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Boulder Place Directory 14
Page 03
And now I leave my subject, not without misgiving that I shall have disappointed you. But for the great attention which is being paid to the work from which I have quoted above, I should not have thought it well to insist on points with which you are, I doubt not, as fully impressed as I am: but that book weakens the sanctions of natural religion, and minimises the comfort which it affords us, while it does more to undermine than to support the foundations of what is commonly called belief. Therefore I was glad to embrace this opportunity of protesting. Otherwise I should not have been so serious on a matter that transcends all seriousness. Lord Beaconsfield cut it shorter with more effect. When asked to give a rule of life for the son of a friend he said, "Do not let him try and find out who wrote the letters of Junius." Pressed for further counsel he added, "Nor yet who was the man in the iron mask"--and he would say no more. Don't bore people. And yet I am by no means sure that a good many people do not think themselves ill-used unless he who addresses them has thoroughly well bored them--especially if they have paid any money for hearing him. My great namesake said, "Surely the pleasure is as great of being cheated as to cheat," and great as the pleasure both of cheating and boring undoubtedly is, I believe he was right. So I remember a poem which came out some thirty years ago in Punch, about a young lady who went forth in quest to "Some burden make or burden bear, but which she did not greatly care, oh Miserie." So, again, all the holy men and women who in the Middle Ages professed to have discovered how to make the best of life took care that being bored, if not cheated, should have a large place in their programme. Still there are limits, and I close not without fear that I may have exceeded them.
In the Circumcision and Purification chapel--for both these events seem contemplated in the one that follows--there are doves, but there is neither dog nor knife. Still Simeon, who has the infant Saviour in his arms, is looking at him in a way which can only mean that, knife or no knife, the matter is not going to end here. At Varallo they have now got a dreadful knife for the Circumcision chapel. They had none last winter. What they have now got would do very well to kill a bullock with, but could not be used professionally with safety for any animal smaller than a rhinoceros. I imagine that some one was sent to Novara to buy a knife, and that, thinking it was for the Massacre of the Innocents chapel, he got the biggest he could see. Then when he brought it back people said "chow" several times, and put it upon the table and went away.
A new charter was granted in 1609, the council in England being now appointed by the stockholders instead of the king, and the governor of the colony being named by this council. Lord Delaware was made Governor and Captain-General of Virginia, and many more colonists sent out. By a wreck of two of the vessels there was delay in the arrival of the newly chosen officers. Smith, then Percy, meantime continued to exercise authority. This, again, was a critical period. Indians were troublesome. Tillage having been neglected from the first, provisions became exhausted, and a crisis long referred to as "the starving time" ensued. The colony had actually abandoned Jamestown and shipped for England, when met in James River by Lord Delaware, coming with relief. They at once returned, and an era of hope dawned. This was in June, 1610. One hundred and fifty new settlers accompanied Delaware. Planting was vigorously prosecuted, the Indians placated, and still further accessions of people and cattle secured from England.
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