The winter of 1624-5 had passed without any special occurrence save this Lyford affair; and here see one strange thing: “Many who before stood something off from the church,” says Bradford, “now, seeing Lyford’s unrighteous dealing and malignity against it, came forward and tendered themselves as members, professing that it was not out of any dislike of any thing that they had stood so long aloof, but from a desire to fit themselves better for such a connection, and that now they saw that the Lord called for their help. So that Lyford’s crusade had quite a contrary effect from that hoped; which was looked at as a great work of God, who drew men on by unlikely means, and by occurrences which might rather have set them farther off.”[517] Lyford had complained to the Merchant-adventurers that the Pilgrims had no regularly ordained minister. To this charge Bradford made a fine retort: “We answer, the more is our wrong, that our pastor is kept from us by these men’s means, who then reproach _us_ for it. Yet have we not been wholly destitute of the means of salvation, as this man would have the world believe; for our reverend elder, Mr. Brewster, hath labored diligently in dispensing the word of God unto us; and, be it spoken without ostentation, he is not inferior to Mr. Lyford—and some of his betters—either in gifts or learning, though he would never be persuaded to take higher office upon himself.”[518] Brewster taught twice every Sabbath powerfully and profitably, and without stipend, which he steadily declined, working for his bread with his own hands, and earning it in the sweat of his brows, thus approximating to the early Christian practice. “He did more in one year,” asserts old John Cotton, “than many who have their hundreds per annum do in all their lives.” So it seems that there is one brilliant exception to the Indian maxim, “Poor pay poor preach.” The good elder had a singular gift in prayer, “yet was seldom wordy or prolix.” Without the afflatus of ordination, he was so much better than most ministers with it, that, though destitute of “consecrated ministrations,” the colonists did not suffer much, and mainly regretted the absence of sacraments, which Brewster, unordained, was not competent to celebrate.[519] Prince gives a summary of the religious tenets of the Plymouth church: I. “It held that nothing is to be accounted true religion but what is taught in the Holy Scriptures.” II. “It held that every man has the right of private judgment, of testing his belief by the sacred writ, and of worshipping God in his own way as that text directed.”[520]