success. awakenings, and was in labours more abundant; and God was pleased to bless him with considerable He was of a mild, pleasant, affable disposition; prudent, hospitable, generous, and liberal to the poor; a loving husband, a tender parent, a kind and obliging friend; a faithful reprover even of those, that were dear to him, when he apprehended there was occasion for it; and was coura geous and bold in the cause of his Master and in promoting the interest of vital piety. In short, he excelled in the graces and duties of the christian life. And now he is no more, we, that survive, have reason to arise and call him blessed, for blessed are the dead that die in the Lord." [Ply .Ch. Rec.] PLYMOUTH, MASS. 608. Here lyes buried the body of mr. THOMAS CLARK, aged 98 years, who departed this life, the 24 of March, 1697. PLYMOUTH, MASS. 609. This stone is erected to the memory of that unbiassed judge, faithful officer, sincere friend, and honest man, col. ISAAC LOTHROP, who resigned this life, on the 26 day of April, 1750, in the 43 year of his age. Had virtue's charms the power to save This stone had ne'er possess'd the fame Note.-Col. Lothrop was a gentleman of distinguished worth, as his epitaph fully represents. He was a descendant, in the fourth generation, from the rev. John Lothropp, of Barnstable, of whom a very interesting account is given in the first volume of the second decade of the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, by the rev. John Lathrop, D. D. of Boston. 610. PLYMOUTH, MASS. Departed this life, 23 June, 1796, in the 90 year of her age, madam PRISCILLA HOBART, relict of the rev. Noah Hobart, late of Fairfield in Connecticut, her third husband. Her first and second were John Watson. esq. and hon. Isaac Lothrop. 611. PLYMOUTH, MASS. In memory of GEORGE WATSON, esq. who died, the 3 of Dec. 1800, in the 33 year of his age. No folly wasted his paternal store, No guilt, no sordid av'rice made it more. And hail'd him, in the publick ways, Note-The inhabitants of Plymouth, at a town meeting, convened in consequence of the death of col. Watson, adopted arrangements, for the funeral, which were very respectful to the remains and to the memory of this uncommonly estimable charac ter. The rev. James Kendall delivered a sermon, on the day of his interment, from 2 K. 22. 19, 20, which was published, and, with it, a biographical notice, attributed to the hon. Joshua Thomas, from the latter of which the subjoined is taken. 66 Descended from respectable parents, by an uniform dignity of manners and uprightness of conduct, he preserved the respectability of his family unsullied to the grave. "In the meridian of his days and amidst the multifarious concerns and solicitudes of commercial business, he formed a just estimate of the scenes fleeting before him, and looked forward to an inheritance eternal in the heavens. Becoming a member of the most ancient church of Christ in New-England, his exemplary observance of all the institutions of religion and the well regulated habits of his mind and life were analogous to those of its primitive founders. "Blessed with affluence, his house was the temple of resort, not merely of the indigent and distressed, but of those, who sought to be obliged. And as the benevolent propensities of his nature would not suffer him to withhold a solicited favour, so, by his munificent direction, into the lacerated bosom were often poured the wine and the oil. "As the natural result of his wise and temperate arrangement, col. Watson had almost uninterrupted health, which enabled him to enjoy, with cheerfulness, the liberalities of Providence; and, singularly happy in his connexions, rich in the esteem of his friends, and ripe in years, he sunk gently into death." PLYMOUTH, MASS. 612. In memory of doctor LAZARUS LE BARON, who departed this life, 2 September, 1773, æt. suæ 75. My flesh shall slumber in the ground Till the last trumpet's joyful sound, Then burst the chains, with sweet surprise, PLYMOUTH, MASS. 613. Here lyeth buried the body of that precious servant of God, mr. THOMAS CUSHMAN, who, after he had served his generation according to the will of God, and particularly the church of Plymouth, for many years, in the office of a ruling elder, fell X PEN, I.-VOL. III. asleep in Jesus, 10 Dec. 1691, and in the of his age. 84 year Note. He was a son of mr. Robert Cushman, a man of primitive piety, who had the honour of preaching the first sermon in New-England. He succeeded, in the office of ruling elder, that venerable pilgrim of Leyden, mr. William Brewster, who died, in 1644, at more than eighty years of age. He inherited much of the excellent spirit of his father, and, being adorned with gifts and graces, proved a great blessing to the church in Plymouth. He assisted rev. mr. Reyner, not only in ruling, catechising, and visiting; but in publick teaching, as had "It was the been the practice of mr. Brewster. professed principle of this church in their first formation, to choose none for governing elders but such as are able to teach." This particular distinguished the church of Leyden and the Old Colony from other reformed churches, in general, which, as mr. Robinson remarks in a certain letter, did not require this ability in their ruling elders. The subject of this article was greatly instrumental in preventing the ill effects of the irregularities, which, unhappily, too much characterized not a few of the denomination of friends, on their first appearing in New-England, about the middle of the seventeenth century. This he did by teaching the will of God plainly and powerfully and by his blameless life and conversation. It may be proper here to remark that the Old Colony government, to its honour, never enacted |