ommunity. Their pastor, who was endowed with remarkable
gentleness and tact in dealing with his congregation, settled amicably
all their occasional disputes. The authorities of the place held them up
as a model. To a Walloon congregation in which there were many
troublesome and litigious members they said: "These English have lived
among us ten years, and yet we never had any suit or accusation against
any of them, but your quarrels are continual."

Although many of them were poor, finding it difficult to earn their
living in a foreign land among people speaking a strange tongue, and with
manners and habits differing from their own, and where they were obliged
to learn new trades, having most of them come out of an agricultural
population, yet they enjoyed a singular reputation for probity. Bakers
and butchers and the like willingly gave credit to the poorest of these
English, and sought their custom if known to be of the congregation. Mr.
Brewster, who had been reduced almost to poverty by his charities and
munificent aid to his struggling brethren, earned his living by giving
lessons in English, having first composed a grammar according to the
Latin model for the use of his pupils. He also set up a printing
establishment, publishing many controversial works prohibited in England,
a proceeding which roused the wrath of Carleton, impelling him to do his
best to have him thrown into prison.

It was not the first time that this plain, mechanical, devout Englishman,
now past middle age, had visited the Netherlands. More than twenty-five
years before he had accompanied William Davison on his famous embassy to
the States, as private secretary.

When the keys of Flushing, one of the cautionary towns, were committed to
the Ambassador, he confided them to the care of Brewster, who slept with
them under his pillow. The gold chain which Davison received as a present
from the provincial government on leaving the country was likewise placed
in his keeping, with orders to wear it around his neck until they should
appear before the Queen. To a youth of ease and affluence, familiar with
ambassadors and statesmen and not unknown at courts, had succeeded a
mature age of obscurity, deep study, and poverty. No human creature would
have heard of him had his career ended with his official life. Two
centuries and a half have passed away and the name of the outlawed
Puritan of Scrooby and Leyden is still familiar to millions of the
English