LIFE OF JOHN DAVENPORT. It is to meet the wants of the human mind, that the Old and New Testaments are so much occupied with narrative and chronicle. No later history is so instructive as that of the Church and its chief members. Ecclesiastical history, including religious biography, is theology taught by example, and is the most impressive and profitable teaching. "It is velvet study, and recreation work." The early history of New England and its settlers is a choice part of this fruitful field. It was to raise up the foundations of many generations," that they came to these "old waste places," which from time immemorial had lain desolate and almost untrodden. Scarce could these wilds be said to be peopled by the thin and scattered bands which roamed them at random. Of the savage inhabitants it was said, that they were never away from home: for one spot was as much home to them as another, even where the wigwam chanced for the time to be pitched. Here, in this vast, vacant domicil, the Puri tans toiled at their foundation work. Their great right-angled corner-stone, massive and moveless, ́was the Bible. On this firm basis they reared amain their spiritual masonry. They were for strong abutment work to begin with. It was to last for many generations. And so, amid the old waste places, they builded up their social fabric of imperishable minds, cemented with imperishable truth. And the stately structure rose in fair proportions, reared "With pyramids and towers, From diamond quarries hewn and rocks of gold. " Among these "wise master-builders," John Davenport was one of chief renown. We now 66 propose to give some account of him, as one of the founders of our political and religious institutions. His reputation does not rest upon feats of arms or military prowess. But, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ," he endured much hardness, waged many a hard-fought contest, and won many a righteous conquest. For, as Milton has grandly said, "Peace hath her victories, No less than war." Mr. Davenport was born at Coventry, in England, in the year 1597. He was the child of worthy and respectable parents. His father, who was at one time mayor of that ancient city, belonged to a family of good repute in the county of Chester. He had a pious mother, "who, having lived just long enough to devote him, as Hannah did her Samuel, unto the service of the sanctuary, left him under the more immediate care of Heaven to fit him for that service." And gracious Heaven accepted the charge of this child of the covenant. The mother's dying prayer is the infant's best legacy. She follows the prayer to heaven with such speed, that it is doubtful which enters first. Let not such little ones be accounted of as orphanized or forlorn. They have a shepherd to feed, and a fold to guard them. As one of the old puritan divines has said ;-"Jesus opens to them his arms and the bosom of his Church to warm them into spiritual life to be manifested in due time.”* The mother's last prayer was so effectually answered, that the child gave evidence of the grace of God ere he was sent to the university, and lived all his days a devout and conscientious life, without one blemish left on record against him. At the age of fourteen, he had made great * J. Angier, 1652. VOL. II. 22 |