“RIGHT WORTHY SIR—It is a thing not usual that servants to one Master and of the same household should be strangers; I assure you, I desire it not; nay, to speak more plainly, I cannot be so to you. God’s people are all marked with one and the same mark and sealed with one and the same seal, and have, in the main, one and the same heart, guided by one and the same Spirit of truth; and where this is, there can be no discord; nay, here must needs be sweet harmony. And the same request, with you, I make unto the Lord—that we may, as Christian brethren, be united by a heavenly and unfeigned love, bending all our hearts and forces in furthering a work beyond our unaided strength, with reverence and fear, fastening our eyes always on Him that is able to direct and prosper all our ways. “I acknowledge myself much bound to you for your kind love and care in sending Mr. Fuller among us, and rejoice much that I am by him satisfied touching your judgments of the outward form of God’s worship. It is, so far as I can gather, no other than is warranted by the evidence of truth, and the same which I have professed and maintained ever since the Lord in mercy revealed himself to me; being far from the common report that hath been spread of you touching this particular.[635] But God’s children must not look for less here below than ill-report and slanderous gibes; and ’tis a great mercy that he strengthens them to go through with it. I shall not need, at this time, to be tedious unto you, for, God willing, I purpose to see your face shortly. In the mean time, I humbly take my leave of you, committing you to the Lord’s blessed protection and rest. “Your assured Friend, “JO. ENDICOTT. “NAUMKEAG, May 11, 1629.”[636] The chain of friendship thus early welded had an additional link added to it when the Leyden exiles, borne to America in company with Higginson and Skelton, landed from the same flotilla, and pushed from Salem on to Plymouth. Bradford, in reciting this incident, says finely, “Their long stay and keeping back was recompensed by the Lord to their friends here with a double blessing, in that they not only enjoyed them now beyond their late expectation, but with them many more godly friends and Christian brothers, as the beginning of a larger harvest unto the Lord, in the increase of his churches and people in these waste parts, to the admiration of many and the wonder of the world; and that here should be a resting-place for so many of God’s children, when so sharp a scourge came upon their own land. But it was the Lord’s doing, and it ought to be marvellous in our eyes.”[637]