ANDERSON'S HISTORY OF THE COLONIAL CHURCH.
SO far as the first volume of Mr. Anderson's work is in question, The History of the Church of Ely/kind in the Colonies and Foreign Dependencies of the British Empire is less a history of the Colonial Church than a narrative of our colonization, and of our early voyages of discovery or mercantile adventure, with great prominence given to the religious element they might happen to contain. In fact, there is hardly any church to *rite about ; during the period embraced in this volume which closes with the reign of James the First. Our earliest church, at least our earliest .Anglo-Catholic church, in a foreign dependency, seems to have been Calais ; and Archbishop Cranmer, in 1535, the year after the Reformation, was urgent with Secretary Cromwell to have proper divines appointed to the benefices. The next step towards a Colonial Citbrch was the appointment of a ship-chaplain to Willoughby's ex- pation, that took place in 1553, with a code of religions instructions drawn up by Sebastian Cabot. The first English effort at actual coloni- zation was in 1583, when Sir Humfrey Gilbert set sail on his disastrous attempt to settle Newfoundland : but though the expedition carried a variety of "toyes," "musicians, morris-dances, hobby-honse, and May- like conceits, to delight the sauage people," they made no religious pro- vision whatsoever ; an omission to which Mr. Anderson attributes their failure, coupled with the indifferent character of many of the crews. Thomas Heriot, a clergyman, of some scientific eminence in his day, accompanied the first attempt at colonizing Virginia, and was among those whom Drake, in 1586, rescued from a state of starvation : but the real origin of our Colonial Church may perhaps be dated from the time when Raleigh gave a donation of one hundred pounds to the company who had bought his letters-patent, "for the propagation of the Christian religion in Virginia." The expedition that sailed in 1606 carried a regular clergyman ; by whom the sacrament was administered immediately on landing, a church subsequently built, and divine service regularly per- formed. Henceforth the colony seems not to have been left without spiritual assistance : but about 1620, the church was really established by a division into parishes, and by a tax for permanent provision for the ministers. These facts contain the outline of the Virginian Church ; and there is not much of importance in the colonies of Bermudas and Barbadoes,—the arrival of a clergyman, his performance or neglect of his duties, and the differences when there were two. A greater religious spirit prevailed in Sir George Calvert's (Lord Baltimore's) settlement of Avalon, in Newfoundland ; whose religious history Mr. Anderson runs over to the present time. He also in a single chapter sketches the settle- ment of New England by the Pilgrim Fathers ; rather cavilling over their right to effect it, but commenting truly and without asperity on the dis- creditable intolerance by which their church was distinguished, and always has been.
This abstract, however it may be filled up, scarcely furnishes material for an ample volume ; and the real subject is, as we have said, a history of our adventurous voyages with peaceful objects, and of our coloniza- tion, the religious element being strongly developed. Mr. Anderson evolves the orders respecting good conduct and Christian observances contained in general instructions, and the flourishes touching the conver- sion of the Infidels, in the "recitals" of the Crown, and what would now be called the " prospectus " of the adventurers ; without, as it seems to us, sufficiently allowing for the formal or even hypocritical character of such phrases. He also fully exhibits any devotional feeling or any religions observances contained in the narrative itself. He has besides toiled unceasingly among the sermons of the period, many of which he has exhumed from public repositories ; and avails himself of such as were preached on any colonial occasion, as well as of the inci- dental notices that occur in the discourse itself or the prefatory matter. By this means, he not only gathers much respecting the spirit of the age and the condition of the settlers, but develops the lives and charac- ters of the zealous clergymen who embarked in an enterprise to which they could only have been induced by a deep sense of duty; for several left good livings or good prospects behind them. Considered in this point of view, Mr. Anderson's work has a character and interest of its own. It brings the mind of' the Tudor age, especiagy the religious mind, before the reader ; it shows, in the innumerable quo- tations on colonial topics from contemporary writers how very little we have really advanced in the true knowledge of colonial principles or prac- tice,—if indeed we have not really retrograded, when we look upon the means and appliances of these times and consider those of Elizabeth. It is very curious, too, to trace the strong resemblance between the colonial doings of the first Stuart and those of " this Office " now. As long as Virginia was struggling for existence or to surmount its difficulties, the British Solomon let it alone ; but no sooner did it exhibit signs of success and of probable prosperity, than he seized it by force, confiscating the charter of the company, and granting a new one to his creatures.
So far as the present volume goes, the manner of the author is well adapted to the particular way in which he has managed his subject. It is diffuse and discursive ; freely intermingled with religious reflections or hortation ' • the style scholarly, but with a good deal of the air of a ser- mon. In the future volumes, where the Church will grow into an im- portance that must give it a unity of interest, more order and compactness of arrangement may be advantages, together with greater comprehension of view, and more directness and condensation in the narrative. The multiplicity of subjects, and their discursive treatment, which now give variety to what might otherwise be bareness, would then overlay and distract.
For the reason indicated in these remarks, our extracts will be drawn from the old matter rather than the new; for the quaintness of the old writers has a style about it, when intrinsically it may be no better than our own. •
REASONS FOR COLONIZATION UNDER JAMES THE FIRST.
