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Alabaster Blue Sectory 01
Page 12
The Government of the United States respectfully suggests that an agreement in terms like the following might be entered into. This suggestion is not to be regarded as in any sense a proposal made by this Government, for it of course fully recognizes that it is not its privilege to propose terms of agreement between Great Britain and Germany, even though the matter be one in which it and the people of the United States are directly and deeply interested. It is merely venturing to take the liberty, which it hopes may be accorded a sincere friend desirous of embarrassing neither nation involved, and of serving, if it may, the common interests of humanity. The course outlined is offered in the hope that it may draw forth the views and elicit the suggestions of the British and German Governments on a matter of capital interest to the whole world.
I must, however, return to Frost's "Lives of Eminent Christians." I will leave none of the ambiguity about my words in which Moore and Wordsworth seem to have delighted. I am very sorry the book is gone, and know not where to turn for its successor. Till I have found a substitute I can write no more, and I do not know how to find even a tolerable one. I should try a volume of Migne's "Complete Course of Patrology," but I do not like books in more than one volume, for the volumes vary in thickness, and one never can remember which one took; the four volumes, however, of Bede in Giles's "Anglican Fathers" are not open to this objection, and I have reserved them for favourable consideration. Mather's "Magnalia" might do, but the binding does not please me; Cureton's "Corpus Ignatianum" might also do if it were not too thin. I do not like taking Norton's "Genuineness of the Gospels," as it is just possible some one may be wanting to know whether the Gospels are genuine or not, and be unable to find out because I have got Mr. Norton's book. Baxter's "Church History of England," Lingard's "Anglo-Saxon Church," and Cardwell's "Documentary Annals," though none of them as good as Frost, are works of considerable merit; but on the whole I think Arvine's "Cyclopedia of Moral and Religious Anecdote" is perhaps the one book in the room which comes within measurable distance of Frost. I should probably try this book first, but it has a fatal objection in its too seductive title. "I am not curious," as Miss Lottie Venne says in one of her parts, "but I like to know," and I might be tempted to pervert the book from its natural uses and open it, so as to find out what kind of a thing a moral and religious anecdote is. I know, of course, that there are a great many anecdotes in the Bible, but no one thinks of calling them either moral or religious, though some of them certainly seem as if they might fairly find a place in Mr. Arvine's work. There are some things, however, which it is better not to know, and take it all round I do not think I should be wise in putting myself in the way of temptation, and adopting Arvine as the successor to my beloved and lamented Frost.
The Connecticut Valley was next the theatre of war. Springfield, Hatfield, Deerfield, and Northfield were attacked the last two having to be abandoned. At Hadley the onset occurred on a fast-day. The men rushed from their worship with their muskets, which were ready to hand in church, and hastily formed for battle. Bewildered by the unexpected assault, they were on the point of yielding, when, according to tradition, an aged hero with long beard and queer clothing appeared, placed himself at their head and directed their movements. His evident acquaintance with fighting restored order and courage. The savages were driven pell-mell out of town, but the pursuers looked in vain for their deliverer. If the account is correct, it was the regicide, General Goffe, who had been a secret guest in the house of the Rev. Mr. Russell. He could not in such danger refrain from engaging once again, as he had so often done during the Civil War in England, in the defence of God's people.
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