covers a period of three years and makes intensely interesting reading.

To understand these "Religious Experiences" and the subsequent life of the man who wrote them it is necessary to appreciate the fact that Winthrop came of intensely religious parentage. Adam Winthrop, his father, was a man of deep personal piety and Anne Winthrop, his mother, could not live happily away from the daily inspiration of her Bible, as we see from a letter sent to her husband before their son was born. The mingling of love for God with ardent human affection which we shall find to be a constant trait in the letters of her son is present here also: "I have reseyved, Right deare and well-beloved," she writes her absent husband, "from you this week a letter, though short, yet very sweete, which gave me a lively tast of those sweete & comfortable wordes, whiche alwayes when you be present with me, are wont to flowe most aboundantlye from your loving hart — wherebye I perseyve that whether you be present with me or absent from me, you are ever one towardes me, & your hart remayneth allwayes with me. Wherefore layinge up this perswaision of you in my brest, I will most assuredlye, the Lord assistynge me by his grace, beare al

wayes the lyke loving hart unto you agayne, untyll suche tyme as I may more fully enjoye your loving presence: but in the meane tyme I will remayne as one having a great inheritaunce, or riche treasure, and it beinge by force kept from him, or hee beinge in a strange Contrey, and cannot enjoye it; longethe contynually after it, sighinge and sorrowinge that hee is so long berefte of it, yet rejoyseth that hee hathe so greatt tresure pertayninge to him, and hopeth that one day the tyme will come that hee shall enjoye it, and have the wholle benyfytt of it. So I having a good hoope of the tyme to com, doe more paciently beare the time present, and I praye send me word if you be in helthe and what sucesse you have with your letters. I send you this weke by my fathers man a shyrte and fyve payer of hoses. I pray send me a pound of starch by my fathers man. You may very well send my byble if it be redye- thus with my verye hartye commendacions I byd you farewell comittinge you to almightye God to whom I commend you in my dayle prayers as I am sure you doe me, the Lord kep us now & ever Amen

"Your loving wife

"ANNE WINTHROP "

From his mother, then, Winthrop inherited a nature of quite unusual affectionateness for a man of his time and from his father an enduring tendency toward introspection and stern self-discipline. His Diary, as frank and often as pathetic as Amiel's, constantly displays the warring of a passionate tendency with a consecrated other-worldliness. "The Love of this present world!" he exclaims in the course of an exquisite love-letter to the wife from whom his work has parted him, " how it bewitches us & steales away our hearts from him who is the onely life & felicitye. O that we could delight in Christ our Lord & heavenly husband as we doe in each other, & that his absence were like greivous to us!" Winthrop could leave home and friends, yes, even his adored Margaret, to come to a foreign land. But it would not be easy for him. The step would be taken in that same frame of mind which his Diary of Jan. 1, 1611, reflects when it says: "Beinge admonished by a christian freinde that some good men were ofended to heare of some gaminge which was used in my house by my servants I resolved that as for my selfe not to use any cardings etc, so for others to represse it as much as I could, during the continuance of my present state, & if God bringe me once more

to be whollye by my selfe, then to banishe all togither." This resolution is particularly interesting when placed alongside of the first New England temperance pledge later fathered by Governor Winthrop.1

When in the heydey of his youthful vigour (he was then only twenty-five!) Winthrop wrote, “Finding that the variety of meates drawes me on to eate more than standeth with my healthe, I have resolved not to eate of more then 2 dishes at any one meale, whither fish, flesh, fowle or fruite or whittemeats etc: whither at home or abroade; the lorde give me care & abilitie to performe it." A year later when, by the death of his second wife's father, he had come into considerable wealth and therefore felt again keen temptation to selfindulgence he makes twelve resolutions, so interesting in the light of his after life that I give them here in full:

"1. I doe resolve to give myselfe, my life, my witt, my healthe, my wealthe to the service of my God and & Savior, who by givinge himselfe for me & to me, deserves whatsoever I am or can be, to be at his Comandement & for his glorye:

"2.

I will live where he appoints me.

See p. 9 "Old New England Inns."

"3. I will faithfully endeavour to discharge that callinge wch he shall appoint me unto.

"4. I will carefully avoide vaine & needless expences that I may be the more liberall to good uses.

5. My property, & bounty must goe forthe abroade, yet I must ever be careful that it beginne at home.

"6. I will so dispose of my family affaires as my morning prayers & evening exercises be not omitted.

"7. I will have a speciall care of the good education of my children.

"8. I will banish profanes from my familye.

"9. I will diligently observe the Lords Sabaoth bothe for the avoidinge & preventinge worldly business, & also for the religious spendinge of such tymes as are free from publique exercises, viz. the morninge, noone, & evening.

"10. I will endeavour to have the morninge free for private prayer, meditation & reading. "11. I will flee Idlenes, & much worldly busines.

"12. I will often praye & conferre privately wth my wife."

Just here seems as good a place as any to observe that Winthrop was wonderfully fortu