The family carried on all the good works in the which they had been instructed, until they were driven away by the military zealots of the Puritan
party; but in later and more peaceful times they again assembled in the old home, though there is no authentic account of the date, nor of the particular members of the family that returned; but their exile does not appear to have been of long duration, as there are entries in the register of Gidding church, and inscriptions on brasses or tombstones, which record events in the family history of the Ferrars and Collets (such as baptisms and burials) as early as the year 1650—and at frequent dates afterwards. The Gidding estate, which had originally been bought by old Mrs. Ferrar, passed to her eldest son John, which is proved by his being described on his tombstone as “Lord of this Manor,” and he was succeeded by his eldest son, who was resident there in the year 1715, as stated by Dr. Mapletoft in one of the Concordances.
CHAPTER II.
THE CONCORDANCES OR HARMONIES.
Of all the work carried on at Gidding, nothing attracted more favourable notice at the time, than the Concordances of the Four Evangelists, and of other portions of the Bible, and at the present day they are also highly valued by those who possess them, partly no doubt from a feeling of admiration for Nicholas Ferrar himself, who designed them, but no less for their intrinsic worth, and for the skill and industry employed in their making.
Even in the books which treat of Ferrar’s life with the greatest exactness, reference is made to some six or seven Harmonies, but several of these have been either lost or destroyed, or cannot now be traced; while within the last few years, several not mentioned in the printed biographies have been discovered, and in the following pages much interesting matter will be brought forward about
them, and the histories of the various volumes will be given. [35]
The notoriety attaching to the Concordances can be easily accounted for by the great interest shown in the work by King Charles I. There does not appear to be any evidence to show that the King knew Nicholas Ferrar personally, before he first heard of the Concordance which was in daily use at Gidding. The family had settled there the very year King Charles I. began to reign, but in Ferrar’s early life, as already stated, he was a distinguished public servant and Member of Parliament, and had, moreover, travelled in the suite of the King’s sister; so that in all probability Ferrar’s name and character were not unknown to him.
But in order to prove the real value of the work, not only as a clever contrivance, but as an aid to religious instruction, and to the study of the Gospel history, it is necessary to put on one side the prestige of the royal patronage, and to give an accurate description of some one volume.
The Harmony selected for this purpose is one of the earliest, and least elaborate; it was made for a private friend of the Ferrars, and is no doubt almost an exact reproduction of the volume which was used every day by the children at Little Gidding; for it was a part of their daily duty to repeat portions of the Harmony to Mr. Ferrar—the book being so divided that “beginning still at the first day of the month, and ending at the last day of the month, all the heads or chapters were said over in every month’s time.”
The principle of the work was this—to make one continuous history of all the actions and discourses of our Lord wherever related, and this to be so arranged that the Gospel of any one Evangelist could be read straight through from first to last.