Page:Anne Bradstreet and her time.djvu/83

Rh fall short of their expectations when they means hither, as we to our great prejudice did, by memeans [sic] of letters sent us from hence into England, wherein honest men, out of a desire to draw over others to them, wrote something hyperbolically of many things here. If any godly men, out of religious ends, will come over to help us in the good work we are about, I think they cannot dispose of themselves nor their estates more to God's glory and the furtherance of their own reckoning. But they must not be of the poorer sort yet, for divers years; for we have found by experience that they have hindered, not furthered the work. And for profane and debauched persons, their oversight in coming hither is wondered at, where they shall find nothing to content them."

This long quotation is given in full to show the fair temper of the man, who as time went on was slightly less in favor than in the beginning. No one questioned his devotion to the cause, or the energy with which he worked for it, but as he grew older he lost some portion of the old urbanity, exchanging it disastrously for traits which would seem to have been the result of increasing narrowness of religious faith rather than part of his real self. Savage writes of him: "a hardness in publick and ridgidity in private life, are too observable in his character, and even an eagerness for pecuniary gain, which might not have been expected in a soldier and statesman." That the impression was general is evident from an epitaph written upon him by Governor Belcher, who may, however, have had some personal encounter with this "rigidity," which was applied to all without fear or favor.