Drew felt a heady rush of excitement. He was a man with a mission. And nothing was going to stop him.
I must do the work of him who sent me.
Drew liked the words. He also asked the curate for the reference. It would be a good line to use in his next message to the bishop.
Nell was the first to answer her father’s question.
“Jenny and I have Lord Chesterfield’s lace to complete. It will take us most of the day to finish. And, if I know Lord Chesterfield, he’ll send a servant down two or three times today to see if it’s ready. I pray the Lord will grant us a double measure of patience, a measure for us and a measure for Lord Chesterfield.”
Matthews looked at his younger daughter.
Keeping her eyes fixed on the table in front of her, she said, “Nell already said what we’ll be doing today. And now that the trial’s over, I just hope we can convince Master Morgan to stay in Edenford.”
She blushed and lowered her head still farther.
“I could always stay and read the Bible to you and Nell while you work,” Drew offered.
Now both girls blushed. Jenny started giggling. Nell joined her.
The perplexed curate looked from them to Drew and back to them.
“Am I missing something?” he asked.
Giggles turned to guffaws.
Grinning, Matthews said to Drew, “I suppose you’re responsible for this.”
Laughing with the girls, Drew shrugged his shoulders, feigning innocence.
Still grinning, Matthews rose and signaled Drew to accompany him. He led Drew out the door.
“Drew,” he said, “I want you to know you’re welcome to stay with us as long as you like. It’s the least we can do, considering how the town has treated you.”
“Thank you,” Drew said. “But I’ve presumed on your hospitality too much already.”
“Have you given any thought to what you’re going to do now?”
Recently, Drew said to himself.
To Matthews he said, “I’m not sure. I should probably continue on to Plymouth. I don’t know. I’m just not sure I want to be a sailor anymore.”
“I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to get out of Edenford as soon as possible. We didn’t exactly give you a grand reception.”
Drew chuckled.
“This may sound crazy,” he said, “but it wasn’t that bad. I’ve grown to like this town. With a few exceptions the people are friendly. Everyone seems happy. It’s like a big family. I only hope that someday I can be part of a town like this one.”
“Why a town like this one? Why not become part of Edenford’s family?”
Drew intentionally hesitated before answering.
“I’d like that … it’s just that I don’t know anything about making wool. And I don’t have a place to live.”
“If you’re worried about a place to live, you’re welcome to stay with us.”
There it was, just what Drew was fishing for. And it came so easily.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It would be a hardship for you. Besides, I don’t have a job.”
“I’ve been thinking about that too. I’d like to make a proposal,” Matthews said.
They reached the end of High Street and turned toward the south bridge. Neither man looked at the other when they spoke; they focused on the ground before them as they ambled down the road.
“Drew, in the short time I’ve known you, I’ve come to admire you. I was watching you carefully during the trial. You held your composure in a tense situation. That’s a rare gift. I remember thinking to myself, ‘God has great plans for this young man.’ And now I’m more convinced of that than ever.” The curate paused a moment, letting that thought sink in. Then he said, “I want to help you find God’s will for your life.”
This is too easy, Drew thought.
“I want to make you my apprentice.”
“As curate?” Drew stopped and stared at Matthews in disbelief.
The curate laughed.
“In a sense, yes. The position would include teaching you about spiritual things. Whether or not you became curate would be up to God. I was thinking more in terms of Edenford’s woolen industry.”
Drew resumed walking. The idea left him cold.
“I’m flattered,” he said.
It was Matthews’ turn to stop. He faced Drew squarely.
“For me, it would be an answer to prayer. In the Bible, the apostle Paul had a son in the Lord—an adopted spiritual son whose name was Timothy. For years, I’ve been praying that God would send me a spiritual son.”
The curate paused, his eyes lowered.
With broken voice he said, “Drew, I believe you’re God’s answer to my prayer.”
Drew didn’t have to fake a reaction. The curate’s emotions moved him. He didn’t know what to say.
“All I ask is that you pray about it. We don’t have much to offer you except the space in front of the fireplace, but it’s yours for as long as you want it or until you can afford a place of your own. If you would feel more comfortable elsewhere, we could probably work a deal with Charles Manly, our innkeeper.”
Aside from the unexpected display of emotion, Drew couldn’t have asked for more. Christopher Matthews continued to make his job easy; he was inviting Drew into the town’s confidence, and once he had their confidence, he would learn their secret.
With hushed voice, Drew said, “I’ll think about it.”
Of course, there was nothing to think about. Like fishing, he threw out a baited line and the fish jumped at it. Now all he had to do was haul in the catch without losing him.
For weeks Lord Chesterfield’s devastating news hung like a dark cloud over the people of Edenford. The gloomy economic forecast colored every aspect of town life a depressing shade of gray.
