The future life, then, both of the righteous and the wicked, is to be a spiritual state. Why, then, are we trained for this. state by a mode of existence so widely different from it? Why are we educated in the body, if there be nothing corporeal in the conditions of our permanent being? For this arrangement we can trace many wise and good reasons, and doubtless there are many more beyond our ken. We shall at present indicate but two of the most important, and perhaps the least frequently remembered, uses of our bodily organization and enthral

ment.

One prime object of our temporary confinement in houses of clay doubtless is, that, when we emerge from them, we may cherish the more lofty and grateful sense of the privileges of our heavenly birth. Prerogatives, which we originally possess, we appreciate much less highly than those, of which we have known the want. Suppose that we had been born with only one of our five senses, and that the others had come to us one by one, each after an interval of years; with what rapturous gratitude the acquisition of each would have been hailed, those only could tell, to whom, blind or deaf from birth, Jesus opened the world of sights or sounds. Suppose that we had been born with bodily organization similar to that of the oyster, and had after many years emerged into the possession of our present powers and faculties, with the full remembrance of our former state, what emotions could we cherish other than a thankfulness, to which words could give no utterance, and which to feel would burst these heart-strings! Thus it may be that God has seen fit to withhold from us for a while our spiritual birth-right, and to educate us in this chrysalis state, that, when we leave our house of bondage, and put forth our latent powers, we may prize the more highly, enjoy the more keenly, and own the more gratefully the immunities and glories of heaven. Perhaps God may have educated his whole spiritual family in a similar way. Perhaps the angels, that rejoiced before him at the dawn of his present creation, may have been nurtured in bodies like ours in antecedent worlds and systems. Or if they have stood from the first in their present dignity and glory, though in knowledge, power, and purity, they may vastly surpass ransomed man, in earnest and humble gratitude they must yield him the precedence; and earth-born angels will be recognised in heaven by the intensity of their thankfulness, so that it shall be said of them throughout eternity by

all, who listen to their songs of praise, "These are they which came out of great tribulation,these are they, which were redeemed unto God from among men."

Another purpose, doubtless, of our temporary confinement in the body, is the cultivation of sympathy, fellow-feeling, friendship, and love. Common wants and woes, mutual dependence and aid, constitute the strongest of social bonds. Were we born at once into the possession of all those high prerogatives, which we hope to assume in a better world, there would be no room for the development of that charity, which suffereth long, beareth all things, endureth all things, and never faileth. Had heaven been our birth-place, we should have found ourselves isolated, independent spirits; there would have been nothing to cast us upon the benevolence, or to drive us to the embrace of others; and thus, with a general love for all our fellow-spirits, we should have cherished a peculiar affection or friendship for none. It may be that the company of angels formed their intimacies when they were, as we are, "spirits in prison,"-that the squadrons, which move together in the service of their God, are made up of those, who were once bound soul to soul by common wants, infirmities, and sorrows. Or, if not, man will constitute a distinct order of the heavenly hierarchy, marked by the strength and permanence of the elective affinities formed in houses of clay.

A. P. P.

ART. VIII. History of Worcester, Massachusetts, from its Earliest Settlement to September, 1836; with various Notices, relating to the History of Worcester County. By WILLIAM LINCOLN. Worcester: Moses D. Phillips & Co. 1837. 8vo. pp. 392.

Ir may be truly said of these local histories, that they "show the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure.' In the general historian we have events and results; but here may be traced the causes that have combined to produce them, the secret workings of those "vital ener

gies" which have quickened and still pervade the whole. The former may be compared to one who presents us with the fair and stately proportions of some majestic and imposing edifice; and the latter, to another who gives us a section of the same. The one "hath the greater comeliness and delight to the beholder," while the other serves, if the less grateful, not the less important, purpose of making us acquainted with the internal structure of the edifice. Of the two, the architect, who wished to erect a similar building, would probably prefer the latter. It is from sources like these, that the general historian, the poet, and the novelist must draw for materials with which to enrich the future literature of our country. They are furnishing the themes by which our hill-tops, our valleys, and riversides will be rendered classic ground. "There is hardly one of our ancient towns," says one of our writers, "that has not its local tradition or romantic legend, its tale of Indian massacre or revolutionary heroism." And we regard it as a matter of congratulation for our country,- for posterity, who, through the dim light of ages shall seek to trace the causes of this nation's greatness, that so much talent has been thus seasonably enlisted in exploring the minutiae of her early history, continually gathering fresh interest as time throws its thickening shadows over the actors and events of the past.

The volume before us is a model of what we deem a local history should be; scrupulously accurate, minute, presenting a faithful picture of the town from its first settlement to the present time, around which many events of the general history of the county are thrown. Every part is well executed; a fact for which the name of the author is, with every antiquary of New England, alone a sufficient warrant.

