Genealogical notes of Barnstable families - citizen hylbom blog

QEiNEALOGIDAL, NOTES OF BARNSTABLE FAMILIES. 179
pounds sterling, nearly all of which was lost by himself and the
other partners.
Notwithstanding his severe losses in his efforts to promote
the common interests of the colonists, Mr. Hatherly was ever
i-eady to assist the poor and the distressed, particularly the members
of the church at Scituate and his beloved pastor. ~ Adversity
binds men by stronger ties than prosperity. It awakens a sympathy
not satisfied with the commonplace words of consolation
it opens the purse as well as the heart.
In 1634 Independency had seen its darkest days in England.
It had then numerous adherents among the lowly and many
powerful friends in high places. King Charles, instigated by
the infamous Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, had adopted extreme
measures to crush non-conformity ; but like all extreme
measures, their tendency was to strengthen what they were intended
to destroy. The mass of the people held that the King
had usurped power, in violation of their reserved rights and those
of parliament, and felt justified in opposing, by all constitutional
means, his arbitrary acts.
John Lothrop and his followers were held by the people to
be martyrs in the cause of Independency. No persecutions—no
severity that their enemies could inflict, caused him, or a solitary
one of his followers to waver—they submitted without a murmur
to loss of property, to imprisonment in loathsome jails, and to be
separated for two long years from their families and friends,
rather than to subscribe to the forms of worship that Charles and
his bigoted prelates vainly endeavored to force on their consciences,
and compel them to adopt. No power could thus compel,
they considered it far more glorious to suffer for the cause of
Christ and his visible church than to submit to arbitrary power,
though with submission came worldly wealth and temporal dis-
tinction.
From these men three-fourths of the present inhabitants of
Barnstable descend. Ought they to be ashamed of their ancestry?
Is there one of them so vile as to wish that he could trace
his descent from the chivalry, the cavaliers, or some sprigg of nobility
whose blood '-Has coursed thro' scoundrels ever since the
flood." If there be such a one, he had better take the poet's advice
and
"Go and confess his family is young.
Nor own his fathers have been fools so long."
But there is another standpoint from which Mr. Lothrop and
his followers appear more honorable as men—more lovely as
christian brethren. They denounced Popery as the great harlot
of Babylon ; but they never denounced the doctrines of the
church of England as anti-christian, or asserted that the parish
churches were not true churches, and that the members thereof