Sunday dawned clear and bright. It was the kind of day that made atheists wish they believed in God, just so they could have someone to thank. The wildflowers alongside the river waved their faces heavenward to the glory of God. The crisp air, warm sunlight, and blue sky formed a trio of praise while the fields and trees and waters danced beneath them.
All this was lost on the people of Edenford. The king’s ship tax and his favored protection of clothier de la Barre covered their eyes like a pair of sooty lenses.
David Cooper didn’t see the sparkling blue canopy overhead as he stepped outside the cobbler shop on the way to church. The stack of unpaid receipts on his bench loomed high in his mind. He would greet the people whose names appeared on those receipts and see that they were wearing shoes he made, shoes for which they had not paid. And how could they pay? The king had robbed them of their livelihood. He understood their situation, but did they understand his? He had a choice. He could buy leather to make more shoes, or he could buy food for his family. He couldn’t do both.
Cyrus Furman, town watchman, shuffled his normal shuffle on the way to church, his ailing wife clinging to his side with thin, pale arms. The past winter had been a sickly one for his Rose, almost a deadly one. Twice she had stopped breathing, only to be spared. But not before the disease had taken its toll. It had consumed her strength and a large portion of flesh, leaving nothing more than a frail frame. Since her illness it took the Furmans twice as long to walk the short distance to church. Rose had to stop and rest every ten steps. Patiently Cyrus held his wife’s hand against his arm while she caught her breath.
He was blind to the wild daisies waving to him from the side of the road. He wondered what would happen to Rose. As town watchman his income depended on the sale of serges. How could the town pay him, now that de la Barre’s debt was forgiven? How would he care for Rose?
Charles Manly and Ambrose Dudley, both bachelors, walked together to church like always. The warmth of the sun’s rays was ignored. The only heat they were aware of was the heat in their conversation.
“We should refuse to pay the ship tax!” Manly grumbled.
“Barnstaple tried that,” Dudley replied.
“The dissenters were whipped and pilloried.”
Manly mulled the thought in his mind.
“The thing that angers me,” Dudley said, “is that the ship tax isn’t needed.”
“How do you know that?”
“The last time I was in London, I ran into the earl of Northumberland. He told me that last winter he patrolled the coast in miserable weather. Not only did he not encounter hostile forces, but he encountered almost no foreign ships at all! He said he finally returned to port in disgust. There is no emergency. No danger.”
“So why the tax?”
“The king wants more money, plain and simple. So he creates an imaginary crisis and levies a new tax.”
The bachelors were usually the first worshippers to reach the church building on Sundays, besides the curate and his daughters. This Sunday was no exception. The two men thought it odd that the front doors were closed when they arrived. Had the curate overslept? To deepen their minor mystery, when they pulled on the latch, they found the doors locked.
“Master Manly, Master Dudley, over here!”
The men turned in the direction of the soft voice. It was Jenny Matthews.
“We’re having church over here today.”
She led them under some trees on the south side of the church building. The village green stretched before them. There they found the curate, Nell, and Drew Morgan.
“God be with you, gentlemen,” the curate greeted.
The bachelors frowned as they shook his hand, obviously not pleased with the new arrangement.
The curate explained, “It would be a crime against God to meet inside on a wonderful day.”
Their expressions showed their displeasure. Nor were they alone in their opinion.
The children loved it. They chased each other and rolled in the grass. The adults huddled in small groups, and Drew thought they sounded like beehives. One huddle appointed a churchwarden to voice their disapproval to the curate. Christopher Matthews listened politely, then proceeded to convene the service.
“Where are we going to sit?” someone yelled.
Matthews spread his arms wide, indicating the grass.
More grumbling, this time louder with comments bordering on insurrection.
The curate was ready for them.
“The Feeding of the Five Thousand,” he shouted. “I quote, ‘And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass,’ Matthew 14:19.” He stood firm with authority in his eyes. “If our Lord did not think the grass an undignified place to sit, neither should we.”
Drew learned something about Puritans that day. They’ll do anything if the Bible approves it. To his surprise, everyone—the bachelors, the churchwardens, the Coopers, even old Cyrus and Rose Furman—found a place to sit on the grass.
The church service began.
Although the setting was unusual, the service was exactly the one being performed at St. Michael’s Church in London and at all other state churches in England. In distraught Edenford, the service served its purpose. The familiar phrases spoken by the curate, the responses by the congregation at appropriate times, the traditional hymns—all these things brought a sense of order and peace to their troubled lives, like a ship’s anchor during a summer squall.
This part of the service would have pleased the bishop of London. Phrase by phrase, word by word, it followed the sanctioned order of service. It was what followed that would have unnerved him—the preaching, especially the unrestricted preaching of an unlearned, unlicensed preacher.
