"Then prayer brought hopes, half secular, like seers by Endor's witch: Beyond our barren Maryland God's folks were wise and rich; Where climbing spires and easy pews showed how the preacher thrived, And all old brethren paid their rents, and many young ones wived! "I saw the ships Henlopen pass with chaplains fat and sleek; From Bishopshead with fancy's sails I crossed the Chesapeake; In velvet pulpits of the North said my best sermons o'er-- And that on Paul to Patmos driven, drew tears in Baltimore. "Well! well! my brethren, it is true we should not preach for pelf-- (I would my sermon on Saint Paul the Bishop heard himself!) But this crushed wife--these boys--these hairs! they cut me to the core; Is it not hard, year after year, to ride the Eastern Shore? "Next year? Yes, yes, I thank you much! Then my reward may fall! (That is a downright fair discourse on Patmos and St. Paul!) So Brother Riggs, once more my voice shall ring in the old lists, Cheer up, sick heart, who would not die among these Methodists?" THE BIG IDIOT. "Sister, thy boy is a big idiot--a very big idiot!" said Gerrit Van Swearingen, the Schout of New Amstel. Then the Schout struck his long official staff on the ground, and went off in a grand manner to frighten debtors. The Widow Cloos made no reply, but dropped a couple of tears as she saw her son, Nanking, shrink away before his uncle's frown and roll his head in deprecation of such language. "My mother," he whispered, "won't the big wild turkeys fly away with my uncle Gerrit if he calls me such dreadful names?" "Nanking," said the widow, kissing the big idiot, "your uncle is a very great man. I don't know what is greater, unless it is an admiral, or a stadtholder, or maybe a king!" "Yes," conceded Nanking, "he is a dreadfully great man. He puts drunken Indians in the stocks and ties mighty smugglers up to the whipping-pump. But Saint Nicholas will punish him if he calls me an idiot." "Ah! Nanking," replied the widow, "nothing can curb your uncle--neither the valiant Captain Hinoyossa, nor the puissant director of every thing, great Beeckman, nor hardly Pietrus Stuyvesant himself." "I know who can frighten him," exclaimed the big idiot. "Santa Claus! He's bigger than a schout. Mother, his whip-lash can reach clear over New Amstel--isn't it so? How many deers and ponies does he drive? Will he bring me any thing this year?" "My poor son!" said the poor mother, "we are so far from Holland and so very humble here, that Saint Nicholas may forget us this year; but God will watch over us!"