The old man had nodded his consent to the child, and walked on with bowed head, thinking aloud. The child sprang at once into a little thicket where wild vines and flowers grew in abundance, and gathered her arms full. She certainly made an odd picture; her droll little figure in that wild, unbroken country, as she stood on the branch of a fallen tree, one arm full of flowers and trailing vines, while she was trying with the other how far she could throw a flat stone and make it skip over the water. As it skipped once, twice, three times, then sank, making great circles on the smooth surface, she laughed merrily, and springing from branch to branch she ran on, jumping over every obstacle, at the same time chanting:—
“Be thou, O God, exalted high;
And as thy glory fills the sky,
So let it be on earth displayed,
Till thou art here, as there, obeyed.”
It was Friday that Patience summoned Master Bradford to Mrs. Dare’s hut, where only a few hours before the baby had opened its blue eyes and caused excitement in the little colony. Even Master Bradford felt a strange thrill of pleasure as Mistress Wilkins put the tiny creature into his arms, saying, “Give the child your blessing, sir: I felt it were not safe to let her be longer without at least the blessing of a priest.”
As he took the little one, there was an uneasy look in his honest face. Master Bradford would not have suited some Churchmen of the present day; and yet we all look back with pride as well as pleasure to the fact that among the first colonists in this country there was a priest of our Church, and the first time that praise and worship sounded in our language from this great continent, it was in the words of our own beautiful liturgy; and thus, from Master Bradford’s service in the rude Roanoke chapel, to the days of Captain John Smith, when good Mr. Hunt and Mr. Whittaker fought the strengthening Puritan element, no service had ever been offered but that of our own dear Church.
He replied, “She is the first precious lamb the Lord has trusted to this fold. ’Tis true the blessing of any of God’s children is but a form of prayer to him and can do no harm.” He held many of the Puritan views that were then beginning to take root in England. It was only natural, then, that he should hesitate to comply with Mistress Wilkins’s request. But he took the child tenderly, as it was laid in his arms; and as he held it and looked into its little face, so fresh from heaven, all prejudice slipped away, and he satisfied even Mistress Wilkins.
The tall figure of Governor White, and his assistant Ananias Dare, entered the room as Master Bradford began, “May our ever-loving Shepherd watch over this little lamb in this wilderness, and lead her safely through it to the heavenly fold at last. And may the blessing of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit ever be with her.”
It was Sunday morning, the tenth after Trinity, in the year of our Lord 1587, the 18th of August, a typical day for that time of the year, sunny and warm, with a soft haze over everything, as if the world were resting, or rather, on this particular day, in this particular place, the world looked as if it had never waked up at all. One could not believe that those lovely flowers and ferns had ever been covered with ice and snow, or that those mighty forest trees had been shaken in fierce storms till their very roots trembled in the earth. That still peaceful sheet of water, sparkling in the morning sunlight, seemed unable to lash itself into great waves, or to dash great ships into fragments.