CHAPTER IV. The Pequod war. Mr. Wilson goes as chaplain. His faith. J. Norton made his colleague, and dies soon after. Mr. Wilson's old age. His last illness. Parting with his brethren. Anticipations of the future world. Closing scene. His funeral. His property disposed of. His afflictions in life. Repeatedly burned out. Death of his eldest son. Death of his wife Elizabeth. Death of his daughter, Mrs. Rogers. Deaths of his grandchildren. His behavior under his sorrows. Answers to prayer. John Hull. An undutiful son. Mr. Bird and Dr. Duke. A secret Papist admonished. Mr. Adams' child. Thomas Venner. A troubler of Israel. Sickness and recovery of Mary Wilson. Severe fall and remarkable recovery of John Wilson, Jr. Edmund Wilson and the Italian Inquisitor. Edmund's escape from "the snare of the strange woman, ," and his father's dream. Mr. Wilson's manner of preaching. His last "Thursday Lecture." His last sermon. The weekly lectures in the days of old. Mr. Wilson's pastoral qualities. His pastorál visits. His personal appearance. Admissions to the church. Baptisms. His zeal against error, tempered with love to the errorist. His popularity. Muster on the common. His poetry. Anagrams. His humility. An example of its excess. Refusal to sit for his portrait. Cotton Mather's touches. Conclusion. IN the midst of the Antinomian contest, in which he bore so active a part, Mr. Wilson was enlisted in another whose weapons were more carnal. Those were days in which it was said of the saints;—" Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand; to execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgments written." When the expedition was sent out against the Pequods, which was "a just and necessary "defensive war, if ever there was one, it was thought as indispensable to send a chaplain to pray as a captain to fight. So the ministers set apart two of their number; "and a lot was cast between them in a solemn public invocation of the name of God." The chaplain's lot fell on Mr. Wilson, of whom Johnson says;— "Having formerly passed through perils by sea, perils by land, and perils among false brethren, he now followed the war purposely to sound an alarm before the Lord with his silver trumpet." He did not fail, on this occasion, to fight the better fight of faith; for dreadful as was the savage and numerous foe, he did not hesitate, before his departure, to profess himself "as fully satisfied, that God would give the English a victory over those enemies, as if he had seen the victory already obtained." The event accorded with his faith. Another instance of what was called his 66 particular faith," occurred during this expedition. A Pequod, in his canoe, was carrying off a captive English maid. Though passing within gun-shot of our soldiers on the shore, they were afraid to fire, lest they should kill the prisoner. Mr. Wilson told them never to fear. He confidently exclaimed ;-"God will direct the bullet!" The shot was sped accordingly, and killed the savage, while the captive was rescued unharmed and untouched. The result of this war is sufficiently known. The few Pequods who escaped, and who became blended with other tribes, always acknowledged that the blame lay with themselves, and that the English were a just and righteous nation. On the lamented death of Mr. Cotton in 1652, the church was much troubled to find a teaching elder to fill the place of that luminary, whose extinction had left them in darkness. Their eyes and hearts were fixed on Mr. Norton, who occupied the same office in the Ipswich church. As that was much the smaller church, and as it was also furnished with a very able pastor in Mr. Rogers, a descendant of the Marian martyr of Smithfield, it was thought that they ought to relinquish Mr. Norton. A warm dispute arose between the respective claimants. It was argued that Ipswich ought to part with her teacher, on the ground of the gospel precept;"He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none!" To this plea one of the Ipswich brethren replied;-" Nay, but Boston hath one coat now! meaning the pastor. Mr. Wilson, who was very zealous in the matter, and whose humility outran even his zeal, exclaimed ;-66 "Who? Me! I am nothing! When some of his people told Mr. Rogers, that they were afraid Mr. Wilson would at last get Mr. Norton away from them by his arguments or entreaties, or both, Mr. Rogers replied, that he was 66 more afraid of his faith than of his arguments." After several councils had been called, and after four years of contest for this prize, the governor and magistrates interfered so effectually that Mr. Norton was installed in Boston on the twenty-third of July, 1656. After the decease of Mr. Norton, which took place in 1663, seven years after his installation, Mr. Wilson was left alone in his labors, at the advanced age of seventy-six. For four years he bore the burden of all that charge on his enfeebled shoulders; and yet the prosperity of religion was not lessened. When his head and hands were benumbed with the frosts of age, the vital warmth retreated to the heart, and glowed intenser there. The central heat of the chief grace, charity, burned quenchless to the last. Like the beloved and last surviving disciple, in his extreme old age at Ephesus, this venerable pastor could do little more than repeat with tremulous accents the fervent exhortation ;"Little children, love one another!" He had a strong presentiment, that, during his time, no public judgment or calamity should fall upon New England. In him was fulfilled the angelic benediction; "So mayst thou live, till, like the ripe fruit, thou His infirmities at last assumed the form of a sickness which long confined him. Patient and resigned he awaited the result, desiring to return to that God in whose errand his life had been spent. "Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved." Few men have more resembled the son of Zebedee in personal character than this old disciple. So strong was the confidence felt by his friends in his prayers which had been so often answered, and in the power of his blessings, that the principal persons in the country came, some from a distance, bringing their children to receive the benedictions of this patriarch. There was a sort of prophetic tone to his remarks. As |