FAMILY LIFE.
The curious and quaint structure of Hoghton Tower, in the County of Lancaster, is also connected with the Nonconformist memories of the seventeenth century; for there Howe preached a part of his sublime discourse concerning “The Redeemer’s dominion over the invisible world.” And from the exquisitely tender dedication prefixed to it, we gather that it was occasioned by the death of the eldest son of Sir Charles and Lady Hoghton, to whom the tower belonged. The dedication indicates that the bereaved parents had sprung from “religious and honourable families, favoured of God, valued and beloved in the countries where He had planted them;” and that their early homes had been “both seats of religion and of the worship of God, the resorts of His servants; houses of mercy to the indigent, of justice to the vicious, of patronage to the sober and virtuous; of good example to all about them.” Addressing her ladyship, the preacher says: “Madam, who could have a more pleasant retrospect upon former days, than you? recounting your Antrim delights; the delight you took in your excellent relations, your garden delights, your closet delights, your Lord’s Day delights! But how much a greater thing is it to serve God in your present station, as the mother of a numerous and hopeful offspring; as the mistress of a large family; where you bear your part, with your like-minded consort, in supporting the interest of God and religion, and have opportunity of scattering blessings round about you.”[334] The graceful allusions, which the author makes to the family circle at Hoghton, brings before us a domestic picture, which may serve as a pendant to that of Broad Oak, the accessories of a Nonconformist minister’s household being alone exchanged for those of a baronet. From the title and dedication of another sermon by the same Divine, “Self-dedication discoursed in the anniversary thanksgiving of a person of honour for a great deliverance,”—namely, the preservation from death by a fall from a horse of “John, Earl of Kildare, Baron of Ophalia, first of his order in the kingdom of Ireland,”—we gather that it was a Puritan practice to celebrate distinguished family mercies by annual religious solemnities. Two sermons by the same writer on the words, “Yield yourselves unto God,” are inscribed “To the much-honoured Bartholomew Soame, Esq., of Thurlow, and Susanna his pious consort;” with the notice, that one day in the previous summer the author preached the sermons under their roof.[335] The circumstance shows, that sometimes elaborate addresses, fitted for public audiences, were carefully prepared for a small number of persons, such as could be accommodated within the entrance-hall, or in one of the apartments of a country gentleman’s house.
In some Nonconformist families, as was quite natural, romantic incidents occurred. Major-General Lambert, who figured prominently in connection with Cromwell, and who was kept a prisoner in the days of Charles II., had a son very unlike himself as it regards religion. This gentleman became acquainted with the widow of Charles Nowel of Merely—a lady who was of the family of Lister, of Arnoldsbiggen. The union with her first husband had been a runaway match, contracted in a covered walk within her father’s grounds; after which the bridegroom fell into the water, and was drowned, in returning home with the license of marriage in his pocket, so that he and she never met again. Young Lambert married this ill-fated maiden-widow; and then it turned out that the tastes of the couple were utterly unlike—he much addicted to pleasure, she against it; he going to church at Kirkby, Malham-dale, she walking every Sunday to the Dissenting meeting-house at Winterburn. His father, the Major-General, wrote a letter, rebuking him for his extravagance; and his wife invited Mr. Frankland, the Nonconformist pastor, to come and preach in Craven, with a view to his benefit; this the gay sportsman at first opposed. But a change came over him; he himself invited Oliver Heywood to be his guest, and showed him his pictures—“he being an exact limner:” one would hope he also became a penitent Christian. Lambert was seized with palsy in January, 1676, about which time his mother died in Plymouth Castle.[336]
During the first three centuries of the history of Christianity, and the more than ten persecutions which annalists have numbered, the professors of the Divine faith had to suffer, far beyond what the laws in their utmost severity could inflict. Imperial rescripts carried out to the letter, or magisterial commands going further, were terrible beyond description; and popular fury shouting, “The Christians to the lions,” became more cruel still. But another source of suffering, to minds of sensibility exceeding the rest in the bitterness of anguish which it produced, was when the husband persecuted the wife, and the father the child. Tertullian tells us that there were many such cases. The annals of the Church of the Restoration afford parallels in this last, as in other respects, to the records of older times.
FAMILY LIFE.
