John Cotton

“ COTTON, WILLIAM (d. 1621) , bishop of Exeter, was the eldest son of John Cotton, a citizen of London, but descended from an ancient family of Staffordshire, by Pery, daughter of Mr. Cheyne. Though he was born in London, ‘his infancy,’ says Fuller, ‘was much conversant about Finchley in Middlesex.’ He went to Queens' College, Cambridge, in 1572, and became M.A. in 1575. ”

“ It was a frankly aristocratic world in which John Cotton was bred, and if he disliked the plebeian ways of the Plymouth democracy equally with the Brownist tendencies of Plymouth Congregationalism, it was because they smacked too much of popular sovereignty to please him. And when he found himself confronted by signs of democratic unrest in Boston his course of action seemed to him clear. The desire for liberty he regarded as the sinful prompting of the natural man, a godless denial of the righteous authority of the divinely appointed rulers. ”

“ As John Cotton had been the shining candle of Puritanism in England, his arrival in America was hailed with joy, and from the time of his settlement in the little capital his was the hand that shaped ecclesiastical institutions in New England, and he did much also to mold the yet plastic state. Note 8. Though he usually avoided the appearance of personal antagonism, (p. 280) every formidable rival he had left Massachusetts early. Williams, Hooker, Davenport, and Hugh Peter all found homes beyond the bounds of the colony. ”

“ It is impossible to describe very definitely Cotton's personal character. While numerous letters addressed to him by his friends are extant in his library, few of his own letters are known to be in existence. Two, dated 1624, in the Public Record Office, addressed to his brother Thomas, in which he calls himself David and his correspondent Jonathan, give an attractive picture of his domestic virtues. A little of his correspondence with Sir John Eliot is still at St. Germans, and proves him to have been an admirable friend. A few other of his letters are in the British Museum. ”

“ When Nathaniel Ward became law-maker instead of settled minister, it was with John Cotton that he took counsel, and Anne undoubtedly thought of the latter what his grandson Cotton Mather at a later day wrote. "He was indeed a most universal scholar, and a living system of the liberal arts and a walking library." ”

“ By Roger Williams of Providence, in New-England. London, Imprinted in the Yeere 1644.” Mr. Cotton had sought to “take off the edge of Censure from himself”—that he was no procurer of the sorrow which came to Williams in his flight and exile. It is a small quarto of forty-seven pages, preceded by an address of two pages. The letter referred to was written by John Cotton, and was published in London, 1643. The author vindicated the act of the magistrates in banishing Roger Williams from Massachusetts. He denies that he himself had any agency in it. ”

“ It was, however, the personality of the man that carried weight and nothing that he has left for a mocking generation to wonder over gives slightest hint of reason for the spell he cast over congregations, under the cathedral towers, or in the simple meeting house in the new Boston. The one man alive, who, perhaps, has gone through his works conscientiously and hopefully, Moses Coit Tyler, writes of John Cotton's works: "These are indeed clear and cogent in reasoning; the language is well enough, but that is all. There are almost no remarkable merits in thought or style. ”

“ Honest, boys, I’m getting disgusted with the white element of Las Palomas. We raise most everything here but white babies. Even Enrique, the rascal, has to live in camp now to hold down his breakfast. But you young whites—with the country just full of young women—well, it’s certainly discouraging. I do all I can, and Sis helps a little, but what does it amount to—what are the results? That poem that Jean reads to us occasionally must be right. I reckon the Caucasian is played out.”
Before the sun was an hour high, John Cotton and myself rode into the Vaux ranch on Sunday morning. ”

“ Drove the ‘Age’ coach from Brighton to London and back for some years from 1836. Died at 5, Hyde Park Terrace, January 25th, 1863.”
It is possible to largely supplement this skeleton biography from the Sporting Magazine and other sources. “The Cottons of Madingley and Landwade,” said that classic authority, “are no ‘soft goods’ of recent manufacture, but have held high rank among the gentry of Cambridgeshire since the reign of Edward I. Sir John Cotton, the first baronet of the family, was advanced to that honour in 1641, by Charles I., to whose cause he was firmly attached. ”

“ Let any great social or physical convulsion visit the United States, and England would feel the shock from Land's End to John O'Groats. The lives of nearly two millions of our countrymen are dependent upon the cotton crops of America; their destiny may be said, without any kind of hyperbole, to hang upon a thread. Should any dire calamity befall the land of cotton, a thousand of our merchant ships would rot idly in dock; ten thousand mills must stop their busy looms; two thousand thousand mouths would starve, for lack of food to feed them. ”

“ Cotton, John (1585-1652) , an eminent Puritan minister, was for 20 years pastor of Boston in Lincolnshire, England, and for almost as long in Boston, New England. Cotton, whose Puritan leanings made him an object of suspicion under the primacy of Laud, was to have been brought before the Court of High Commission for trial. He escaped, however, to London and, later, to Boston, New England. Both in England and in New England, the reputation of Cotton for learning was of the highest. ”

“ Why should I?"
"The Ingenue Theatre is largely patronised by the army, the navy, and the House of Lords. I've found that the youthful members of the aristocracy want to marry us, naval men want to amuse us, the army men expect us to amuse them—Aunt Sally up to date, six shies a penny!" She turned her back on him. "Will you tell me your message?"
"It's from a man called Cotton, John Cotton. You knew him under another name. He left Devonshire a week ago en route for Singapore. He wanted me to tell you that he was safe, that he loved you, and was deeply grateful for all you had done for him." ”

“ Cotton for the first time was here invested with belligerent rights, from its use by General Jackson and his six thousand troops as breastworks. It has ever since been roundly employed by American ladies in the same way against their ardent admirers. The result in the latter case, however, has usually been, not to repel but to heighten the vivacity of the attack; and, unlike that at New Orleans, to procure the surrender of the party with the cotton-works. ”

