January 30.

Robert Pike called this morning, bringing me a letter from my brother,
and one from Margaret Brewster. He hath been to the Providence
Plantations and Rhode Island, and reporteth well of the prospects of my
brother, who hath a goodly farm, and a house nigh upon finished, the
neighbors, being mostly Quakers, assisting him much therein. My
brother's letter doth confirm this account of his temporal condition,
although a great part of it is taken up with a defence of his new
doctrines, for the which he doth ingeniously bring to mind many passages
of Scripture. Margaret's letter being short, I here copy it:--

THE PLANTATIONS, 20th of the 1st mo., 1679.

"DEAR FRIEND,--I salute thee with much love from this new country, where
the Lord hath spread a table for us in the wilderness. Here is a goodly
company of Friends, who do seek to know the mind of Truth, and to live
thereby, being held in favor and esteem by the rulers of the land, and
so left in peace to worship God according to their consciences. The
whole country being covered with snow, and the weather being extreme
cold, we can scarce say much of the natural gifts and advantages of our
new home; but it lieth on a small river, and there be fertile meadows,
and old corn-fields of the Indians, and good springs of water, so that I
am told it is a desirable and pleasing place in the warm season. My
soul is full of thankfulness, and a sweet inward peace is my portion.
Hard things are made easy to me; this desert place, with its lonely
woods and wintry snows, is beautiful in mine eyes. For here we be no
longer gazing-stocks of the rude multitude, we are no longer haled from
our meetings, and railed upon as witches and possessed people. Oh, how
often have we been called upon heretofore to repeat the prayer of one