LIVES OF THE CHIEF FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND. The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers; let him not leave us, nor forsake us 1 KINGS 8: 57. VOL. I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION. VENERATION for departed worth is a sentiment so natural and proper, that he who is incapable of feeling it, must be regarded as hopelessly ungenerous and ignoble. The remembrance of the just is a blessing to them that cherish it. Such memories awaken a pure ambition; and lead to the virtuous resolve to emulate, to equal, to exceed the patterns we admire. The contemplation of exemplary goodness gives life to magnanimous thoughts, and beneficent purposes. It is wise to multiply these lessons, and to surround ourselves with these incentives of excellence. The Egyptian graced his habitation with the embalmed persons of his ancestry, hoping that thus their merits might linger in the abode of their descendants. The Grecian multiplied the statues of those who had been distinguished for public or private virtues, believing that the mute eloquence of the sculptured stone would not plead in vain for that respect which ends in imitation. So too let us adorn our dwellings with the memorials of the great and good. Let them be embalmed with the odorous spices of grateful remembrance. Let the very walls of our houses, garnished with their portraitures and the pictured story of their deeds, summon us to a righteous emulation. The trophies of Miltiades would not suffer Themistocles to sleep. As for us, whose homes are on the soil of New England, we need not go far from our birthplace, to find the most illustrious examples to be studied and copied. Since the days of the apostles, there have been no worthier patterns of Christian character and primitive piety than the Puritans, to whom we are indebted for all that gives our people any superiority in any respect over other nations of the earth. Not that we are to practice an indiscriminate and idolatrous veneration. "There are no errors which are so likely to be drawn into precedent, and therefore none which it is so necessary to expose, as the errors of persons who have a just title to the gratitude and admiration of posterity. In politics, as in religion, there are devotees who show their reverence for a departed saint, by converting his tomb into a sanctuary for crime." But though the Puritans had their faults and failings, what sort of moral appetite must that be which fastens upon and devours these unsavory scraps, and neglects all that is pure and wholesome in their character? If there be any sore spot in their example, these fleshflies detect it with unerring instinct, and dart upon it with a ravenous delight. He who can see nothing in the sun but its spots must be worse than blind; for while his eye gazes with morbid intensity on darkness, he has no vision for that which is bright and fair. Luther has said that "evil comes of good:" which remark accords with the Rabbinical proverb, "Vinegar is the son of wine." And we find that even some LIFE OF JOHN COTTON. CHAPTER I. His parentage. Residence at the University. Conversion. THE man whose life and principles will now be represented, from the vast influence he exercised in his own time, and, consequently, upon all following times, has been fitly called the Patriarch of New England. Boston, especially, is indebted to him for much more than its name. He found it but little better than a woody wilderness; and he left it a flourishing town, a sort of Jerusalem of the West. John Cotton was a native of Derby, on the river Derwent, in England. He was born on the fourth of December, in the year 1585. He was descended of 'gentle blood.' His parents were persons in easy circumstances, and able to provide him with the necessaries for a good education. The father, Roland Cotton, a lawyer by profession, was distinguished, as well as the mother, by a solid and fervid piety. The child, VOL. I. 2 |