CHAPTER IX.

EBENEZER PRIME.

HIS PATRIOTISM.-DRIVEN FROM HIS CHURCH.-HIS LIBRARY DESTROYED.-HIS DEATH.-INSULT TO HIS Grave,

EBENEZER PRIME was born in the year 1700, and hence was seventy-five years old when open hostilities between the Colonies and mother country commenced. Though past his threescore and ten, and already tottering on the confines of the grave-when the trumpet of war pealed over the land; his aged ear caught the sound, and the last failing energies of life were devoted to his country. He had apparently done with earth, and the scenes of eternity were opening on his vision, yet he deemed himself doing God's service in urging his people to fight for their liberties. His voice coming back as it were from the borders of the unseen world, invested the cause he advocated with peculiar solemnity, and gave it the high sanction of heaven. To one who had no future in this world, nothing but a solemn sense of duty to his God and his country could have aroused him to enlist in a struggle, the end of which he never expected to see.

Having graduated at Yale College, in 1718, he began at the early age of nineteen his ministerial labors at Huntington, Long Island, where he remained till the close of his long and useful life.

After the disastrous battle of Long Island his parish was invaded by the enemy, and he and his son were compelled to flee for safety. The latter, with his family, left the island, while the aged pastor found shelter in a remote, secluded part of his parish. The firm stand he had taken on the side of liberty was well known to the enemy, and his name was never mentioned by them except with curses. His parishioners, sharing his patriotism, shared with him also the suffering caused by the outrages of the invaders. Their property was destroyed, and they themselves compelled to flee for their lives. The church, in which he had so long preached, and where prayers for his oppressed country had so often arisen, was converted into a military depot, and desecrated by the licentious soldiery. They littered his stables, in which they housed their horses, with unthreshed sheaves of grain, mutilated his library by tearing to pieces his most valuable books, and consigning them to the flames. The old patriarch looked on this desolation of his home with sorrow, but without one regret for the stand he had taken for a just and noble cause. Though his voice could no longer proclaim from the pulpit the doctrine of civil and religious freedom, it could send up the fervent prayer, that God would deliver his suffering country from the hands of the oppressor. There would drift to his aged ear, in his seclusion, the news of defeat and of victory, that by turns depressed and animated the struggling patriots, but he never lived to be gladdened by the triumphant shout of victory that proclaimed a nation free forever. He closed his eyes on his country,

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torn and bleeding, but unshaken in her determination never to abandon the struggle till she was free. He died August 2d, 1779, and was buried in the grave-yard hard by the dilapidated church from which he had been driven. Afterwards, the notorious Col. Thompson, of Massachusetts, who subsequently became Count Rumford, quartered his troops in the town, and pulled down the church, and used the timbers and boards to construct barracks and block houses for their accommodation. To insult and outrage the feelings of the inhabitants still more, these were put up in the center of the burying ground, and the graves leveled so that the consecrated spot became a hard-trodden common. The grave-stones were pulled up, and used as stones to build their ovens with. From these the bread would often be taken with the inverted inscriptions stamped on the crust. The Colonel, to show his malignity, pitched his marquée at the head of Mr. Prime's grave, so that, to use his own language, "he might tread on the old rebel every time he went out or in."

But the venerable patriot was beyond the reach of his insults and his rage, safe with the God whom he had served, and to whose protection he had in life committed without wavering his suffering country. The Rev. Dr. Prime, present able editor of the New York Observer, is his grandson, who has furnished for Dr. Sprague's American Pulpit an extended sketch of his ministerial life.

CHAPTER X.

SAMUEL EATON.

IS SETTLED IN HARPSBURG, MAINE.-PRACTICES THREE PROFESSIONS.-ATTENDS A POLITICAL MEETING.-HIS STIRRING ADDRESS.-NARROW ESCAPE OF AN OFFICER OF THE KING.-RECRUITING OFFICER SEEKS HIS AID.-EATON ADDRESSES THE PEOPLE ON SABBATH EVENING.-THRILLING SCENE.-SOLDIERS OBTAINED.-HIS DEATH.

REV. SAMUEL EATON was born in Braintree, Mass., and graduated at Harvard in 1763. Though a native of Massachusetts, he spent the greater part of his life in Maine. Endowed with a strong intellect, amiable yet fearless and independent, of strict integrity and warm piety, he exerted a powerful influence throughout the Colony. Possessed of considerable knowledge of medicine, he acted as physician in ordinary cases of sickness, while his character as peace-maker, and his knowledge of common legal documents were so well known and highly prized, that his people were seldom obliged to consult a lawyer. Acting thus in a threefold capacity his influence was felt far and wide. When the contest between the Colonies and the mother country commenced, he threw this influence on the side of the former; and, both in and out of the pulpit, strove to arouse the people to active resistance. He frequently took his texts in reference to the coming struggle, and spoke of it as a religious one, and directed his hearers to look to the Lord of Hosts for aid in carrying it forward. He declared that the people of New

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England were a chosen generation, and it was God's purpose, if they depended on him, and obeyed his laws, to make them successful in securing the freedom they had made such sacrifices to establish in this new hemisphere.

After the battles of Lexington and Concord a meeting was called of all those capable of bearing arms in the towns of Harpswell and Brunswick. From far and near the yeomanry gathered to the meeting-house -the common place of rendezvous in those times-to consult on the course they should pursue in the impending crisis.

Mr. Eaton was present simply as one of the audience; and while the business was being transacted, listened in silence to the conflicting opinions that were presented. Some were doubtful and hesitating, and advocated mild measures that would leave them uncommitted; others openly opposed anything that looked like revolution. Although he said nothing while the debate was proceeding, he was observed to be moving amid the crowd, conversing with the disaffected, and endeavoring to convince them of the right and duty of resistance. The business at length being accomplished, the chairman, a zealous patriot, who had kept his eye on the pastor, arose, and requested him him to speak to the people. He consented; and, mounting the pulpit, addressed them with an eloquence and pathos that bore down all opposition, and made each heart leap as to a trumpet call. Flashing eyes and compressed lips on every side told that doubt and indecision were over. The patriots became ex