Word in a strain of simple eloquence. Puritan in
character, in faith, and in devotion to a simple ritual, he gave token
that the Puritan organ of combativeness was not undeveloped in him. As a
magistrate, also, he doubtless believed that the sword should not be
borne in vain; and being an unusually tall, stately man, possessing
immense physical strength, he could not have been pleasant in the eyes of
law-breakers. The story is told that one Sunday afternoon, as Mr Howe
was walking homewards, Bible under his arm, Joe trotting by his side,
they came upon two men fighting out their little differences. The old
gentleman sternly commanded them to desist, but, very {16} naturally,
they only paused long enough to answer him with raillery. 'Hold my
Bible, Joe,' said his father. Taking hold of each of the combatants by
the neck, and swinging them to and fro as if they were a couple of noisy
newspaper boys, he bumped their heads together two or three times; then,
with a lunge from the left shoulder, followed by another from the right,
he sent them staggering off, till brought up by the ground some twenty or
thirty feet apart. 'Now, lads,' calmly remarked the mighty magistrate to
the prostrate twain, 'let this be a lesson to you not to break the
Sabbath in future'; and, taking his Bible under his arm, he and Joe
resumed their walk homewards, the little fellow gazing up with a new
admiration on the slightly flushed but always beautiful face of his
father. As boy or man, the son never wrote or spoke of him but with
reverence. 'For thirty years,' he once said, 'he was my instructor, my
play-fellow, almost my daily companion. To him I owe my fondness for
reading, my familiarity with the Bible, my knowledge of old Colonial and
American incidents and characteristics. He left me nothing but his
example and the memory of his many virtues, for all that he ever earned
was given to the poor. He was {17} too good for this world; but the
remembrance of his high principles, his cheerfulness, his childlike
simplicity and truly Christian character, is never absent from my mind.'
It was John Howe's practice for years 'to take his Bible under his arm
every Sunday afternoon, and, assembling around him in the large room all
the prisoners in the Bridewell, to read and explain to them the Word of
God. . . . Many were softened by his advice and won by his example; and
I have known him to have them, when their time had expired, sleeping
unsusp