“Wonderful providence! Some of the unhappy men have time to prostrate themselves; the fiery scourge grazes their backs; the ground shields their breasts; they escape. See them wound up out of the blazing dungeon, and say if these are not brands plucked out of the fire. A pestiferous steam and clouds of suffocating smoke pursue them. Half dead themselves, they hold their dead or dying companions in their trembling arms. Merciful God of Shadrach! Kind Protector of Meshach! Mighty Deliverer of Abednego! Patient Preserver of rebellious Jonah! Will not these utter a song—a song of praise to Thee? praise ardent as the flames they escape—lasting as the life Thou prolongest? Alas, they refuse! And some—O tell it not among the heathens, lest they for ever abhor the name of Christian—some return to the very pits where they have been branded with sulphureous fire by the warning hand of Providence, and there, sporting themselves again with the most infernal wishes, call aloud for a fire that cannot be quenched, and challenge the Almighty to cast them into hell, that bottomless pit whence there is no return.
“Leave these black men at their perilous work, and see yonder barge-men haling that loaded vessel against wind and stream. Since the dawn of day, they have wrestled with the impetuous current; and now that it almost overpowers them, how do they exert all their remaining strength, and strain their every nerve? How are they bathed in sweat and rain? Fastened to their lines as horses to their traces, wherein do they differ from the laborious brutes? Not in an erect posture of the body, for, in the intenseness of their toil, they bend forward, their head is foremost, and their hands upon the ground. If there is any difference, it consists in this: horses are indulged with a collar to save their breasts; and these, as if theirs were not worth saving, draw without one; the beasts tug in patient silence and mutual harmony; but the men with loud contention and horrible imprecations. O sin, what hast thou done? Is it not enough that these drudges should toil like brutes? must they also curse one another like devils?
“If you have gone beyond the hearing of their impious oaths, stop to consider the sons of Vulcan confined to these forges and furnaces. Is their lot much preferable? A sultry air and clouds of smoke and dust are the elements in which they labour. The confused noise of water falling, steam hissing, fire-engines working, wheels turning, files creaking, hammers beating, ore bursting, and bellows roaring, form the dismal concert that strikes the ears; while a continual eruption of flames, ascending from the mouth of their artificial volcanoes, dazzle their eyes with a horrible glare. Massy bars of hot iron are the heavy tools they handle, cylinders of the first magnitude the enormous weights they heave, vessels full of melted metal the dangerous loads they carry, streams of the same burning fluid the fiery rivers which they conduct into the deep cavities of their subterraneous moulds, and millions of flying sparks with a thousand drops of liquid, hissing iron, the horrible showers to which they are exposed. See them cast: you would think them in a bath and not in a furnace; they bedew the burning sand with their streaming sweat; nor are their wet garments dried up, either by the fierce fires they attend, or the fiery streams which they manage. Certainly, of all men, these have best reason to remember the just sentence of an offended God: ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread all the days of thy life.’”
This long extract is given, not as a specimen of Fletcher’s style of writing, for it is hardly that, but as a truthful description of a large number of the poor creatures of whom he had the pastoral oversight. Many a passage of the highest kind of eloquence might be cited; but the reader is recommended to buy and peruse the book himself. The following is presented, solely because it refers to growing evils, alarmingly prevalent among people who think themselves religious:—
“But all are not employed in sin and wickedness, for many go through a constant round of innocent diversions; and these, at least, must be innocent and happy. Let us then consider the amusements of mankind, and see how far our own pleasures demonstrate our innocence and happiness.
“How excessively foolish are the plays of children! How full of mischief and cruelty the sports of boys! How vain, foppish, and frothy the joys of young people! And how much below the dignity of upright, pure creatures, the snares that persons of different sexes lay for each other! When they are together, is not this their favourite amusement, till they are deservedly caught in the net which they imprudently spread? But see them asunder.
“Here a circle of idle women, supping a decoction of Indian herbs, talk or laugh all together, like so many chirping birds, or chattering monkeys, and, scandal excepted, every way to as good a purpose. And there, a club of graver men blow, by the hour, clouds of stinking smoke out of their mouths, or wash it down their throats with repeated draughts of intoxicating liquors. The strong fumes have already reached their heads, and, while some stagger home, others triumphantly keep the field of excess; though one is already stamped with the heaviness of the ox, another worked up to the fierceness and roar of the lion, and a third brought down to the filthiness of the vomiting dog.
“Leave them at their manly sport, to follow those musical sounds, mixed with a noise of stamping, and you will find others profusely perspiring, and violently fatiguing themselves, in skipping up and down a room for a whole night, and ridiculously turning their backs and faces to each other a hundred different ways. Would not a man of sense prefer running ten miles upon an useful errand, to this useless manner of losing his rest, heating his blood, exhausting his spirits, unfitting himself for the duties of the following day, and laying the foundation of a putrid fever or a consumption, by breathing the midnight air corrupted by clouds of dust, by the unwholesome fumes of candles, and by the more pernicious steam that issues from the bodies of many persons, who use the strong exercise in a confined place.
“In the next room they are more quiet, but are they more rationally employed? Why do they so earnestly rattle those ivory cubes; and so anxiously study those packs of loose and spotted leaves? Is happiness graven upon the one, or stamped upon the other? Answer, ye gamesters, who curse your stars, as ye go home with an empty purse and a heart full of rage.
“‘We hope there is no harm in taking an innocent game at cards,’ reply a ridiculous party of superannuated ladies; ‘gain is not our aim; we only play to kill time.’ You are not then so well employed as the foolish heathen emperor, who amused himself in killing troublesome flies and wearisome time together. The delight of rational creatures, much more of Christians on the brink of the grave, is to redeem, improve, and solidly enjoy time; but yours, alas! consists in the bare irreparable loss of that invaluable treasure. Oh! what account will you give of the souls you neglect, and the talents you bury?