Agnes Beaumont, the daughter of a Bedfordshire yeoman, lost her mother when very young. Her father sometimes went to hear the preaching of John Bunyan, but he afterwards conceived a strong antipathy to that famous minister. The girl manifested religious feeling, and joined Bunyan’s Church, when a lawyer, who had wished to marry her for the sake of her father’s property, became her inveterate foe. But the daughter remained faithful to her convictions; and this circumstance so provoked her father’s irritable temper, that he opposed her going to hear the favourite preacher any more. On a particular occasion, however, she extorted his consent to attend once. It was the depth of winter. Weary of wading through the mud, and overtaken by Bunyan riding on his way to the place of worship, she was reluctantly permitted by him to sit, pillion-fashion, behind him on horseback, when the two were met by a clergyman, who immediately invented a scandalous report respecting the minister and the maid. Agnes, after attending the meeting, found the door of her house barred against her admission. “Who is there?” asked Beaumont, as she knocked. “’Tis I, father, come home wet and dirty: pray let me in.” “Where you have been all day, you may go at night,” was the answer from the other side of the bolted entrance. She went and sought shelter in a barn. The morning brought no relenting to the heart of her unnatural parent; and he declared that she should not enter the house, unless she promised never to go to a meeting again so long as he lived. “Father,” she answered, “my soul is of too much worth to do this. Can you stand in my stead, and answer for me at the great day? If so, I will obey you in this demand, as I do in all other things.” Much painful excitement followed. At last, fearful of being disobedient, the young woman promised never to go to a conventicle as long as he lived, without his consent. This softened him a little, and they were reconciled; but as she reflected upon her promise, it struck her that she had been unfaithful to her conscience, and she passed through great spiritual distress. Soon afterwards Beaumont fell ill, and retired to rest. His daughter, hearing him moaning in his chamber, rushed to his assistance, and found him struck with death. Fatal disease had been brought on, most likely by violence of temper; and the poor girl, through the villany of her pretended lover, now had to face the accusation of having murdered her parent. Though, on the coroner’s inquest, her innocence was established, her implacable enemy perseveringly maintained, that she had privately confessed the crime, the object of which was to marry Bunyan, who had a wife living at that very time; the villain also, without one atom of evidence, charged her with committing arson.[337] More of revenge than persecution entered into the conduct of this man; yet, for a while, Agnes Beaumont, for her religious constancy, endured the most violent parental anger, probably not uncommon in those days, and akin to that which fell upon many a pure-minded maiden in Carthage or in Rome.
FAMILY LIFE.
The domestic and private life of the Established clergy and their friends, as they appear in the biographies and gossiping literature of the day, assume a rather different aspect from that of the Nonconformists. Such a dignitary as Reynolds, who had been a Presbyterian, would no doubt preserve, in his palace at Norwich, many of the Puritan habits of the Commonwealth—would gather around him, as far as possible, a godly household, in sympathy with him in his spiritual tastes—would continue to converse much after the fashion of by-gone days—and with the adoption of the Episcopalian formularies in the cathedral and chapel, would connect, in more retired devotion, the use of extemporaneous prayer, and of Scripture exposition. And such a parish pastor as Gurnall would, in a similar way, continue Puritan usages in his quiet parsonage at Lavenham. We must look elsewhere for characteristic habits and customs of the Episcopalian stamp. Of an Anglican prelate, enjoying his palace, and engaged in his diocese, a good specimen is afforded by the memoirs of Seth Ward, the Bishop of Salisbury.[338]
He was renowned for hospitality. The clergy, even the meanest curates, were welcome at his table; and people of quality, travelling between London and Exeter, stopped at the Wiltshire city, and dined at the palace. He was a hearty entertainer, we are told, assuring his guests that he accounted himself but a steward, and pressing upon them the enjoyment of the fare which he plentifully provided. He would not ask, “Will you drink a glass of wine?” says his biographer, with amusing minuteness; but he would call for a bottle, and drink himself, and then offer it to his friends. The poor were relieved at his gates. He had a band of weekly pensioners; and when he went out for a walk in the streets or on the plains, he gave money to all who solicited alms; and when children saw him in his coach or on horseback, they would rush from their play, to shout, in expectation of a largess, “The Bishop is coming.” Being a capital horseman, he would ride twenty miles before dinner, and not mind following the hounds, if he “by chance chopt upon” them. After dinner and “a dish or two of coffee or tea,” as soon as the bell “tilled,”—to use the Salisbury phrase,—he called for his robes, and went to church, taking with him his visitors.[339]
Of another kind of dignitary an example is afforded in the memoirs of the Honourable and Reverend Dr. John North. He was Clerk of the Closet to Charles II.; possessing “a very convenient lodging in Whitehall, upon the parade of the Court, near the presence-chamber,” where his table was provided from the Royal kitchen, and he enjoyed the company of His Majesty’s chaplains. People who had nothing else to do, would say to one another—so North’s brother reports—“Come, shall we go and spend half-an-hour with Mr. Clerk of the Closet?” but when they went with the expectation of getting “a glass of wine or ale,” the wary Divine, by the advice of an old Courtier, would not offer so much as “small beer in hot weather,” lest he should be overdone with visitors. In consequence of this prudent determination, he lived “like a hermit in his cell, in the midst of the Court, and proved the title of a foolish French writer, La Solitude de la Cour.” “Divers persons,” however, particularly ladies, “far from Papists,” were wont to repair to this spiritual officer for a different purpose, thinking “auricular confession, though no duty, a pious practice,” and seeking “to ease their minds” by means of that Anglo-Catholic custom. He did “the office of a pastor or parochus of the Court,” somewhat after the fashion of the mediæval Clerks of the Closet, who were, in fact, Court confessors. “And I have heard him say,” proceeds his brother, “that, for the number of persons that resided in the Court, a place reputed a centre of all vice and irreligion, he thought there were as many truly pious and strictly religious as could be found in any other resort whatsoever; and he never saw so much fervent devotion, and such frequent acts of piety and charity, as his station gave him occasion to observe there. It often falls out that extremes are conterminous, and, as contraries, illustrate each other: so here virtue and vice.”[340] We are glad to hear such testimony, and, when we think of Evelyn and Margaret Godolphin, we cannot altogether doubt it; but, as this Court Divine lived in a cell, he could not know much of what went on around him in the Court.