phrases which he had arranged for their use.1 A day of prayer to God in his behalf, in view of his serious illness, was observed by the congregation on Wednesday, September 27; but the Head of the Church had other purposes with reference both to him and the people of his pastoral love.

Sunday, between 5 and 6 o'clock in the afternoon, the Rev'd Mr. Prince departed this life after a month's languishment to the inexpressible sorrow of his Church and Congregation over whom he had been ordained Pastor forty years the first day the month on which he died, which was Oct. 22. 1758, his Funeral was attended the Saturday following at the expense of his Church, who have a just sense of his worth and of their own irreparable loss in his death. (Fleet.)

2

Forty years before, when entering upon his ministry in Boston, Mr. Prince preached from the words of the Psalmist: "But I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more. My mouth shall show forth thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day, for I know not the numbers thereof. I will go in the strength of the Lord God: I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only. O God, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works." He was in the strength of his early manhood, just installed in a position of commanding influence, and with a career of honor and usefulness, bright with promise, yet of course all uncertain, lying before him. Could he have preached a sermon to his people in his declining years in anticipation of the close at no distant day of his pastoral work among them, he might well have made reference to that first sermon, and then have taken for his text the remainder of the passage, which would have been inappropriate in 1718, but most appropriate in 1758: "Now also, when I am old and greyheaded, O God, for

1 In his ordination sermon, speaking of the account rendered by a faithful pastor at the close of his ministry, he seems to have anticipated something of the joy referred to in the text. "The Fruit of our Labours," he said, "indeed may follow Us, and by Angelick Messengers may bring Us every Day a surprizing and fresh Revenue and Increase of Joy and Happiness in the Separate State which seems to Me to be the Meaning of that Expression in Rev. 14. 13, Blessed are the Dead which die in the Lord; From henceforth, Yea, saith the

Spirit, that They may rest from Their Labours, and their Works do follow [with] Them. But our Watching for Your Souls is at an End, when we leave the present Life, and We then resign our Commission and Charge to Christ from Whom we deriv'd it." It will be observed that in his use of the passage quoted from the Book of Revelation Mr. Prince anticipated, almost exactly, the words of the Revised Version of 1881.

2 Psalm lxxi. 14-17. See ante, vol. i. p. 395. The sermon was preached October 12, 1718.

MR. PRINCE'S DEATH.

4I

sake me not, until I have showed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come."

On Sunday, the 29th of October, Dr. Sewall preached an appropriate discourse from Rom. xiv. 8: "For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's." The following sentences will show the tender and appreciative and affectionate spirit in which it was written :

I confess, my talent doth not lie in drawing characters, and giving personal encomiums: However, seeing it hath pleas'd a sovereign God to take from our head your late pious and excellent pastor, who was also my classmate and the pleasant companion of my youth, and since my fellow-helper in the gospel for forty years; I would ask leave to mention a few things, that we may give glory to the God of all grace, who bestows such gifts upon men; and that sensible of the publick loss, and our peculiar share therein, we may humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, and cry to him for help; and that he would be the repairer of the breach. Help Lord, for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.

The relations of these two men in their joint pastoral work had been most fraternal. Each was in many respects the complement of the other; and their united ministry had been the means of maintaining for the church a place in the very front rank of influence and spiritual power.1

Mr. Prince's character, personal and ministerial, and his opinions have been set forth and illustrated in the record we have endeavored to give in these volumes of his life and labors

1 "Forty years," says Dr. Wisner, were these excellent men, Sewall and Prince, associated in the responsibilities and labors of the pastoral office in this congregation; furnishing an example of mutual affection and union of purpose and pursuit, to which the annals of collegiate charges will be searched for a parallel, I fear, almost in vain. The journals and other documents that have come down to us lay open before us the most secret history of these men; and not a solitary instance appears of unpleasant difference of opinion, or of the slightest interruption, in any form, of confidence and affection. Is the cause of this uninterrupted and delightful harmony, in a situation so peculiarly liable to beget jealousy and contention, in

quired for? Something is, doubtless, due to their remarkably amiable natural temper and their early and intimate friendship; still more to their ardent piety; but most of all to a fact which thus presents itself in the journal of the excellent Sewall. 1721, 2, January 5, Mr. Prince and I prayed together, as is usual before the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Lord, hear our prayers!' '1722, Nov. 2, Mr. Prince and I met together, and prayed to God for direction and assistance relating to the fast to be kept by the church we stand related to.' '1728, 9, January 13. The Church being to meet relating to the affairs of the new building, Mr. Prince and I prayed together. O Lord, hear; guide and govern our affairs in mercy!' A portion of Friday

in Boston, and no close analysis of them need be attempted. In the Dedication of his Chronological History, he thus speaks of himself, in words to which, we feel sure, the church to which he ministered will, through all the generations, delight to recur:

For myself, I own I am on the side of pure Christianity; as also of civil and religious liberty, and this for the low as well as high, for the laity as well as the clergy; I am for leaving every one to the freedom of worshipping according to the light of his conscience; and for extending charity to every one who receives the gospel as the rule of his faith and life; I am on the side of meekness, patience, gentleness and innocence.

