CONCERNING GOD’S MINISTRATION BY SICKNESS.
In Time of Sickness, Ake or Pain, we are to examine our own Hearts, to see and find out the cause of God’s Chastisement, and to look up to Him who wounds, and whose Hands alone make whole, who is the same Yesterday, Today and forever; and to attend the Apostle Jame’s Direction. James 5, 13 etc. If any Man among you be afflicted, let him pray; is any merry, let him sing Psalms; is any sick among you, let him call for the Elders of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with Oyl in the Name of the Lord; and the Prayer of Faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed Sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your Faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a Righteous Man availeth much.—J. R.
[152]. The “History of the German Sectaries” (Philadelphia, 1899) by Julius F. Sachse, gives an account of this New London visit derived from the Journal of the Pilgrims. By that history, it will be seen that these Ephrata brethren were men of learning, and had at the Cloister a printing-press, from which issued numerous publications, in both German and English type. Products of this press are among the rarest specimens of Americana.
[153]. Since John Rogers resided as a pastor on the Great Neck from 1675 to 1699 he had undoubtedly a following of that locality.
[154]. Her first child was baptized in the Congregational church, but the other children do not appear on the Congregational church records, by which it may be judged that she was brought over to her husband’s views in this particular.
[155]. The early graves still discernible in this old family burying-ground are marked by natural, uninscribed stones, which was the ordinary mode before gravestones came into common use in New England. In family burying-places, on farms or in out-of-the-way places, the lack of inscriptions continued to a comparatively late period. Many such old family burying-places have been long obliterated. The preservation of this one is probably due to its being secured by deed. (See New London Record, November 13, 1751.) It is said that, despite the lack of inscriptions, descendants in the earlier part of the nineteenth century could tell who was buried in each of the old graves. The railroad has cut off a portion of this burial ground, which originally extended to the verge of the river. Tradition states that some of the graves on the river bank were washed away at the time of the great September gale (1813).
[156]. There are numerous allusions to John Rogers, 2d, in the “Hempstead Diary,” but a number of references to “John Rogers,” which in the published Diary are credited to John, 2d, refer to his cousin, Capt. John Rogers, of Great Neck vicinity, as does the statement under October 4, 1735, that John Rogers “girdled the apple trees” on the “Crossman lot.” This “Crossman lot,” on the Great Neck, by “Lower Mamacock,” was in litigation between Capt. John Rogers and Mr. Hempstead, for some time, and was finally accorded to Mr. Hempstead. “Lower Mamacock” by “lower Alewife Cove,” is easily confounded with “Upper Mamacock,” by “upper Alewife Cove,” although they are six or seven miles apart.
[157]. This coopering establishment was located on Main Street, by the Mill Cove, on land which had been given him by his father in 1725 (New London Record); it bordered the Mill Cove and there was a wharf belonging to it. Tradition has confounded this James with his son James, the only son of the former who reached middle life. James, Jr., was remembered by some of the older people of the middle of the nineteenth century and familiarly called “Jimmy Rogers.” He succeeded to the business of his father, by the Mill Cove, and continued it on a still larger scale, packing beef of his own preparation, in barrels of his own manufacture, and shipping it to southern markets. He was a very successful business man; but the piety conspicuous in the character of his father is not ascribable to this James, who appears not to have made any profession of the Christian faith. He was a young man at the time of the persecution of the Society to which his father belonged, which was instituted by the denomination of which his mother was a member, and which resulted in the blood-curdling scenes attendant upon the countermove of 1764-6. Such scenes enacted by professing Christians, in vengeful punishment of other professing Christians, were calculated to make anything but a religious impression upon a youth of the strictly practical turn of mind that is ascribed to this James.
[158]. The farm now (1904) occupied by Mr. Henry Benham is a portion of what was the James Rogers farm. A southern portion of the latter was sold by heirs of James, Jr., to the Lewis brothers. The farm inherited by Samuel Rogers is now owned by Mr. Stephen Comstock. Mamacock proper, left to John Rogers, 3d, is the farm now owned by Mr. Fitzgerald, including Mamacock peninsula. Each of these farms had, originally, pasture and woodland on the west side of the Norwich road.
All of the above farms were valuable in old times, when clearings were the exception, being rich lands carefully cultivated.