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"Yet to honour my God by declaring what He hath done for my soul, in this I am confident, and I will be so. Truly, then, this I find, that He giveth springs in a dry, barren wilderness, where no water is. I live, you know where-in Meshec, which they say means prolonging-in Kedar, which signifies blackness; yet the Lord forsaketh me not. Though He do prolong, yet He will, I trust, bring me to His tabernacle, to His resting-place. My soul is with the congregation of the first-born; my body rests in hope; and if here I may honour my God, either by doing or by suffering, I shall be most glad.

"Truly no poor creature hath more cause to put himself forth in the cause of God than I. I have had plentiful wages beforehand; and I am sure I shall never earn the least mite. The Lord accept me in His Son, and give me to walk in the light, as He is the light! He it is that enlighteneth our blackness, our darkness. I dare not say He hideth His face from me. He giveth me to see light in His light. One beam in a dark place hath exceeding much refreshment in it. Blessed be His name for shining upon so dark a heart as mine! You know what my manner of life hath been. Oh, I lived in, and loved darkness, and hated light! I was a chief, the chief of sinners. This is true; I hated godliness, yet God had mercy on me. Oh, the richness of His mercy! Praise Him for me-pray for me, that He who hath begun a good work would perfect it in the day of Christ."

Notice, also, that those latest years of James and first years of Charles were the period when the cruel persecution proceeding in England drove the first emigrants away into the American wilderness, there to found the old Massachusetts Colony; they left their homes and country, willing to encounter the privations and dangers of the distant wilderness, hoping there to find a rest and refuge for outraged religion and humanity. Those were the days commemorated by the Plymouth Rock,—the first settlers in Salem, and the growth of Lynn. We refer to this especially, because tradition says that on the Ist of May, 1638, eight ships, bound for New England, and filled with Puritan families, were arrested and interrupted in the Thames by an order from the king, and that among their passengers in one of those vessels were Pym, Hampden, Cromwell, and Hazelrig. Mr. John Forster doubts this, but cannot disprove it. Our own impression is that these master patriots were probably on board; that they did not intend to desert their country, in whose existence and future they had too large an interest, but that they were on a voyage of discovery, partly to sympathise with the exiles, and partly to obtain some knowledge for future possibilities. The rumour seems to be too extended to be altogether unfounded.

EPISODE.

III.

CROMWELL'S CONTEMPORARIES:

SIR JOHN ELIOT

CHAPTER III.

CROMWELL'S CONTEMPORARIES: SIR JOHN ELIOT.

WE

E are desirous to set before our readers, not only the character of Cromwell himself, but of those contemporaries who also wrought out with him the work of national salvation; among these, and especially those who may be termed the great heralds and precursors of what may be called more strictly the Cromwell period, no name is more eminent than that of John Eliot. He is really the Elijah of the Revolution, and his was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Prepare ye the way." His bold, courageous, and ardent spirit went before, and he anticipated the great impeachments of Pym and the great victories of Cromwell. It is only recently that he has been restored to the high place in popular regard and memory, from whence he had passed almost into obscurity, until Mr. John Forster first published his brief life, more than thirty years since, in his "Statesmen of the Commonwealth," and afterwards expanded the sketch into the two handsome volumes which now so pleasantly embalm the name and memory, the words and works and sufferings, we may add, the martyrdom, of John Eliot. He

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