A LAND OF ANGELS 245 



our hearts should be inflamed to tread further upon this 

 happy and holy ground. We added, that our tongues 

 should first cleave to the roofs of our mouths, ere we 

 should forget, either his reverend person, or this whole 

 nation, in our prayers. We also most humbly besought 

 him to accept of us as his true servants, by as just a right 

 as ever men on earth were bounden ; laying and pre 

 senting both our persons and all we had at his feet. He 

 said he was a priest, and looked for a priest s reward ; 

 which was our brotherly love, and the good of our souls 

 and bodies. So he went from us, not without tears of 

 tenderness in his eyes, and left us also confused with 

 joy and kindness, saying amongst ourselves that we 

 were come into a land of angels, which did appear to us 

 daily, and prevent us with comforts, which we thought 

 not of, much less expected. 



The next day, about ten of the clock, the Governor 

 came to us again, and after salutations, said familiarly, 

 that he was come to visit us ; and called for a chair, 

 and sat him down ; and we, being some ten of us (the 

 rest were of the meaner sort, or else gone abroad), sat 

 down with him ; and when we were set, he began thus : 

 * We of this island of Bensalem (for so they called it in 

 their language) have this : that by means of our solitary 

 situation, and of the laws of secrecy, which we have for 

 our travellers, and our rare admission of strangers, we 

 know well most part of the habitable world, and are our 

 selves unknown. Therefore because he that knoweth 

 least is fitted to ask questions, it is more reason, for the 

 entertainment of the time, that ye ask me questions, 

 than that I ask you. 



We answered, that we humbly thanked him, that he 

 would give us leave so to do : and that we conceived, 

 by the taste we had already, that there was no worldly 

 thing on earth more worthy to be known than the state 

 of that happy land. But above all (we said) since that 

 we were met from the several ends of the world, and 

 hoped assuredly that we should meet one day in the 

 kingdom of Heaven (for that we were both part Chris 

 tians), we desired to know (in respect that land was 



