J. Bowring.
THE world has nothing more worthy of our regard than its unconscious heroes. Though many can discern their own true importance, a peculiar charm invests such as do not realize it, even if they are told. They seem to think others would have done better in their place, and they lightly estimate their services, at less than their fellow-men accredit them. His ideal of duty captivates the doer more than his own agency therein. The noblest men are made by the contemplation of their models. Like the great Apostle, they are not disobedient unto the heavenly vision. Among earth's worthies, modest and unconscious of greatness, there stands the figure of William Bradford.
We find him first as a native of Austerfield, England, on the south border of Yorkshire. There is no official record of his birth. But in addition to his own declaration of age when first married, the clearly legible record of his baptism, March 19, 1589, would indicate that by the modern calendar he was born in 1590. The garments worn by him at the chapel March 19–29, being a short white linen covering and mitts which came for exhibition to Essex Institute in Salem, Massachusetts, are the apparel of a small babe.
The affirmation of Bradford, as a man thoroughly established in his integrity and his accuracy of statement, this declaration in the important matter of his marriage contract when he was required to subscribe his own signature, must be accepted as more weighty than the opinions given by others regarding his age in later years of his life, and the posthumous inscription placed long afterward on his monument. It is unlikely that he was consulted about his age, for any future epitaph, since even the necessary making of his will was deferred to the day of his death. Not long before his nuptials on December 10–20, 1613, he averred that he was twenty-three; and, supposing an error of his quite improbable here, our conclusion appears justified that he was born in 1590 by the Gregorian calendar. We also have no reason to doubt an old claim that his natal month was the same as his baptismal, March. Besides, the rule existed then, that the rite should be administered one week after birth. If this contemporary custom was followed, William saw the light of day March 12, 1589, by Old Style, or March 22, 1590, New Style.
It is unfortunate that the baptismal font, despite efforts to purchase it back, has not yet, to our knowledge, been yielded by the Methodist church in Lound, Nottinghamshire, and restored to its proper place at Saint Helen's in Austerfield. The Austerfield font at present we do not accept as the genuine original. That original one at Saint Helen's about the time of our Civil War seems to have been a victim to the generally weaker antiquarian interest then, and it was replaced by a high basin. It came back soon but evidently was unused, lying upon the floor aside. Then a sexton was ordered to take out and sell superfluous articles. After resting on an estate as a garden stone, it was given to a lady from Austerfield, who loaned it indefinitely to the church mentioned. It is a large Norman bowl, rough-hewn and of ancient aspect, which when in use was for convenience set upon a wooden block.
When the tolling bells above the small stone chapel summoned the Bradford family and friends to the solemn service, little did they discern, with all their natural affection, any unusual significance in that consecration of a life to be expended far from the quiet hamlet of old England in a growing community of New England.
As the child came to an age of sufficient understanding, how strongly must this humble shrine have appealed to him, with the development of his proclivities guided by one circumstance after another! It was erected during the twelfth century, in the centre of the village, when the rustic parish was presented by a person of rank for the support of a chaplain. Doubtless the lad's eyes often scrutinized the zigzag Norse symbol of lightning, and other ornamentation, carved upon the double arch under which he was wont to enter.
The whole region was rich in historic interest to any reflective mind. It was the battle ground of Briton, Roman and Anglo-Saxon. It formed the heart of the Danish territory, opposite their native continental shores. The Robin Hood marauders operated through this sparsely settled North of England, where the last of several uprisings against the South was attempted only about a score of years before Bradford's birth. The people were comparatively rude and uneducated, with few schools; and papal influence yielded more slowly away from the governmental headquarters. If Mary Queen of Scots had not been executed shortly before the Puritan churches arose, it is difficult to see how or when they could have lived so near her seat of power. But Elizabeth, in her laudable aim to uplift the nation by improving the people and repressing the nobles, encouraged the incoming of tens of thousands of Dutch, of whom many flocked to the fair lowlands east and north, imparting their tolerant ideas, bestowing names upon numerous localities, and producing a marked effect in the speech and blood of the inhabitants. The Queen required every family of Hollanders to take an English apprentice in their imported arts and crafts. Thus England changed rapidly from a country merely agricultural to one also manufacturing, where industry was pursued in weaving cloth and in glass, pottery, iron and various metals, wrought not in factories at first but in private houses as once was commonly done in New England.
The religious effect of this immigration was not in the royal reckoning; for much as Elizabeth hated the papacy, she despised its counterpart, as quite too good for her liking, namely, the body of her subjects which represented an intelligent faith, and holy practice according to the accepted dictates of a revered, studied and intensely cherished Sacred Scripture. Though she could do no more than patronize, from political motives, any order of spiritual devotion as long as she herself would not learn to love devoutly, she failed to realize that the infusion of the virile Puritan element, regardless of racial strain, in the field of religion saved her authorized church from relapsing into Romanism. Her successor, James, was a fit son of Mary of Scotland, in his intolerance towards Puritans, Protestants though they were.