were the unknown dangers of change of climate, and new habits of life, and scanty food; of the pestilence, that walketh in darkness, and the famine, that wasteth at noonday. These were discouragements, which might well appal the timid, and subdue the rash. It is not, then, too much to affirm again, that it required stout hands and stouter hearts to overcome such difficulties. But

'If misfortune comes, she brings along

The bravest virtues.'

The men, who landed here, were no ordinary men; the motive for their emigration was no ordinary motive; and the glory of their achievement has few parallels in the history of the world. Their perseverance in the midst of hardships, their firmness in the midst of dangers, their patience in the midst of sufferings, their courage in the midst of disasters, their unconquerable spirit, their unbending adherence to their principles, their steady resistance of all encroachments, surprise us even more than the wisdom of their plans, and the success of their operations.

If we trace on the colony during the two or three next succeeding years, in which it received an accession of almost two thousand persons, we shall find abundant reason to distrust those early descriptions, of which the just complaint was, that honest men, out of a desire to draw over others to them, wrote somewhat hyperbolically of many things here,' and 'by their too large commendations of the country, and the commodities thereof, so strongly invited others

to go on ;'* and to express our astonishment, that the enterprise was not instantly abandoned. Many of those, who accompanied Endicott, died in the ensuing winter by disease from exposure, and want of food, and suitable medical assistance. They were reinforced in the next summer by new colonists with fresh supplies; and again in the succeeding year, when the Corporation itself was also removed under the auspices of Winthrop, Dudley, Johnson, Saltonstall, and others. What was then the state of the Colony? We are told by a friend and eye-witness +-'We found the Colony,' says he, in a sad and unexpected condition; above eighty of them' (that is, more than one quarter of the whole number) being dead the winter before; and many of those alive weak and sick; all the corn and bread amongst them all hardly sufficient to feed them a fortnight.' He adds, "If any come hither to plant for worldly ends, that can liye well at home, he commits an error, of which he will soon repent him.'-‘In a word, we have little to be envied; but endure much to be pitied in the sickness and mortality of our people.' And then in the conclusion of this memorable letter he breaks out with the unconquerable spirit of Puritanism-We are left a people poor, and contemptible; yet such as trust in God; and are contented with our own condition, being well assured, that he will not fail us, nor forsake us.' Men, who were thus prepared to encounter such distresses, were prepared for every thing. The

* Governor Dudley's Letter, 3 Hist. Coll. 36, 38, 43. Id. Ibid. p. 38.

stake had no terrors for them; and earth had no rewards, which could for a moment withdraw them from the dictates of conscience and duty.

This year was, indeed, still more disastrous than the preceding, and robbed them of some of their brightest ornaments. Before December the grave had closed upon two hundred of their number; and among these were some of the most accomplished of both sexes. It is impossible, even at this distance of time, to contemplate their character and fate, without the deepest sympathy. Higginson, the reverend and beloved teacher of the first flock, fell an early victim, in the forty-third year of his age, and the first of his ministry. Let me pause for a moment to pay a passing tribute to his worth. He received his education at Emanuel College in Cambridge, where he was so much distinguished by his talents, acquirements, and scholarship, that he gained an early introduction into a benefice of the church. The arguments of Hildersham and Hooker, however, soon infused scruples into his mind respecting the doctrines and discipline of the establishment, and he was ejected for nonconformity. He then taught a few pupils for the maintenance of his family; and having received an invitation to remove to NewEngland, in the hope of restoring his health, and animated by the glorious prospect of a free enjoyment (as he expresses it) of the true religion and holy ordinances of Almighty God,' he embarked with his family in the Talbot in 1629. In the course of the voyage he had the misfortune to lose one of his daughters, of whose death he gives us an account in

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his journal, drawn up with a simplicity beautifully illustrative of his own character. And so,' says he, it was God's will the child died about five o'clock at night, being the first in our ship, that was buried in the bowels of the great Atlantic sea; which, as it was a great grief to us, her parents, and a terror to all the rest, as being the beginning of a contagious disease and mortality, so in the same judgment it pleased God to remember mercy in the child, in forcing it from a world of misery, wherein she had lived all her days.' And, after an allusion to her personal infirmities, he concludes, So that in respect of her we had cause to take her death as a blessing from the Lord to shorten her misery.' Alas! he was destined too soon to follow her. Not many months elapsed before a consumption settled on his cheeks, and by its hectic flushes betrayed an irretrievable decline. He died with the composure, resignation, and christian confidence of a saint, leaving behind him a character, in which learning, benignity of manners, purity of life, fervent piety, and unaffected charity, were blended with most attractive grace; and his name is enrolled among the earliest and truest benefactors of New-England.

*

A death scarcely less regretted, and which followed with a fearful rapidity, was that of a lady of noble birth, elegant accomplishments, and exemplary virtues. I speak of the Lady Arabella Johnson,† a daughter of the Earl of Lincoln, who accompanied

*3 Hutch. Collect. 32, 36.

Her name is commonly spelt in the records of that day, possibly as an abbreviation,' Arbella.'

her husband in the embarkation under Winthrop, and in honor of whom, the admiral ship on that occasion was called by her name. She died in a very short time after her arrival; and lies buried near the neighbouring shore. No stone or other memorial indicates the exact place; but tradition has preserved it with a holy reverence. The remembrance of

her excellence is yet fresh in all our thoughts; and many a heart still kindles with admiration of her virtues; and many a bosom heaves with sighs at her untimely end. What, indeed, could be more touching than the fate of such a woman? What example more striking than hers, of uncompromising affection and piety? Born in the lap of ease, and surrounded by affluence; with every prospect which could make hope gay, and fortune desirable; accustomed to the splendors of a court, and the scarcely less splendid hospitalities of her ancestral home; she was yet content to quit, what has, not inaptly, been termed 'this paradise of plenty and pleasure,' for 'a wilderness of wants,' and with a fortitude superior to the delicacies of her rank and sex, to trust herself to an unknown ocean and a distant climate, that she might partake, with her husband, the pure and spiritual worship of God. To the honor, to the eternal honor of her sex, be it said, that in the path of duty no sacrifice is with them too high, or too dear. Nothing is with them impossible, but to shrink from what love, honor, innocence, religion, requires. The voice of pleasure or of power may pass by unheeded; but the voice of affliction never. The chamber of the sick, the pillow of the dying, the vigils of the