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 spiritual 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, |