The Newtown bee. (Newtown, Conn.) 1877-current, 1905-09-08

men in His worship. We promise to
walk with our brethren with all watch
fulness and tenderness, avoiding jeal-
ousies and suspicious, backbitings, CEN
surings, provokings, secret risings of
the spirit against them, but in all Of
fences, to follow the rule Of our Lord
Jesus and to bear and forbear, give and
forgive, as He hath taught us. AllthiS
we promise, not by any strength of our
own, but by the Lord Jesus Christ"
These we're the sentiments of Puritans
who believed in a church without a
bishop, and a state without a king.
Bancroft says that they were enthu-
siasts, not bigots. God worked in
them both to will and to do as Pill
grim and Puritan sailed away for the
New World, far away from popery and
prelacy, from traditions of the church,
from hereditary power, from the
sovereignty of an earthly king, from
all dominion but the Bible. Puritan
ism exalted the man, the layman, and
so it planted the schoolhOuse beside
the church and has strewn the land
with academies and colleges. Puritan
ism, as has been well said. was life
giving spirit. Activity, thrift, intelli-
gence, followed in it's train. AS for
courage, a coward and Puritan never
went together.
No people can be permanently pros
porous who disobey Gods first COM
mand in Genesis l: %, "Be fruitful
and multiply" The families of early
| New England are famous to this day
for their size. They overlooked the
home farm into every promising waste
place. Connecticut first settled its
own western wilderness and then
moved north to Vermont, first called
| New Connecticut, where the towns to
this day duplicate Connecticut names.
Virginia attracted some and the fatal
Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania. At
ter the Revolution, Western New
York and the Western Reserve were
| magnets, until, in 1884, half the peo-
pie of York State and Ohio were of
Puritan ancestry. Westward the star
of empire took the Puritan to Iowa
and the northwest, after as to the
Pacific coast and in my own day to
bleeding Kansas. So rapid was the
increase of the Puritans that, of about
1000 families who came from England
in New England S settlement, by 1884
the average increase of each family
was 1000 souls and at that date, before
immigration had set in, the
descendants of the Puritans COM
prised third of the whole white
population in the United States.
God honored such faithfulness
with long life Eand it is recorded that
four of every Is born in early New
England lived to be 70 years of age or
more. It was this Puritan leaven that
saved the nation in the Civil War, the
a descendant of the Puritan Lincolns
of Massachusetts Bay. Where is our
blessing when Gods first command
ment is so dishonored that large fam
lilies are pointed at with a leer and even
our strenuous President sounds the
note of race suicide!
Another Puritan principle was love
for Gods Word. 1t was the book of
books, Gods own voice, honored and
beloved. Looking from Sinai the Pur
itan naturally saw the Old Testament
in most prominent relief. This is seen,
for instance, in the names of his chill
dren, Abel and Abraham, Aaron and
Mo seS, Isaac and Jacob, Jacob still sur
viving with us as James, Joshua, whose
Greek equivalent is Jesus, Eli and
Samuel, David and Solomon, jeremiah
and Ezekiel, Daniel, and SO on down to
Malachi, whose book closes our Old
Testament Scripture. or names of
girls, Sarah, Rebecca, Ruth. Esther.
are among those still in favor. Mary
preserves the Hebrew Miriam, AS Eliza
beth does the Hebrew Elisheba. The
Bible was more than book
was the man of his counsel
and the guide of his life. We have the
testimony concerning early New Eng
land that one might dwell then from
year to year and not see drunkard or
hear an oath or meet beggar. Would
that saloon-cursed New England was
as fond of the Bible to-day! 1t was
committed to memory by chapters.
and our numerous Sunday school helps
are positively vicious for having driv-
en- out the memoriZing of Gods word.
There is no more healthy or Salutary
furniture for any young mind than
the absorption and assimilation of
Scripture texts!
Gods day followed as matter of
course. The bogus blue laws of Peters
have caricatured the Puritan Sabbath,
but the Puritan reverenced the day,
and Gods blessing is promised all who
love to give G cd S seventh of time to
the Author of all time. France tried to
wipe Sunday out of existence and is the
moral wreck of Europe. The United
States is adopting the European holi-
day and the open marts of trade, the
paper, the trolley and steam
cars, the places of resort, attract the
on Gods day. God gave
man six days and claimed the seventh |