He had prepared himself for the public service by diligent study at home, and by eight years of observation abroad; he was a man of most tolerant and brotherly spirit; his days were filled by gentle and gracious and laborious deeds; he was a great scholar; he magnified his office and edified the brethren by publishing a large number of judicious and nutritious sermons; . . . he took a special interest in physical science, and formed quite definite opinions about earthquakes, comets, "the electrical substance," and so forth. For all these things he was deeply honored in his own time, and would have been deeply forgotten in ours had he not added to them very unique performances as an historian. No American writer before Thomas Prince qualified himself for the service of history by so much conscious and specific preparation; and though others did more work in that service, none did better work than he.1

We are indebted to Mr. Prince not only for his historical writings, which furnish the basis for much of our local history in New England, but also for the invaluable collection of books, pamphlets, and MSS. which he bequeathed to the South

another writer, whose attainments and sympathies made him a competent judge: "The 22d of October [1758] will be remembered as a remarkable day in the history of the town, and not only of Boston, but of New England; for on that day died the Rev. Mr. Thomas Prince, a benefactor to his country; leaving a name which will be venerated to the remotest ages, if literature shall then be valued; a name which may with pride be emulated by the inquirers after historical knowledge, and the admirers of precision and accuracy in the paths of history.”— Drake's Hist. and Antiq., p. 646.]

THE PRINCE LIBRARY.

43

Church, and which will stand for all time as a monument to his name and scholarship. This collection he began to form even in his boyhood. One book shows that it was given to him by his mother in 1697, when he was ten years old; another bears date of possession, Harwich, 1701. The purpose to collect seems to have become a settled one with him upon his entering college in 1703, his object being the illustration of the history of New England.

It was, therefore, at the time of his matriculation, in the sixteenth year of his age, that Prince systematically laid the foundation of a collection of books and manuscripts, a large share of which relate to the civil and religious history of New England, and which, with unfailing zeal and under the most favorable circumstances, in this country and in Europe, he cherished and enriched during his long life. At the time of his death, the New England Library [as he called it], we may well believe, was the most extensive of its kind that had ever been formed. . . . During the period of our colonial history, the Mather family and Governor Hutchinson are alone to be compared with Prince as collectors of books and manuscripts. Their labors in this direction avail us little now, for the governor's collection was scattered by a mob, while the Mathers' has been gradually dispersed.1

Lord's Day, Nov 12. 1758. The Church stay'd, and Voted, That the Pastor and Deacons with the Hon Andrew Oliver Esq. [then secretary of the province,] be a committee to receive the Books &c. bequeathed to this Church by our late Pastor, the Rev'd Mr. Thomas Prince, in his last Will. JOSEPH SEWALL.

This instrument was dated October 2, twenty days before his death. He provides for the manufacture of a sacramental cup for the church,2 and he gives his Hebrew Bible in two volumes, and his Greek Testament to his colleague. He then disposes of his library in two parts, his books in Latin, Greek, and the Oriental languages, to be kept for the use of the ministers of the church; and the collection which he designates as the New England Library, to be preserved apart and intact, as a reference library, under the control of the pastors and deacons of the church.3 This collection was in the "steeple chamber," which

1 [From the Introduction to the Catalogue of the Prince Library, published by the City of Boston in 1870, upon the deposit of the library with the city for safekeeping and convenient reference. To this Introduction we refer the reader for much valuable information.]

2 Mr. Prince describes the church in his will, as "the old South Church." It does not bear this name in the records until after Dr. Sewall's death, but Jeremiah Bumstead and Mary Fleet in their diaries speak of the Old South Church. 3 Mr. Prince's widow survived until

he had probably used as his study, and here it remained for many years. The vicissitudes through which it has passed are

too painful to contemplate. It undoubtedly suffered severely, during the British occupation of the town and desecration of the meeting-house. It afterward suffered from neglect, and from a want of appreciation on the part of its custodians of its intrinsic value.1 Many of its treasures have drifted away from it, and are now among the chief attractions of other collections; but despoiled as it has been by time, and by ravagers less impersonal than time, it is a splendid fragment, and as such, under existing arrangements for its care and preservation, it is now safe. As Michael Angelo, in his blind old age, was led to the Torso Belvedere in the Vatican, that he might pass his hands over it, and enjoy through touch the grandeur of its lines, so will scholars come and continue to come from all parts of the land, to what remains of the New England Library, that they may gather knowledge and inspiration from its treasures.

June 1, 1766. He left one child, Sarah, who became the first wife of Moses Gill, lieutenant governor and acting governor of Massachusetts. The town of Princeton in this Commonwealth was named for Thomas Prince. He owned lands there. It was then a part of Rutland. See Drake's Hist. and Antiq., p. 646.

1 A fragment of the letter-book of Governor Bradford of Plymouth Colony was found in the latter part of the last century in a grocer's shop in Halifax, N. S., and the contents were printed in 1794, in the third volume of the Collections of the Mass. Hist. Society. It was sent to the Rev. Jeremy Belknap by Mr. James Clarke, of Halifax. Four copies

of the Bay Psalm Book have been lost to the library; of these one, annotated by Mr. Prince, and used by him when he was engaged upon the revision, which Dr. Wisner had before him in 1830, has disappeared from view. The manuscript history of Plymouth Colony, written by its governor, William Bradford, was discovered, in 1853, in the library of the Bishop of London at Fulham; at Mr. Prince's request the grandson of the governor had lodged it in the New England Library, on the condition "only that he might have the perusal of it while he lived," and, of course, it will come back to this collection, should it ever be restored to New England.