Chron. of Pilgrim Fathers — Chapter 8 (Part 5 of 9)

By the honoured Major Josias Winslow, on the said Mr. William Bradford, as followeth:—

William Bradford, Anagr.

I made law for bridl’.
For law I made bridl’.

See how God honoured hath this worthy’s name,
To make it spell his virtue, and proclaim
His rare endowments, us’d for God and us:
Now such as honour God, he’ll honour thus. Both just and gentle, merciful and just;
And yet a man, and yet compos’d of dust!
Yes, God within these slender walls can find
A noble, virtuous, studious, active mind. God was the guider of his childhood, youth;
God did preserve him ever in the truth,
And gave him grace to own him when but young,
Whom afterward he made a champion strong, For to defend his people, and his cause,
By wisdom, justice, prudence, and by laws;
And, most of all, by his own good example,
A pattern fit to imitate most ample. If we should trace him from the first, we find
He flies his country, leaves his friends behind,
To follow God, and to profess his ways,
And here encounters hardships many days. He is content, with Moses, if God please,
Renouncing honour, profit, pleasure, ease,
To suffer tossings, and unsettlements,
And if their rage doth rise, to banishments. He weighs it not, so he may still preserve
His conscience clear, and with God’s people serve
Him freely, ’cording to his mind and will,
If not in one place, he’ll go forward still. If God have work for him in th’ ends of th’ earth,
Safe, danger, hunger, colds, nor any dearth;
A howling wilderness, nor savage men,
Discourage him, he’ll follow God again: And how God hath made him an instrument
To us of quiet peace and settlement;
I need not speak; the eldest, youngest know,
God honour’d him with greater work than so. To sum up all, in this he still went hence,
This man was wholly God’s: his recompense
Remains beyond expression, and he is
Gone to possess it in eternal bliss. He’s happy, happy thrice; unhappy we
That still remain more changes here to see:
Let’s not lament that God hath taken him
From troubles hence, in seas of joys to swim. Let’s not lament his gracious life is ended,
And he to life of glory is attended;
Nor let us grieve that now God’s work is done,
In making him a happy blessed one. But let’s bewail that we have so neglected
Duty to God, or men have disrespected;
With earnest lamentations let’s lament;
And, whilst we may, let’s seriously repent. That we have not improved as we might,
For God, and for ourselves, this worthy wight;
And now that God hath Moses tak’n away,
Let’s pray that he would give us Joshua; To go before the camp, and to subdue
God’s and his people’s foes, whatever crew
Oppose our journeys to that land of rest,
Which ’till obtain’d, we’re never truly blest. And for our better progress in this course,
Let now our great necessity enforce
Each man to study peace, and to improve
His greatest strength to reunite, in love,
The hearts and the affections of us all;
Lest by our faults, God’s work to th’ ground should fall. W hy mourns the people thus for me, since I
I n heavens dwell, shall to eternity?
L et not so many tears