of the means of salvation," and added fresh calumnies against the church. Adopting a Puritan misrepresentation of Separatist principles, he alleged that the church, though only a minority in the colony, "appropriated the ministry to themselves, holding this principle that the Lord hath not appointed any ordinary ministry for the conversion of those that are without." "Some of the poor souls," he said, "have with tears complained of this to me, and I was taxed for preaching to all in general." At the same time he had his fling at the lay preaching of Elder Brewster, and the prophesyings wherewith the brethren were wont to edify one another. "In truth, they have no ministry here, since they came, but such as may be performed by any of you, . . whatsoever great pretenses they make. Herein they equivocate, as in many other things they do."

Full of these and other calumnies, the letter went forward to its destination; but with it Bradford sent an ample refutation. On the last point, especially, the reply was pungent. "He saith we have had no ministry since we came. . . . We answer, The more is our wrong, that our pastor is kept from us by these men's means, who then reproach us for it when they have done. Yet have we not been wholly destitute of the means of salvation, as this man would make the world believe; for our reverend elder hath labored diligently in dispensing the Word of God to us before he [Lyford] came, and since hath taken equal pains with him in preaching the same; and (be it spoken without ostentation) he is not inferior to Mr. Lyford and some of his betters, either in gifts or learning-though he would never be persuaded to take higher office upon him. . . . For equivocating,' he may take it to himself. What the church holds it has manifested to the world in all plainness, both in open confession and doctrine and in writing."

Notwithstanding this new provocation, the doubly convicted hypocrite was permitted to remain till the end of his six months. But meanwhile the church was strengthened.

Some who had stood aloof were brought to a decision by the exposure of Lyford's malignity, and asked for admission to the covenanted brotherhood, "professing that it was not out of the dislike of any thing that they had stood off so long, but only out of a desire to fit themselves better for such a state." They now chose to unite themselves with the church, because "they saw the Lord called for their help."

The six-months' postponement of Lyford's removal from the colony-a postponement which had been granted partly out of regard to his wife and children, that their flight might not be in the winter-was ending, when Oldham, without permission obtained or asked, returned to Plymouth (April, 1625), in company with some strangers. His behavior was so insolent and outrageous that his companions were ashamed of him, and rebuked him. But rebuke, even from them, inflamed his rage, and the governor found it necessary to "commit him till he should be tamer." For his punishment, afterward, "a guard of musketeers was drawn up, through which he was to pass, receiving from every one a parting thump with a musket on his rear as he went by." He was then "conveyed to the water-side, where a boat was ready to carry him away." So they dismissed him with a word of exhortation-" Go, and mend your manners."

It was a singular coincidence that Winslow and William Pierce arrived, just then, on their return from England, and landed at Plymouth while the whole village was occupied with the ceremonies of Oldham's dismissal. They brought with them new and abundant proof both of Oldham's machinations against the colony and of Lyford's extreme deprav ity. In England they had encountered the accusations which went over in Lyford's letters, and which were urged by the anti-Separatists among the Adventurers. Much bickering had they there with the men of that party. Those whose pity for the spiritual needs of the colony had moved them to send Lyford on his unsuccessful mission were clamorous. They could not endure to see "a minister, a man so godly," ac

cused of falsehood. They deemed it a great scandal, and threatened a prosecution in the courts. A full meeting of the Adventurers was called to hear the whole case, and to decide all questions concerning it; and for that meeting two moderators were agreed upon beforehand. The moderators were "Mr. White, a counselor at law," chosen by Lyford's party, and "the Reverend Mr. Hooker" (Thomas Hooker, afterward of New England), chosen by the other party. At the appointed time, "many friends on both sides were brought in, so as there was a great assembly." The result was a complete discomfiture of the anti-Separatist party by an exposure of shameful facts in the life of the man with whom their cause had been unhappily identified. For that result, and the facts which produced it, some at Plymouth were already prepared by certain confidential disclosures which Lyford's wife, in "her grief and sorrow of mind," had made to them.

