Caleb Field was less a man peculiar to that age than any of all these. No youthful cavalier in the gay court of Charles, had a more gladsome enjoyment of life than this sombre Puritan minister of doomed London. No tender-hearted maiden or loving mother had a sympathy more quick, a compassion more gentle than was his. So full of joyous congenial life with all that was true and honest, lovely and of good report, and withal in his strong vitality, having so great a fountain of deepest pathos within—a truly human man, akin to all who wear the wondrous garment of this mortality.
And so it happened that this man’s influence was less subject to ebbs and flowings of popular appreciation than the rest. It was as perennial and constant as life itself, for, in all that pertains to life, many-sided and various, his warm humanity made itself a part.
The other members of the Church-Court were but different phases of those various kinds of man, devoted with all their differing individualities to the one fervent, solemn work, upon which lay the awe of martyrdom, the almost certain conclusion of death.
The meeting was opened solemnly with prayer, and constituted in the name of the Lord Jesus, King and Head of His Church, and then the arrangements followed. Most of the ministers present had been ejected by the Act of Uniformity, four years before, and had again resumed the pulpits which were deserted by the conforming preachers who succeeded them, a step which they had been permitted to take without obstruction or hindrance. One by one they gave in their report.
“And thou, good brother Field,” said the moderator of the small assembly, “thou hast a quiet people in a quiet church, as I hear. Take heed their stillness lulls them not into deadness, for albeit men are quiet when they are safe, it is not always safety to be quiet. This terror has not come nigh you yet.”
“The terror has, but not the judgment,” answered Field. “My people are paralyzed with fear, although the pestilence hath not entered their bound.”
“A universal evil,” said Vincent. “Ah! brethren, would that we did but fear iniquity, as this people fears suffering. Would that we, God’s dedicated servants, had but such a lively fear of His displeasure as those have of his judgment. But, alas! in the mightiness of the temporal evil, they forget the spiritual; for what heedeth a man, if I speak to him of sin when his whole soul is engrossed with the plague.”
“In his terror, brother, speak to him of hope, and he will hearken to thee,” said Field. “When he thinks but of death, show him the Lord who hath conquered it, and he will look, and see. When he is busied with himself, tell him of that One who forgot himself for our deliverance, and he also will forget. What! is there naught but calamity here, and shall we carry our people no tidings of joy? then are we Gospellers no more. I tell you, brethren, it is the Lord—in whom is all hope, all joy, all omnipotence—that we must proclaim without ceasing at this time; men’s hearts are failing them for fear, and so it should be, for grievously hath this nation sinned; but while the Gospel remaineth on the earth, there is always occasion to rejoice. Let us lift their hearts to the heavens where He sitteth in His Godhead, who wears a humanity there akin to ours—the first fruits of them that sleep—and so I say to you, brethren, shall you deliver your people from this deadly terror, and let them meet God’s judgments in brave humility, and penitence, as becometh Christian men.”
“Yea, brother Field,” said Master Franklin, “you speak well.”
“There shall no man question that,” said Master Chester, “but God not only sendeth us seeds various for our fields, but fields various for our seed; and though the cold hill beareth not fruit, like the rich valley, there are yet vegetable kinds in their kingdom, which love the valley less than the hill. And this, thou seest, brother, is a time of panic which it becometh us, as good husbandmen, to improve into a time of penitence—sowing seeds of godly fear for the second death, even as the enemy soweth tares of terrors for the first.”