f the souls
committed to his charge.

Naturally he fell into one or two errors of judgment. Among other
things, he at first imagined that it was his duty to attempt the keeping
of all the Jewish festivals, and to institute a fast twice in the week.
These errors were, however, corrected by increased knowledge in the
course of time.

But it must not be supposed that this earnest searcher after truth
became ascetic or morose. Despite his mistakes, and the somewhat severe
discipline which he was thereby led to impose on himself and the
community, the effect on him and his large family of the Scriptures--
pure, unadulterated, and without note or comment--was to create love to
God, to intensify their love for each other, to render them anxious to
imitate the example and walk in the footsteps of Jesus, and to cause
them to _rejoice_ at all times. It was quite evident, ere long, that
the whole community had drunk deeply into the spirit of such passages in
the Word as these:--"Delight thyself in the Lord,"--"By love serve one
another,"--"Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say,
rejoice,"--"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, as
unto the Lord and not unto men,"--"Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye
shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you,"--"Let each esteem
other better than himself."--"Whatsoever ye would that men should do
unto you, do ye even so to them."--"Love is the fulfilling of the
law,"--"Let not the sun go down upon your wrath."

The last text was a favourite one with Adams, who occasionally found
that even among the tractable and kindly troop he had to deal with, sin
was by no means extinct.

Do not suppose, good reader, that we are now attempting to depict a
species of exceptional innocence which never existed, an Arcadia which
never really had a local habitation. On the contrary, we are taking
pains to analyse the cause of a state of human goodness and felicity,
springing up in the midst of exceptionally unpromising circumstances,
which has no parallel, we think, in the history of mankind; which not
only did exist, but which, with modifications, does still exist, and has
been borne witness to through more than half a century by men of varied
and unquestionable authority, including merchant-skippers, discoverers,
travellers, captains and admirals in the Royal Navy. The point that we
wish to press is, not that the enviable condition of things we have
described is essentiall