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come a spending. And remember that if ever your poore Infants bee driven to wildernesses, to hollow caves, to Fagot and Fire, or to sorrowes of any Kinde, they will thanke God & you, they were well catechized. The comfort of these principles hee wisheth you who is

Yours in the
Rock Christ.
H. P.

In this description it is to be noted that the two Epistles are signed "H. P." We know that Hugh Peter preached at Sepulchre's, London; that he labored in the work of the ministry in Rotterdam; that the initials of his name were H. P. With this combination in mind we can safely attribute the authorship of the catechism to Hugh Peter. All doubts, however, are set at rest by Mr. Wilberforce Eames's discovery of a second edition of the catechism printed in London in 1641. The title-page of this second edition bears the author's name, "By Hugh Peters, some time lecturer at St. Sepulchre's, London, now teacher in New England." 1

A sermon on the Gunpowder Plot, London, 1652, by William Ames, of the Class of 1645, is said by Sibley to be the first work printed by any Harvard College graduate. But Ames no longer heads the procession of Harvard's writers, having fallen into the third place in the line. The second place is now held by George Downing, of the Class of 1642, who first comes forward as an author in 1651. He in turn makes way for Benjamin Woodbridge, of the same Class of 1642, whose first book was printed in 1648, six years after his graduation.

George Downing's name first appeared in print in the list of commencers who took their degrees at Harvard College in the Class of 1642. This list was printed in that year at Cambridge in New England, and was reprinted in New Englands First Fruits in London in 1643. We next catch a glimpse of him in Gangræna, written by Thomas Edwards, the avowed opponent of toleration and liberty of conscience, the last and strongest hold of Satan.

August 16, 1646. Preached at Hackney one Master Downing, a Preacher of the Army, and a young Peters (as he was called) some who

1 Proceedings American Antiquarian Society, New Series, xii. 90. 2 Harvard Graduates, i. 26.

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