not fail to obey it, though it was impossible but our hearts should be inflamed to tread further upon this happy and holy ground." We added, "That our tongues should first cleave to the roofs of our mouths ere we should forget either this reverend person, or this whole nation in our prayers." We also most humbly besought him to accept of us as his true servants, by as just a right as ever men on earth were bounden, laying and presenting both our persons and all we had at his feet. He said, "He was a priest, and looked for a priest's reward, which was our brotherly love, and the good of our souls and bodies."10 So he went from us, not without tears of tenderness in his eyes; and left us also confused with joy and kindness, saying amongst ourselves, "That we were come into a land of angels which did appear to us daily, and present us with comforts which we thought not of, much less expected."

The next day, about ten o'clock, the governor came to us again, and after salutations, said familiarly, "That he was come to visit us," and called for a chair, and sat him down: and being some ten of us (the rest were of the meaner sort, or else gone abroad) sat down with him. And when we were seated, he began thus, "We of this island of Bensalem (for so they call it in their language) have this, that by means of our solitary situation, and

10 This was a rare priest. Here in England he would probably have been an antipluralist, and desirous of beholding the bishops residing in their dioceses, instead of embroiling the nation by their speeches in the House of Lords.

the laws of secrecy which we have for our travellers, and our rare admission of strangers, we know well most part of the habitable world and are ourselves unknown. Therefore, because he that knoweth least is fittest to ask questions, it is more reason, for the entertainment of the time, that ye ask me questions than that I ask you." We answered, "That we humbly thanked him that he would give us leave so to do, and that we conceived by the taste we had already, that there was no worldly thing on earth more worthy to be known than the state of that happy land.

But, above all," we said, “ since that we were met from the several ends of the world, and hoped assuredly that we should meet one day in the kingdom of heaven, for that we were both parts Christians, we desired to know (in respect that land was so remote, and so divided by vast and unknown seas from the land where our Saviour walked on earth,) who was the apostle of that nation, and how it was converted to the faith?" It appeared in his face that he took great contentment in this our ques

11 Of which, however, they had hitherto seen little, save its red oranges and good cheer. A man shut up in a quarantine palace, and invited to dine every day with the chief Comptroller of the Customs, or with the Bishop of London, would assuredly conceive there could be no such thing as a half-starved pauper, a beggar, or a hungry labourer, in all England. Lord Bacon's simple mariners were nearly in this perdicament. They knew nothing of the country, understood none of its institutions, had no experience among the "meaner sort" of the population; yet, finding all their own wants supplied bountifully, they jumped at once, and very naturally, to the conclusion that the whole land must neeeds be happy.

tion. He said, "Ye knit my heart to you by asking this question in the first place, for it showeth that you first seek the kingdom of heaven; and I shall gladly and briefly satisfy your demand.

"About twenty years after the ascension of our Saviour, it came to pass that there was seen by the people of Renfusa (a city upon the eastern coast of our island,) within sight, (the night was cloudy and calm,) as it might be some miles in the sea, a great pillar of light, not sharp, but in form of a column or cylinder, rising from the sea, a great way up towards heaven, and on the top of it was seen a large cross of light, more bright and resplendent than the body of the pillar: upon which so strange a spectacle the people of the city gathered apace together upon the sands to wonder, and so after put themselves into a number of small boats to go nearer to this marvellous sight. But when the boats were come within about sixty yards of the pillar, they found themselves all bound, and could go no further, yet so as they might move to go about, but might not approach nearer; so as the boats stood all as in a theatre, beholding this light as a heavenly sign. It so fell out that there was in one of the boats one of the wise men of the Society of Solomon's House, (which house or college, my good brethren, is the very eye of this kingdom,) who having a while attentively and devoutly viewed and contemplated this pillar and cross, fell down upon his face, and then raised himself upon his knees, and lifting up his hands to heaven, made his prayers in this manner :

"Lord God of heaven and earth, thou hast vouchsafed of thy grace to those of our order to know thy works of creation, and true secrets of them, and to discern (as far as appertaineth to the generations of men) between divine miracles, works of nature, works of art, and impostures and illusions of all sorts! I do here acknowledge and testify before this people that the thing we now see before our eyes is thy finger, and a true miracle. And forasmuch as we learn in our books that thou never workest miracles but to a divine and excellent end, (for the laws of nature are thine own laws, and thou exceedest them not but upon good cause,) we most humbly beseech thee to prosper this great sign, and to give us the interpretation and use of it in mercy, which thou dost in some part secretly promise by sending it unto us !'

"When he had made his prayer, he presently found the boat he was in moveable and unbound, whereas all the rest remained still fast ; and taking that for an assurance of leave to approach, he caused the boat to be softly and with silence rowed towards the pillar: but ere he came near it, the pillar and cross of light brake up, and cast itself abroad, as it were, into a firmament of many stars; which also vanished soon after, and there was nothing left to be seen but a small ark or chest of cedar, dry, and not wet at all with water, though it swam; and in the fore-end of it, which was towards him, grew a small green branch of palm.

And when the wise man had taken it with

all reverence into his boat, it opened of itself, and there was found in it a book and a letter, both written in fine parchment, and wrapped in sindons of linen. The book contained all the canonical books of the Old and New Testament, according as you have them, (for we know well what the churches with you receive,) and the Apocalypse itself, and some other books of the New Testament which were not at that time written, were nevertheless in the book. And for the letter, it was in these word :

"I, Bartholomew, a servant of the Highest, and apostle of Jesus Christ, was warned by an angel that appeared to me in a vision of glory, that I should commit this ark to the floods of the sea. Therefore I do testify and declare unto that people where God shall ordain this ark to come to land, that in the same day is come unto them salvation, and peace, and good will from the Father, and from the Lord Jesus.'

"There were also in both these writings, as well the book as the letter, wrought a great miracle, conformable to that of the apostles in the original gift of tongues. For there being at that time in this land Hebrews, Persians, and Indians, besides the natives, every one read upon the book and letter as if they had been written in his own language. And thus was this land saved from infidelity (as the remain of the old world was from water) by an ark, through the apostolical and miraculous evangelism of St. Bartholomew." 12 And here he paused,

12 There is a certain magnificence in the wild legend that