I recently took a trip into town, but I immediately regretted it. Oh, how our fair haven has become a habitation for fools and loudmouths. At every corner, you can find unscrupulous traders hawking their stolen wares or the lewd innuendo of travel guides beguiling the newly landed into the uncharted woods of Salem. If you are fortunate enough to have never been to town, then you would not know of the forum at its center. Designed in the classical Roman fashion, it is a place where all manner of man and woman may gather to speak their piece. Yet, it has devolved into an echoing cave where the banter of brainless animals echoes long into the night.
It is a marvel to hear the many tongues spoken in this place, but often times the words in our own language are the cruelest to hear. If you went a day without hearing an insult, consider yourself truly blessed. I think back to the sermons I heard in the Old World. Has crossing the great ocean made us forget what the Lord commands of us? "Speak not evil one of another, brethren!" (James 4:11)
"Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice; and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." (Ephesians 4:31-32)
Those are the words I clung to as the boat that bore me to Salem crashed upon unkind seas. Those are the principles I cherish as I look to till the soil in a New World - lay the brick in a new City of God. Instead, I see others sewing politics in their fields, where honest grain should grow. I see wickedness and cruelty in place of kindness and friendship. What has become of the people pure in thought and deed who once called themselves Puritans?
Yours in faith,
Waspo