Look seriously into the land, and see whether there bee not just cause, if not a necessity, to seek abroad. The people, blessed be God, doe swarme in the land, as young bees in a bine in June; insomuch that there is very hardly mine for one man to line by another. The mightier' like old strong bees, thrust the weaker, as younger' out of their likes. Lords of manors conuert towneships, in which were a hundredth or two hundredth communicants, to a shepheard and his dog. The true labouring husbandman, that susteineth the prince by the ,plow', who was wont to feed manie poore, to set many people on work, and pay twice as much subsidie and fifteenes to the king for his proportion of earth, as his Landlord did for tonne times as much; that was wont to furnish the church with Saints, the musters with able persons to fights for their soveraigne, is now in many places turned labourer, and can hardly scape the statutes of rogues and vagrants. The gentleman hath gotten most of the tillage in his hand; he hath rotten sheepe to sell at Michaelmas: his sommer fed oxen at Easter: asking no better price for his hay, than his beasts, to keep that- till spring that they got at grasse. By these meanes he can keep his come til the people starue, always prouided that the roar° husbandmen which are left, and the clothier must buy their seed and wool at. such a rate, that shall wear° them out in a very few yeeres. And were it not , that the honest and Christian merchant doth often helpe, who putteth all his estate upon the prouidence of God, which they call venturing, to bring come into the land, for which he bath many a bitter curse of the cursed cornmongers, we' should find an extreame famine in the midst of our greatest plenty. The rich shopkeeper bath the good honest poor labourer at such roam' that he caa) grind his face when Ile pleaseth. The poore met:tall an worketh his bones on and swelteth himself in there yet yet for all his labour, having charge of wife and children, he can hardly keep hirnselfe from the ahnes box. Alwaies provided' that his masters to whom he worketh, will give never a penny towards his lining;' but they can tell of their owne knowledge, that if the poore man were a good hus- band, he might hue well: for he receiveth much money in the years at their hands, very fleece fonrepence for every sixepenny worth of work. The thoughtfull poore woman, that bath her small children standing at her knee, and hanging on her breast; she worketh with her needle and laboureth with her fingers, her candle goeth not out by night, she is often deluding the bitterness of her life with sweete songs, that she smgeth to a heavy heart. Sometimes she singeth, "Have mercy. on mee, Lord° ''• sometimes, "Help, Lord, for good and godly men doe perish and decay"; sometimes, "Judge and revenge my cause, 0 Lord"; and many such like: which when a man of understanding cloth hence, he doth with pittie praise God, that bath grinen such meanes to mock hunger with, and to glue patience. I war- rant you, her songs want no passion; she never saith, 0 Lord, but a salts tears drop- path from her sorrowfull head, a deep sigh breatheth as a furnace from her airing heart, that weepeth with the head for company, with tears of sweetest bloud. And when all the weeke is ended, she-can hardly earn salt for her water gruel to feeds. on upon the Sunday. Many such sweets are in England, which I know not -how better to interpret than to say the strong olde bees doe beate out the younger to swarme and lune themselves elsewhere.—Froin "A Sermon preached at White- chapel! in the presence of many honourable worshipful! the Aduventurers and Planters for Virginia, 25 April 1609. By William Symonds, Preacher at St. Saviour's in Southwarke."
THE GOVERNMENT CHURCH, VIRGINIA-di= 1610.
It is in length threescore foote, in breadth twenty-forire, and shall bane a Chan- cel] in it of Cedar, and a Communion Table of the Blake Walnut, and all the Pewes of Cedar, with faire broad windowes, to shut and open, as the weather shall occasion, of the same wood, a Pulpet of the same, with a Font hewen hollow, like a Canoe, with two Bela at the West end. It is so cast, as it be very light within, and the Lord Gouethour and Captaine Generall doth cause it to be kept passing sweete, and trimmed vp with divers flowers, with a Sexton belonging to it: and in it euery Sunday wee have Sermons twice a day, and &wry Thursday a Sermon, hailing true preachers, which take their weekly turnes; and eueuy morn- ing at the ringing of a bell, about ten of the clocke, each man addresseth himselfo to prayers, and so at fours of the clocke before Supper. Euery Sunday, when the Lord Gouernour and Captaine Generall goeth to Church, hee is accompanied with all the Connsailers, Captaines, other Officers and all the Gentlemen, with a guard of Holberdiers, in his Lordship's Linery, faire red cloakes to the number o fifty both on each side and behinde him: and being in the Church, his Lordship bath his seate in the 'Quier, in a greene veluet chaire, with a cloath, with a velnet cushion spread on a table before him, on which he kneeleth, and on each side sit the Counsel], Captaines, and Officers, each in their place, and when he retiwneth home againe he is waited on to his house in the same manner.--Strachy's Narra- tive in Purcias.
A DEALER'S PUFF LN THE SIXTEENTH csicrintx.
There is a curious passage in a letter from Henrie Lane, (.who was interpreter to the Russian embassy, in 1567,) to Richard Ilakluyt, in which he advocates the trade of the " princely ancient ornament of furres," in the following terms: "Great pitie but that it might be renewed, especial] in Court and among Magistrates, not onely for the restoring of an olde worshipfnll Art and Companie, but also because they be for our climate wholesome, delicate, graue, and comely: expressing digni- tie, comforting age, and of longer continuance, and better with small cost to be pieserued, than these new silks, shagges, and ragges, wherein a great part of the wealth of the land is hastily consumed."
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