The old homilies of 1563 were written for ill educated preachers and were to be read aloud to the congregations. But the Puritans would have nothing to do with them. They preferred prophesying, a message from the Bible interpreted and applied by their preacher. They wanted to know what the Bible said about life, about marriage, about children and work, about ship taxes and capricious monarchs. They desired more than the anchor of tradition, they wanted a fresh breeze from the Captain of their ship.
Prophesyings became so popular that many Puritans required two sermons on Sunday. Bishop Laud forbade a second service, ordering catechism to be held on Sunday afternoons instead. So hungry were the people for preaching that many Puritans would walk to a neighboring town for a second sermon if their church had only one.
The curate of Edenford preached twice on Sundays with catechism between services. The families planned accordingly. They brought baskets of food and ate on the village green in between events.
With the spirit and urgency of an Old Testament prophet, Matthews prophesied to the townspeople of Edenford regarding the recent devastating news.
“‘What are we going to do?’ That’s the question I’ve heard most often since Market Day. ‘What are we going to do?’ I’ve been asked the same question by women at the well, by workers at the dyeing vats, by shopkeepers, by husbands and wives in their homes, by my daughters at my own dinner table. ‘What are we going to do?’”
Matthews paused. The unanswered question hung over the people like an executioner’s blade.
“We’re asking the wrong question,” he continued. “‘What are we going to do?’ is the question of a hopeless and helpless people. It’s the question of a people looking to themselves for answers. And the people who look only to themselves for answers to life’s problems are drawing from a shallow well.
“What question should we be asking? I’ll tell you. We should be asking ourselves, ‘What would God have us do?’
“Are we so filled with pride to think that something strange and unusual is happening to us? That we are the only people who have faced a crisis like this? That God is so shortsighted He has failed to supply us with sufficient guidance with His Word?”
The curate opened his Bible.
“An incident similar to ours occurred in the days when God’s Son walked the earth. In those days the Roman emperor levied taxes. The Jewish people didn’t like the emperor’s tax any more than we like the king’s tax. Some advocated not paying the tax, but Jesus had a word for them.”
The curate read from his Bible:
And they sent unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, “Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God truely, neither carest for any man: for thou considerest not the person of men. Tell us, therefore, how thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?” But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, “Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Show me the tribute money.” And they brought him a penny. And he said unto them, “Whose is this image and superscription?” They said unto him, “Caesar’s.” Then said he unto them, “Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and give unto God those which are God’s.”
The curate pulled a coin from his pocket. In silence he deliberately examined both sides. Drew was too far away to identify the coin. It might have been a shilling, possibly a half-crown.
“This is an English coin. It bears the image of an English monarch. And we are subjects of the English crown. Were Jesus standing here today and were we to hand Him this coin and ask Him our question, ‘What would God have us do?’ He would undoubtedly say, ‘Render therefore unto your king the things which are the king’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.’”
The curate replaced the coin in his pocket.
“What would God have us do? Pay the king’s ship tax!”
There was no vocal dissent. This was not a town meeting; it was a church service, and the town’s prophet was prophesying. However, some of the men shifted uneasily.
“Now I know what most of you are thinking,” the curate said, anticipating their reaction. “You’re saying to yourselves, ‘But how are we going to pay the ship tax?’”
Several men in the congregation nodded.
The curate opened his well-worn Bible to a second place. Before reading from it, he set the scene.
“I imagine it was a day very much like today when Jesus spoke these words. The su
n was shining. The sky was clear. And Jesus’ followers were sitting on a hillside, waiting for a word from God. They were poor people, working people. They were not learned people, for if Jesus had wanted to address the learned, He would have spoken to the Sanhedrin. They were not rich and noble, for if Jesus had wanted to address the rich and noble, He would have gone to the palace. Instead, He was on a hillside, addressing men and women who had little money and no security. This is what He told them:
‘Therefore I say unto you, be not careful for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink: nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more worth than meat? and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the heaven: for they sow not, neither reap, nor carry into the barns: yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking care, is able to add one cubit unto his stature? And why care ye for raiment? Learn how the lilies of the field do grow: they labor not, neither spin: Yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore if God so clothe the grass of the field which is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not do much more unto you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought saying, What shall we eat? or what shall we drink? or wherewith shall we be clothed? (For after all these things seek the Gentiles) for your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be ministered unto you.’”
Slowly, reverently, the curate closed his Bible. He looked into the faces of his congregation. Rose Furman lay back against her husband’s chest, her eyes closed and her wrinkled face lifted toward the sun.
In soft tones the curate repeated a portion of the Scripture passage. “‘Therefore take no thought … for your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.’ What would God have us do? He would have us pay the king’s ship tax. How are we going to pay it? God knows our needs. He will provide a way. In the meantime, we must live by faith in God’s Word. Faith does not wear a long face. Faith does not fret. Faith will not waste a beautiful day like today with concern for tomorrow. ‘This is the day which the LORD hath made: let us rejoice and be glad in it!’”
The Puritans (American Family Portrait #1) Page 20