ly affected would think it meant
a fevered, a disordered brain; but in the seventeenth, when statesmen
like Cromwell believed in dreams and omens, and _roues_ like Monmouth
carried charms in their pockets, these things were differently
regarded.

The Puritan ministry, whose minds were imbued with the gloomy
supernaturalism of the Old Testament on which they fed, were
especially men to whom anything resembling an apparition had a
prophetic significance. And Cecil Grey, though liberal beyond most New
England clergymen, was liable by the keenness of his susceptibilities
and the extreme sensitiveness of his organization to be influenced by
such delusions,--if delusions they be. So he stood awed and trembling,
questioning within himself, like some seer to whom a dark and
uncertain revelation has been made.

Suddenly the answer came.

"The Lord hath revealed his will unto me and shown me the path wherein
I am to walk," he murmured in a hushed and stricken tone. "Ruth was
taken from me that I might be free to go where he should send me. The
vision of the Indians and the bridge which faded into the west, and
the strange desire that was given me to follow it, show that the Lord
has another work for me to do. And when I find the land of the bridge
and of the wild people I saw upon it, then will I find the mission
that God has given me to do. 'Lord God of Israel, I thank Thee. Thou
hast shown me the way, and I will walk in it, though all its stones be
fire and its end be death.'"

He stood a moment with bowed head, communing with his God. Then he
returned to his lonely home.

The friends whose kindly sympathies had brought them to the house of
mourning wondered at the erect carriage, the rapt, exalted manner of
the man. His face was pale, almost as pale as that within the darkened
room; but his eyes shone, and his lips were closely, resolutely set.

A little while, and that determined face was all sorrowful and pitying
again, as he bent over the still, cold body of his dead.

CHAPTER IV.

THE COUNCIL OF ORDINATION.

Friends were assembled together; the Elder and Magistrate also
Graced the scene with their presence, and stood like the Law and
the Gospel....
After the Puritan way and the laudable custom of Holland.

_The Courtship of Miles Standish._

A few days after the funeral, letters missive from the little society
went out to all the neighboring churches,