By the Name of Rice

Drake was alive and Peter Paul Rubens was just beginning
to dabble in paint. Francis Bacon and John
Smith (later of Pocohontas fame) were young men.
Oliver Cromwell; Wm. Penn; John Bunyan and John
Milton were yet unborn. He lived in the time of
Rembrandt and as an ancestor was as great a success
as was Jonathan Edwards, who came an hundred years
later. There exists no portrait or verisimilitude of the
Deacon.
H Little Willie was drawing a picture. "Willie", said his
mother, "What are you doing" "Making a picture of God,"
replied Willie. "Tut-tut," said Willie's mother, "No one
knows what God looks like." "Well, they will know when
I get this done," replied Willie, and, like Willie, I have some
confidence that when I have written this little sketch of Deacon
Edmund Rice, for the delectation of his posterity, we will know
what our great ancestor was like.
In 1627, the Deacon and his wife Tamazine were
the village of Berkhamstead, 28 miles north
living in
of London, in Hertfordshire. Their first three children
were doubtless born in Sudbury, Bucks., and the Parish
Register at Berkhamstead contains the record of 5
others who were baptized in that Parish. The Deacon
and his wife, with seven of these children, (one had
died and one was born during the voyage,) landed in
Massachusetts in 1638. They came in the early Post-
Mayflower period and the Deacon has always been
known as Edmund Rice the Pilgrim.
Why did they leave Hertfordshire and come to New
England We do not know. Most of our information
one who has an
is unauthenticated conjecture. Any
expurgated edition of Mrs. Hemans' poems will find
that female poet asking many questions in regard to
the motives and designs of the Pilgrims. "What sought
they thus afar Jewels the wealth of seas " Scarcely.