He said that [exposition] was nothing like
preaching." [Footnote: Sewall's _Diary_. _Mass. Hist. Coll._ fifth series,
v. 487.] And in this the patriarch spoke the truth; for if there was
anything he loved more than money it was the incense of adulation which
steamed up to his nostrils from a great congregation. Of course he
declined; and yet this importunity pained the good man, not because there
was any conflict in his mind between his duty to a cause he held sacred
and his own interest, but because it was "a thing contrary to the faith
marvellously wrought into my soul, that God will give me an opportunity to
serve and glorify Christ in England, I set the day apart to cry to heaven
about it." [Footnote: _History of Harvard_, vi. 481, App. ix.]
There were limits, however, even to the patience of the Massachusetts
Assembly with an orthodox divine; and no sooner was the question of the
agency decided by the appointment of Bellomont, than it addressed itself
resolutely to the seemingly hopeless task of forcing Dr. Mather to settle
in Cambridge or resign his office. On the 10th of July, 1700, they voted
him two hundred and twenty pounds a year, and they appointed a committee
to obtain from him a categorical answer. This time he thought it prudent
to feign compliance; and after a "suitable place... for the reception and
entertainment of the president" had been prepared at the public expense,
he moved out of town and stayed till the 17th of October, when he went
back to Boston, and wrote to tell Stoughton his health was suffering.
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