That babes are cherubs, if not seraphs, every mother knows; but it is not often the fact is recorded in our church registers. Peculiar thankfulness must have been felt here:
“On Dec. 11, 1865, aged seventy-eight years, died Cherubin Diball.”—Notes and Queries, 4th Series, ii. 130.
And two hundred years previously, i.e. 1678, Seraphim Marketman is referred to in the last testament of John Kirk. But was it gratitude, after all? We have all heard of the wretched father who would persist in having the twins his wife presented to him christened by the names of Cherubin and Seraphim, on the ground that “they continually do cry.” Perhaps Cherubin Diball and Seraphim Marketman made noise enough for two!
But if the father of the twins was not as thankful for his privilege as he ought to have been, others were. Thanks and Thankful were not unknown to our forefathers. One of the earliest instances I can find is the marriage lines of Thankful Hepden:
“1646, July 16. Thankfull Hepden and Fraunces Bruer.”—St. Dionis Backchurch.
In Peck’s “Desiderata Curiosa” (p. 537) we read:
“Dec. M.D.CLVI. Mr. Thankful Frewen’s corps carried through London, to be interred in Sussex.”
Thankful’s father was John Frewen, Rector of Northiam, the eminent Puritan already referred to. Accepted, the elder son’s name, belongs to this same class. Thankful seems to have become a favourite in that part of the country, and to have lingered for a considerable time. In the “History of the Town and Port of Rye” we find (p. 466):
“Christmas, 1723. Assessment for repairs of highways: Mr. Thankful Bishop paid 7s 6d.”
Again, so late as 1749 we find the death of another Thankful Frewen recorded, who had been Rector of Northiam for sixteen years, christened, no doubt, in memory of his predecessor of a century gone by.[52] Thankful Owen was brother to Gracious Owen, president of St. John’s, Oxford, 1650-1660.