The annals of Worcester date from the year 1664, when grants of land, previously made to Mr. Increase Nowell, to the church in Malden, and Ensign Thomas Noyes, who had served under Captain Hugh Mason, were located in the vicinity of Quinsigamond, or Quonsigamoag, the Indian name of the place. Various causes conspired, however, to hinder effectual measures for the settlement of the place until the year 1673, when a company of thirty persons were engaged to commence the plantation, and in the following spring, thirty house-lots were laid out, and they began to build and cultivate. One of the early cares of the committee having charge of the enterprize was to extinguish the title of the Indian occupants.

"A deed of eight miles square, for the consideration of twelve pounds in lawful money of New England, or the full value thereof in other specie to the content of the grantees, within three months after the date to be paid and satisfied,' was executed, with great formality, on the 13th of July, 1674, by Solomon, alias Woonaskochu, sagamore of Tataesit, and John, alias Hoorrawannonit, sagamore of Packachoag. The receipt of part of the purchase, viz., two coats and four yards of trucking-cloth, valued at twentysix shillings, as earnest, in hand, was acknowledged." - pp. 9, 10.

The settlement was prosperously advancing, and the inhabitants, in the language of the record, "had built after the manner of a town," when the war with Philip of Mount Hope breaking out, they were compelled, in 1675, to abandon it and fall back upon the stronger settlements.

Worcester contained within its limits, at the commencement of its settlement, between two and three hundred Indians. These were of the Nipmuck tribe, and were ranked, the majority of them, with the Praying Indians. Their principal settlement was on a hill rising in the south part of the town, and extending into Ward, called by them Pakahoag, now known as Bogachoag. It is thus described, by Gookin, in his "Historical Collections of the Indians in New England," written in December, 1764. "This village lyeth about three miles south from the new road-way that leadeth from Boston to Connecticut; about eighteen miles, west southerly, from Marlborough; and from Boston, about forty-four miles. It consists of about twenty families, and hath about one hundred souls therein. This town is seated upon a fertile hill, and is denominated from a delicate spring of water that is there." Their chiefs were John, alias Horowanninit, and Solomon, alias Wooanakochu, and their minister, ordained by the "Apostle " Eliot, James Speen. During the period of the war some of the Christian Indians repaired to Marlborough; but most of them, urged by the persuasions or the threats of Philip, attached themselves to his cause. The next year sagamore John, alarmed at the dangerous aspect of affairs, prudently sought safety by submission. In the early part of July, he opened a negotiation for peace with the government of Boston, and soon came with a hundred and eight of his followers, and surrendered to the English.

"With the death of Philip, the animating spirit of the hostile

confederacy, August 12, 1676, the war ended. Its progress arrested the earliest efforts for settlement, and destroyed the little village beginning to rise in Quinsigamond; its termination left the soil almost without a relic of the aboriginal population. When the white settlers commenced building here, there were between two and three hundred of the natives. They possessed extensive planting fields, and had set apple-trees obtained from the English. The light of Christianity had dawned upon them, and some advance had been made in civilization. By the sword, by famine, by violent removal, and by flight, they were nearly exterminated. When the second plantation was attempted, only superannuated old men, women, and children, remained of the red people; those able to bear arms had been slain, or dispersed, seeking refuge in Canada among the French, or migrating far westward beyond the reach of the power they had too much provoked for their own safety. The whole nation perished, leaving no monuments of their existence on our lands, and no remains except little articles of ornament, rude utensils of culinary art, and rough weapons of stone, discovered in their former dominion." - pp. 27, 28.

Peace having been reëstablished, the committee used every exertion to induce the former settlers to return, as well as others to join them. In 1678, they directed the planters to return before 1680, and build together so as to defend themselves; but, to use their own words, "there was no going by any of them, or hope that they would do so; for divers of them being importuned to go, would not." The storm of war had passed over, but its visitation was still too fresh in the recollection of the settlers, to allow them hastily to trust themselves again in a situation so remote and exposed. A general survey, however, was made in May, 1683, and the work of settlement soon after recommenced. But the cloud, which, from the first, had hung over this infant town, again lowered.

"On the commencement of the eighteenth century, the peace of the country was again disturbed by renewed outrages of the savages, always capricious in friendship, treacherous in alliance, and unrelenting in enmity. Although Worcester suffered less in Queen Anne's war, which began in 1702, by loss of life than many towns, it shared in the alarm and participated in the miseries of the final struggles of the red men to reclaim their possessions, and avenge the wrongs inflicted by our ancestors.

"When the same danger which had once before pressed on the planters became extreme, and the Indians again kindled the slumbering flame of murderous hostility, the second attempt to VOL. XXII. - -3D s. vol. IV. NO. II.

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