island, and become a hermit; taken up into a ship when floating on the
sea, into which he had accidentally fallen, and carried to some remote
country, from which he was expected to return, fraught with experience
and faith. I remember some of my earliest reveries to have been occupied
by the mysterious disappearance of this hard-fated pastor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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