Shall (still and ever) follow me;
Yea I shall dwell and Sabbatize
Even to (unknown) length of days,
Lodg'd in the house which does belong
To him who's the Eternal God."
[Sonnet 29.] As Christians we are under inexpressible obligations to God for his book of revealed truth, proved to be divine by the voice of prophecy, by the wonders of miracles, by the sublimity of its doctrines, and by the approval of conscience. Every man, who can read, is bound to examine this book for himself; for otherwise his faith will rest on a human not a divine teacher.—According to Mr. Chillingworth, what God requires of us is "to believe the Scripture to be God's word, to endeavor to find the true sense of it, and to live according to it." He also says—"I see plainly and with mine own eyes, that there are popes against popes, Councils against Councils, some Fathers against others, the same Fathers against themselves, a Consent of Fathers of one age against a Consent of Fathers of another age, the Church of one age against the Church of another age. Traditive interpretations of Scripture are pretended, but there are few or none to be found. No tradition, but only of Scripture, can derive itself from the fountain."—"Propose me any thing out of this book, and require whether I believe it or no; and seem it never so incomprehensible to human reason, I will subscribe it with hand and heart: As knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this; God hath said so, therefore it is true." But then we ought to be well assured, that God hath said what we attribute to him; that we understand the import of the divine word; and that no prepossession, or prejudice, or passion, or mental bondage leads us into an inexcusable misapprehension.
[Sonnet 30.] My wife, Maria Malleville, who died very suddenly at Brunswick in Maine June 3, 1828, aged 40 years, was the only daughter and child of Dr. John Wheelock, the president of Dartmouth College. She was of Huguenot descent by her mother, Maria Suhm, the daughter of Christian Suhm, the Danish commandant and governor of the island of St. Thomas: he died in 1759, aged 40, being a native of Copenhagen. Mrs. Suhm's descent was from Thomas Bourdeau of the south or west of France, a protestant martyr after the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685, as follows. He sent his only daughter Maria at the age of ten years for safety to the island of St. Thomas. In the same vessel was a protestant emigrant from the same place, Mr. La Salle, whom she at the age of 15 married. Their daughter Maria La Salle married John Malleville of St. Thomas: their daughter, Maria Malleville, married in 1751 governor Suhm, who after his death was succeeded by her brother, Gov. Thomas Malleville. Her second marriage was to Lucas Von Beverhoudt of Beverwyck in Parsippany, New Jersey, where she was accustomed to receive Washington at her house. Their daughter, Adriana, married T. Boudinot, the descendant of another Huguenot family from France.—She died in 1798. Her daughter, Maria Suhm, married, as has been mentioned, president Wheelock.—My wife, whom I married Jan. 28, 1813, was the mother of 8 children.
[Sonnet 32.] About 50 years ago, when the neighborhood of Sackett's Harbor was a wilderness, a little child of one of the new settlers aged 4 years was lost in the woods. The father's house was 6 miles from the Harbor. All possible aid in the search was of course called together under the regulation and with the success described in this sonnet.
[Sonnet 35.] As Spenser says of the Lamb;—
"His sceptre is the rod of righteousness,