“ That would have saved me Cotton and the present disgrace to Las Palomas. I ought to have known that a good honest boy like John would be putty in the hands of a fellow like Theodore. But it's just like a fool boy to throw away his chances in life. They still sell their birthright for a mess of pottage. And there stands the empty cottage to remind me that I have something to learn. Old as I am, my temper will sometimes get away from me. ”

“ Cotton will be more than king,—will be a good 549thrifty farmer, replacing broom-sedgy fields with smiling furrows, razor-backed hogs with blooded stock, and will stand out in round completeness, not isolated by a heritage which kept it aloof from the world, but linked in a rosy chain of productive good with the happy brotherhood of work, prosperity, and well-doing. ”

“ We had so systematized our work at the quarry that my presence was hardly needed, so every evening I urged Cotton to sound the mistress for permission to visit our sweethearts. John was a good-natured fellow who could be easily led or pushed forward, and I had come to look upon Miss Jean as a ready supporter of any of her brother's projects. For that reason her permission was as good as the master's; but she parried all Cotton's hints, pleading the neglect of our work in the absence of her brother. ”

“ Somerset was still living. Men who then sat in the Parliament Chamber knew every incident in his official life, and not a few incidents in his private life, as well as every charge by which—publicly or privately—he had been infamed. They knew, exactly, Sir Robert Cotton’s position towards the fallen minister. If we choose to suppose that Eliot was now speaking what Cotton wrote, the inference is unchanged. To those listeners Sir John and Sir Robert were known to be politically ‘double and inseparable.’
Cotton’s Eulogy on Lord Somerset’s policy (August, 1625) . ”

“ Its resources are of little value when government interposes a dogged obstinacy to improvements; nor is it much better where a people seem at a loss to know whose business it is to give out the incentive. So long as this state of things lasts will Cotton remain king, and Uncle John be its most servile and dependent subject. It matters little that his empire is so beautifully adapted to its cultivation. He must shake off his love of those very ancient and effeminating systems of his, and adopt the modern policy of improving and nourishing industry. ”

“ Some two weeks before Easter Sunday, Cotton returned from the Frio, where he had been making a call on his intended. Uncle Lance at once questioned him to know if they had set the day, and was informed that the marriage would occur within ten days after Lent, and that he expected first to make a hurried trip to San Antonio for a wedding outfit.
“That’s all right, John,” said the old ranchero approvingly, “and I expect Quirk might as well go with you. You can both draw every cent due you, and take your time, as wages will go right on the same as if you were working. ”

“ The Census says that the women of the State have a keen commercial instinct, and show a marked aptitude for business of all sorts. In the cotton mills and ginning and pressing factories women have found a new employment, and it is not uncommon now to see father, mother, and children all working in the same cotton factory, while the baby sleeps in a basket among the cotton fluff. And in the coal mines, at Singareni, women are employed, going down the shaft with the men miners and taking the same risks. ”

“ Books subject to much wear should be sewn on tapes, not on strings; should have cloth joints, tight backs, and a tough, flexible leather, or a good, smooth cloth of cotton or linen such as is now much used by good binders. Most of the expensive leather, and all cheap leather, rots in a short time; good cloth does not. Very few libraries can afford luxurious binding. Good material, strong sewing, and a moderate degree of skill and taste in finishing are all they can pay for. Learn to tell a substantial piece of work when you see it, and insist that you get such from your binder. ”

“ The study club is one of the best means of extending the influence of your library; of securing the attention and hold of the people. It awakens thought, arouses discussions, puts into circulation books which otherwise might stand idle on the shelves. ”

“ And this he said was to be done by planting Gaorani cotton on government farms. "The policy of the Agricultural Department," he said, "is not to establish large expensive model farms, but rather to demonstrate by small experiments in various parts of the country, what can be done at a reasonable cost."
"If a thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well," and when I visited these government farms in 1913, I found them much too small to do more than look well on paper. ”

“ Some have trod, and others may tread, in his footsteps, but Sir Arthur Cotton's task was more difficult than theirs, for he was a pioneer, and had not only to subdue the forces of nature, but to battle with prejudice and ignorance in high places. ”

“ Mr. Charles Cotton, Knight of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem and honorary librarian of Christ Church Cathedral, Canterbury, as announced in our later editions on Saturday, died at The Precincts, Canterbury, on September 28, at the age of 83. ”

“ I have been impressed with the fact that librarians seem to think that they must or ought to know everything, and get to think they do know. It is a delusion. One can't know it all, and only a hopeless case tries. ”

“ People will use a library, not because, in others' opinions, they ought to, but because they like to. See to it, then, that the new library is such as its owner, the public, likes; and the only test of this liking is use. Open wide the doors. Let regulations be few and never obtrusive. Trust American genius for self-control. Remember the deference for the rights of others with which you and your fellows conduct yourselves in your own homes, at public tables, at general gatherings. ”

“ He should make the library a school for the young, a college for adults, and the constant center of such educational activity as will make wholesome and inspiring themes the burden of the common thought. He should be enough of a bookworm to have a decided taste and fondness for books, and at the same time not enough to be such a recluse as loses sight of the point of view of those who know little of books. ”

“ This division has a better rainfall than Marathwara, but the ryot in Telingana is less painstaking than in the sister division. The Marathwara ryot is hard-working and industrious, and although irrigation is inconsiderable in his division, he is blessed with a soil that is retentive of moisture and in which his principal cereal crop— wheat — will flourish. And it must be noticed that although rice and wheat — and more especially rice — occupy in the agricultural industries of the State a position of importance unapproached by any other crops, jowari, bajri, and cotton cover a larger area. ”