But after some time a
fresh storm, more fierce and sharp than any before, arose and fell
upon me; the occasion thereof was this: My father, having been in
his younger years, more especially while he lived in London, a
constant hearer of those who are called Puritan preachers, had
stored up a pretty stock of Scripture knowledge, did sometimes (not
constantly, nor very often) cause his family to come together on a
first day in the evening, and expound a chapter to them, and pray.
His family now, as well as his estate, was lessened; for my mother
was dead, my brother gone, and my elder sister at London; and having
put off his husbandry, he had put off with it most of his servants,
so that he had now but one man- and one maid-servant. It so fell
out that on a first-day night he bade my sister, who sat with him in
the parlour, call in the servants to prayer.
Whether this was done as a trial upon me or no, I know not, but a
trial it proved to me; for they, loving me very well and disliking
my father's carriage to me, made no haste to go in, but stayed a
second summons.
Pages:
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84