office, and near by, in another direction, his residence. Not much farther off was Bradford's house, very near the old pile known as the university; for, though the Leyden university was then a modern institution, it occupied a building of the Middle Ages, which, till the Reformation, had been a monastery.

The Pilgrims received kind and hospitable treatment in Leyden, and enjoyed their sojourn there, notwithstanding their many hardships. Sweet was the taste of liberty, though in a land of strangers; and sweet was their communion with each other and with God, while in their allotted measure they were "filling up that which is behind of the afflictions. of Christ." All that they had suffered together endeared them to each other, and was the first stage-as those years of "peace and spiritual comfort were the second-of their training for a destiny of which they had, as yet, no definite anticipation. Long afterward, when they had begun to inhabit a wilderness which, in some sense, they could call their own, they cherished a grateful and tender memory of Leyden. "Being thus settled, after many difficulties, they continued many years in a comfortable condition, enjoying much sweet and delightful society and spiritual comfort together in the ways of God,... so as they grew in knowledge and other gifts and graces of the Spirit of God, and lived together in peace and love and holiness." Nor were they without increase of numbers; for the report of their peace and spir itual prosperity went abroad among the Separatists still persecuted in their native country. "Many came to them from England, so as they grew a great congregation," hardly less numerous than that in Amsterdam. "And if at any time any differences did arise, or offenses broke out (as it can not be but that sometimes there will even among the best of men), they were ever so met with and nipped in the head betimes, or otherwise so well composed, as still love, peace, and communion was continued; or else the church [was] purged of those that were incurable and incorrigible, when,

after much patience used, no other means would serve which seldom comes to pass. 991

Maintaining a fraternal intercourse with their fellow-exiles at Amsterdam, they could not but have some share in the troubles which came upon that less-favored community. The Amsterdam church-partly by reason of its locality, partly, perhaps, by the force of some elective affinity-drew to itself many of those fugitives or exiles who, having been Puritan clergymen in the Church of England, had advanced from Puritanism to Separation. Some of these-for example, Clyfton-were never liable to any charge of defection from evangelical doctrine or of instability. Others-such as Smyth-were erratic, and driven by every wind of doctrine. Others were of the same sort with Robert Browne, zealous for a while, then relapsing into Anglicanism, and, sometimes at least, assailing the persecuted church with malignant slanders. The Leyden church was "not at all inferior in able men;" but its able men were of another sort-men of broad views and generous culture, like Robinson-men of wide experience in affairs, like Brewster-practical men, like Carver and Bradford. Thus exempted from the disturbing influence of men who live in speculations and disputes, and who seem to regard religion itself as something to quarrel about, they were trained into the simplest and purest style of Christian character; "and, that which was a crown unto them, they lived together in peace and love all their days without any considerable differences, or any disturbance that grew there by but such as was easily healed in love." Yet let it not be thought that all the able men in the church at Amsterdam were contentious. "Many worthy and able men there were in both places, who lived and died in obscurity in respect of the world, as private Christians, yet were they precious in the eyes of the Lord, and also in the eyes of such as knew them-whose virtues we," said the "ancient men"

1 Bradford, p. 17, 18. ́