“He was a most excellent Scholar, a very-well read Person, and one, who in his advice to young Students, gave Demonstrations, that he knew what would go to make a Scholar.  But it being essential unto a Scholar to love a Scholar, so did he; and in Token thereof, endowed the Library of Harvard-Colledge with no small part of his own.

“And he was therewithal a most exalted Christian—­In his Ministry he was another Farel, Quo nemo tonuit fortius—­And the observance which his own People had for him, was also paid him from all sorts of People throughout the Land; but especially from the Ministers of the Country, who would still address him as a Father, a Prophet, a Counsellor, on all occasions.”

These extracts may not quite satisfy the exacting reader, who must be referred to the old folio from which they were taken, where he will receive the following counsel:—­

“If then any Person would know what Mr. Peter Bulkly was, let him read his Judicious and Savory Treatise of the Gospel Covenant, which has passed through several Editions, with much Acceptance among the People of God.”  It must be added that “he had a competently good Stroke at Latin Poetry; and even in his Old Age, affected sometimes to improve it.  Many of his Composure are yet in our Hands.”

It is pleasant to believe that some of the qualities of this distinguished scholar and Christian were reproduced in the descendant whose life we are studying.  At his death in 1659 he was succeeded, as was mentioned, by his son Edward, whose daughter became the wife of the Reverend Joseph Emerson, the minister of Mendon who, when that village was destroyed by the Indians, removed to Concord, where he died in the year 1680.  This is the first connection of the name of Emerson with Concord, with which it has since been so long associated.

Edward Emerson, son of the first and father of the second Reverend Joseph Emerson, though not a minister, was the next thing to being one, for on his gravestone he is thus recorded:  “Mr. Edward Emerson, sometime Deacon of the first church in Newbury.”  He was noted for the virtue of patience, and it is a family tradition that he never complained but once, when he said mildly to his daughter that her dumplings were somewhat harder than needful,—­“but not often.”  This same Edward was the only break in the line of ministers who descended from Thomas of Ipswich.  He is remembered in the family as having been “a merchant in Charlestown.”

Their son, the second Reverend Joseph Emerson, Minister of Malden for nearly half a century, married Mary, the daughter of the Reverend Samuel Moody,—­Father Moody,—­of York, Maine.  Three of his sons were ministers, and one of these, William, was pastor of the church at Concord at the period of the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.