Читать книгу Looking Back: An Autobiography - Merrick Abner Richardson - Страница 11

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On May 4, 1692, father, Fanny and myself were at the table with the baby boy in father's arms, he saying that it did not seem to him that the whole family was there unless he had the baby on his knee. As dear Fanny was joking him about feeding a baby two weeks old, two officers stepped into the room and read a warrant to him. It was for the arrest of George Burroughs as being suspected of being in complicity with the Devil. The warrant was dated Boston, April 30th, 1692. (See Boston Records.)

Without permission to bid us privately good-bye, his hands were shackled, he was placed on a horse, and they rode away at full gallop.

Fanny was in no condition to be left alone, but she urged me to saddle her father's horse at once and follow on. Soon the horse was waiting for me, but she could not let me go, she wept so bitterly while she flung her lovely arms around my neck, but at last with one sweet kiss she bade me hasten and said she would go home to Father Shepherd's until I returned.

Fanny, oh, Fanny! How little did I think the heart which loved me so fondly would soon be silent in the grave and I a fugitive and a wanderer—no friends, no home, and no one to love me.

Twenty miles away I caught up with them, when we rode nearly three days, with father's hands unnecessarily shackled, most of the time. The second day he said: "Jimmy, this is my last earthly ride. The church is in error and will continue its injustice until some tragedy awakens the people, then it will be restrained. I may as well suffer as another. Jesus intends righteousness to eventually govern His church, but his professed followers are often blind to truth and righteousness, and will be until some great wrong is committed whereby they can place right against wrong for compromise. Do not weep, my boy, soon, in a moment as it were, you and I will stand before the judge, and who will this judge be? Our lives, just the plain record of our lives. There and then we can easily forgive those who have wronged us, but if we have wronged others, will their forgiveness to us set us free? Not unless a higher power steps in. Oh, this will be all right, my son, when the sunlight of Jesus shall awaken us to the new born day. I was thinking last night how glad I was that Jesus had already pleaded my cause. Oh, yes, the cause of poor unworthy me. Pray, pray, humbly my brave boy. Pray that you enter not into temptation and seek revenge. Do not forget that your Heavenly Father knows your inmost secret thoughts, and when you pray ask Jesus to forgive my tormentors, for as he said on Calvary, 'They know not what they do.'"

I will omit the bitter experience I passed through during father's sham trial and cruel execution.