NOTHING NEW. 95 



Another, having been sent to buy earthen ware, is betrayed in- 

 to a ruinous carouse ; a third, after disposing of his figs and 

 nuts goes to the theatre, and is thrown into ecstacies of wonder 

 and terror by a conjuror. The rareness of such visits is also 

 marked. In one letter a young Attic farmer requests a neigh- 

 bor to be his guide in a first visit to Athens ; he longs to see 

 what this thing may be which they call " town " — we call it the 

 elephant. In another a son implores his mother to " come and 

 see the splendors of the town before her dying day " ; for 

 though distant but a few hours' journey she has never seen 

 them. Another writer tells us how the rustic may be known, 

 for he will carry the fragrance of a posset made with wine, 

 barley meal, grated cheese, and honey, flavored with thyme, on 

 his breath into Ecclesia! And we are told of one Cleon, a 

 villanous Athenian trader, who sold bad shoe leather to the 

 country people, " so that before they had worn the shoes a day 

 they were too large by a couple of spans." 



So far as there is any known written history of the transac- 

 tions of the human race on this earth, there has always been a 

 country, and there has always been a town ! " God made the 

 country, and man made the town." And in the ancient farm- 

 houses of this county were cultivated and cherished the divine 

 graces of character. First of all, piety ; humble trust in God.* 

 By patient, industrious labor, they cleared the fields of their 

 forests, they gathered the rocks and stones into walls, they con- 



*Note. — 1646. "This year, about the end of the 5th month, we had a very strong 

 hand of God upon us, for upon a suddaine, innumerable armys of caterpillars filled the 

 country all over the English plantations, which devoured some whole meadows of grasse, 

 and greatly devoured barley, being the most growne, and tender come, eating of all the 

 blades and beards, but left the come, only many ears they quite eat off by eating the 

 green straw asunder below the eare, so that barley was generally half spoiled; likewise 

 they much hurt wheate, by eating the blades off, butt wheate had the lesae hurte, because 

 it was a little forwarder than barley, or harder and dryer, and they lesse meddled with it. 

 As for rye, it was so hard and near ripe, they touched it not. But above all grains they 

 devoured oatss. And in some places they fell upon indian come and quite devoured it, 

 in other places they touched it not. They would crosse highways by 1000. 



"Much prayer was made to God about it, and fasting in divers places, and the Lord 

 heard, and on a suddaine took them all away again in all parts of the country, to the 

 wonderment of all men. It was the Lord, for it was done suddainely." 



" 1662. It pleased God this spring to exercise the country with a severe drought, but 

 some were so rash as to impute it to the sitting of the Synod. But God was pleased to 

 bear witness against their rashness. For no sooner was the Synod met, June 10, but 

 they agreed to set the next day apart to ask God's favorable presence and to ask rain ; 

 and the day following, God sent raine from Heaven." — Ellis' History of Roxbury Town, 

 pages 75, 76, 77. 



