In Hawthorne's posthumous tale, the conversation between Septimius and Rose as they see the British soldiers approaching, their horror at the thought of enmity with such brave fellows, is conceived in the true spirit of the Concordians of that day. Here," said Emerson, "are no ridiculous laws, no eavesdropping legislators, no hanging of witches, no ghosts, no whipping of Quakers, no unnatural crimes. The tone of the records rises with the dignity of the event. These soiled and musty books are luminous and electric within. The old town-clerks did not spell very correctly, but they contrive to make pretty intelligible the will of a free and just community. Frugal our fathers were, very frugal, though for the most part they deal generously by their minister, and provide well for the schools and the poor. If at any time, in common with most of our towns, they have carried this economy to the verge of a vice, it is to be remembered that a town is, in many respects, a financial corporation. They economise that they may sacrifice. They stint and higgle in the price of a pew that they may send two hundred soldiers to General Washington to keep Great Britain at bay. For splendour there must somewhere be rigid economy. That the head of the house may go brave, the members must go plainly clad, and the town must save that the State may spend." The earnestness with which Emerson dwells upon the details of the story reveals that therein lay the root of his own character. And when, in the end, he expressed the hope that "the little society of men who now for a few years fish in this river, plough the fields it washes, mow the grass, and reap the corn," might be worthy of such ancestors and antecedents, we can recognise, what his hearers of 1835 then could not, that the young Harvard scholar was to repeat in a higher plane the heroism of his ancestor-the Pastor Bulkeley-to lead a band from old theologic settlements, and make the wilderness bloom with nobler thoughts and aims. II. FORERUNNERS. Or the founder of Concord, Peter Bulkeley, a very interesting account is given by Mr. W. Hale White in the "Athenæum" of May 13, 1882:-"He wrote Latin verse with ease, and yet he was as fervent as Bunyan in all matters touching the soul and the soul's welfare. He loved his learning, and never forsook it, but it was subdued into the service of a Divine Master. His neighbours observed of him that whenever they came into his company, no matter what the business might be, he would 'let fall some holy, serious, divine, and useful sentences on them ere they parted; and it is also recorded of him that, by a sort of winning and yet prudent familiarity, he drew persons of all ages to come and sit with him.' There was a quarrel in the church while he was minister over it, but he healed it at last, and afterwards he told his friends that he 'thereby came-1. to know more of God; 2. to know more of himself; 3. to know more of men.' His contemporaries seem to have been impressed with his kindness to his servants, for it remains on record, although the details of his life are so few. When they had lived with him a number of years, it was his practice to dismiss them, and bestow farms upon them. Thus he cast his bread both upon the waters and into the earth, not expecting the return of this his charity to a religious plantation until after many days.' With all his culture and gentleness, it is distinctly said of him by Neal, in a chance notice of him in the 'History of New England,' that he was a 'thundering preacher.' In other words, although he had in him something of the 'Essays,' there was also in him something of the temper which more than two centuries and a half afterwards reappeared in the Voluntaries' of one who felt 'Only the fiery thread Leading over heroic ground Walled with mortal terror round.' "The Gospel Covenant,' the only book Dr. Bulkeley wrote, is a series of Puritan sermons on faith, justification, and the law. It is now almost unreadable, but I remember a passage in it which is a prophecy of what was to It is as follows: come. "And hence, while the mind is possessed with these things, because so great a businesse as making a covenant of peace with the High God, and about so great an affair as the life and salvation of our soule cannot be transacted in a tumult, therefore, in the fourth place, faith takes the soule aside and carries it into some solitary place, that there it may be alone with God, with whom it hath to doe. This business and multitude of other occasions cannot be done together, and therefore the soule must be alone, that it may the more fully commune with itself, and utter itself fully before the Lord. Thus the poor Church in the time of her affliction, when the Lord seemed to hide himself from her, she sate alone, as she speakes Lament. 3. 28, 29, and Jer. 15. 17, I sate alone because of thy plague: The way of the Lord is prepared in the desart, Esay 40. 3. When the Lord will come to the soule and draw it into communion with himselfe, he will have his way hereto prepared in the desart; not in the throng of a city, but in a solitary desart place, he will allure us and draw us into the wildernesse from the company of men, when he will speak to our heart, and when he prepares our heart to speak unto him.” Two centuries after the old pilgrim sailed to the American wilderness with these thoughts and hopes, his great descendant returned from a pilgrimage to teachers in the Old World with such melodies as these in his heart: "Whoso walketh in solitude, And inhabiteth the wood, Choosing light, wave, rock, and bird, Before the money-loving herd, Into that forester shall pass From these companions power and grace; From the old adhering sin." Professor Tyler ("History of American Literature,” i. 218) says of "The Gospel Covenant:" "The whole work carries momentum with it. It gives the impression of an athletic, patient, and orderly intellect. Every advance along the page is made with the tread of logical victory. No unsubdued enemies are left in the rear. It is a monumental book. It stands for the intellectual robustness of New England in the first age. It is an honour to that community of pioneers, drudging in the woods of Concord, that these profound and elaborate discourses could have been produced, and endured among them." Dr. Bulkeley, it is to be feared, was over-logical when the "prophetess" Anne Hutchinson came to New England with her transcendentalism about the real presence of the Holy Spirit in true believers. He was Moderator of the Boston Synod, which immoderately drove her away to Rhode Island, where the Naragansett Indians permitted her to set up her community, in which no one was accounted a delinquent for doctrine. Thomas Emerson emigrated from England to America in 1635. It may have been from York, where a Ralph Emerson was knighted by Henry VIII. (1535), or from Durham, where the mathematician of that name lived, whose heraldic arms were the same as those of the knight. The lions from this coat of arms are still traceable upon the tomb of Nathaniel (son of Thomas) Emerson at Ipswich, Massachusetts. Thomas became a farmer and baker at Ipswich. He was thrifty and made money. His will, dated May 31, 1653, distributes a large property among his family. He gives to his "loving wife" Elizabeth the annual rent of his farm and six head of cattle; and if she shall marry again, she is to have six pounds annually (a considerable sum in that time and place), also "the little feather-bed, and one bolster, and two pairs of sheets, and two cows," and half the fruit of the orchard. The loving wife is also appointed sole executrix, while Lieutenant-Governor Symonds and General Dennison are to be overseers of the estate. His son John, who married the Lieutenant-Governor's daughter, went to Harvard College after his marriage, and there graduated in 1656, having earned the money to pay for his own education. He became minister at Gloucester, Massachusetts, and from him descended the anti-slavery orator, Wendell Phillips; the most eloquent American clergyman, Phillips Brooks; and the Hon. Alphonso Taft, sometime Attorney-General of the United States, and now American Minister at Vienna. For James, a son in England, the will of Thomas Emerson provides that he shall have forty pounds if he shall come to America, or send a certificate of his being alive within two years after his mother's death. The house of Thomas is still standing at Ipswich, near "Labour-in-vain" Creek. His son Joseph, born in England the year that the "Mayflower" sailed, married Miss Woodmancy, and settled at Wells, Maine, as a teacher. He was a distinguished citizen of that place, and when the Massachusetts Commissioners went to settle the rule of their colony over Maine, they were received in his house. About fourteen years after settling in Wells, Joseph became the preacher there; but under his ministry occurred a schism, the cause of which is unexplained; and in 1667 we find him preaching at Milton, Massachusetts. Meantime, in 1665, he had married Elizabeth Bulkeley of Concord, grand-daughter of the founder of that town. In |