When Lyford, after his first exposure at Plymouth, and the show of penitence which he then made, had been again detected in his work of calumnious accusation, his wife, terrified by his wickedness, and apprehensive that God's providence in dealing with such wickedness might bring some dire calamity on her and her children,' told the story of her wrongs and of her husband's extreme baseness," to one of the deacons and some other of her friends." She could no longer endure, without some Christian sympathy, the agony of knowing how vile he had been in his relations with other women, both before her marriage to him and through all her wedded life. The friends in whom she confided kept her secret. But while Winslow and Pierce, in London, were managing the cause of the colony against Lyford's employers, it came to pass that some of the other party in the Company of Adventurers had received information concerning

The text 2 Sam. xii., 11, seemed to her like a divine threatening against her person, which might be executed, if, in their removal from Plymouth, they should fall into the hands of Indians.

"his evil carriage in Ireland," and had put Winslow into communication with "two godly and grave witnesses who would testify the same, if called thereunto, upon their oath." The story in detail is too shameful to be narrated here. It is enough to repeat what Bradford tells of the procedure in that assembly of the Adventurers, "with many friends on both sides," under the joint moderatorship of Mr. Counselor White and Rev. Mr. Hooker. "In handling the former matters about the letters, Mr. Winslow, upon provocation, in some heat of reply to some of Lyford's defenders, let fall these words, "That he had dealt knavishly."" Thereupon one of the adverse party bade the hearers take notice that Winslow "had called a minister of the Gospel a knave," and to be ready to testify that fact in a court of law. In the excitement which ensued, the reputation which that "minister of the Gospel" had in Ireland was referred to; "and the witnesses were produced, whose persons were so grave, the evidence so plain, and the fact so foul (yet delivered in such modest and chaste terms, and with such circumstances), as struck all his friends mute, and made them all ashamed." In conclusion, "the moderators with great gravity declared that the former matters gave" the Plymouth people "cause enough to refuse him, and to deal with him as they had done; but that these matters made him unmeet forever to bear ministry any more, what repentance soever he should pretend." With that expression of their opinion, they advised "his friends to rest quiet. Thus was this matter ended." The attempt of Puritanism in the Company to overcome Separatism in the colony by sending out a minister who should supplant Robinson in the affection and confidence of the Pilgrims, had come to naught.

Such were the tidings which Winslow and Pierce brought to Plymouth at the moment when the colony was expelling Oldham the second time. Lyford and his family settled down, for a time, with Oldham and a few others, at Nantasket, the southern cape of Boston harbor. From that

place he and they soon removed to Cape Ann, as pioneers of a colony to be established on other than Separatist principles. Thence-probably not long after his character had begun to be more thoroughly understood in the new settlement and among its patrons-he removed to a greater distance. Bradford says: "Whether for hope of greater profit, or what ends else, I know not, he left his friends that followed him, and went to Virginia, where he shortly after died, and so I leave him to the Lord."

Oldham, about a year and a half from the date of that insolent behavior of his which was so promptly and fitly punished by the Plymouth government, had embarked with many other passengers for a voyage to Virginia. He found himself, with them, in great peril of shipwreck "on the shoals of Cape Cod." Despairing of life, some of them, and he among them, betook themselves to prayer, and to the mutual confession of "such sins as did most burden them." On that occasion, as was reported by "some of good credit who were themselves partners in the same dangers," he made "a free and large confession of the wrongs and hurt he had done to the people and church" in Plymouth. Delivered from that danger, "he afterward carried himself fairly toward them, and acknowledged the hand of God to be with them, and seemed to have an honorable respect of them." They, on their part, retained no grudge against him. He "so far made his peace with them that he had liberty to go and come," and to "converse" or transact business "with them at his pleasure.

Thus the feeble church of Christ at Plymouth held its ground, and no weapon that was formed against it prospered.

1 Oldham lived till 1636, and was then murdered by Indians, on his own vessel, near Block Island. His death was among the causes of the Pequot

War.