The Pocomoke River was easy of access from all the lower parts of Somerset County and the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and being deep and navigable for more than thirty miles, naturally became the center of trade and travel. Francis Makemie, who, after his marriage lived in Accomac, kept his sloop, in which he sailed to his several places for conducting religious service.

From Rehoboth to Snow Hill, at the head of the Pocomoke, was a distance of twenty-five miles, but to the missionary no great matter for his occasional visits.

The Manokin Church was established on the river of the same name on which the beautiful town of Princess Anne still flourishes as one of the most interesting social centers in Maryland. The church founded by Makemie stands by the river bank surrounded by venerable trees and the tombs of many of the noble founders of old Somerset. These old brick walls and the surrounding cemetery form an interesting picture in the valley of the Upper Manokin River.

The northern part of Somerset County was the scene of "The Rockawalkin" Church. This country, rich in timber and copious streams, is a veritable garden for the growth of berries, small fruits and vegetables. Here is located Salisbury, the enterprising little Pittsburg of Maryland. The "Rockawalkin" congregation here long since built the Wicomico Presbyterian Church, which is within the town of Salisbury, and the little edifice several miles away is seldom used.

That Francis Makemie and the people with whom he cast his lot were of the higher classes of society and possessed of intellectual culture of no mean order a glimpse of those early days in old Somerset through the

early records clearly shows. The immense estates, thousands of acres in extent, the elegant furniture imported from beyond the seas, the smaller luxuries of life, all denote refined and luxurious living, while Makemie's library of 896 volumes, Greek, Latin and Hebrew, besides the English, classical, miscellaneous and theological works, bespeak his higher education. His daughter Anne became the wife of Colonel Robert King, of Kingston, Somerset County, but left no descendants. The Rev. L. P. Bowen, who wrote so feelingly of Makemie's great work, said "there are none left of the blood of Makemie; but the name lives and scatters fragrance and beauty through all the far centuries.

There is, however, another child of his which does not wax old or die. It appears as a fertile vine planted by God's hand between the two beautiful bays, sending out its beautiful branches to all points of the compass. The Long Island and New Jersey churches lift the Presbyterian banner and fall into line with Rehoboth. New presbyteries are formed and a synod ere long!"

CHAPTER XXVI

A COLONIAL LENDING LIBRARY

IN OUR recent successful effort to establish traveling libraries in Maryland we have lost sight of the fact that not only is the idea a revival of the movement inaugurated by Dr. Thomas Bray in 1697, but that there still exist in our State several hundreds of these books which composed the first lending library in America. In St. John's College, in Annapolis, there are still preserved 398 out of the original 1095 volumes; at the diocesan library there are 23 of the 45 "belonging to the Library of St. Paul's in Baltimore County," now St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church, Baltimore.

In 1691 and 1692 the counties of Maryland were divided into parishes by act of Assembly and churches ordered to be built. In 1695 a petition was forwarded to their Majesties William and Mary "to annex forever the judicial office of commissary, before in the disposal of the Governor, to that which is purely ecclesiastical and at the appointment of the late Bishop of London." Realizing the necessity of having someone in authority to preside over the clergy in the province, a request was sent to the Lord Bishop of London to send over some "experienced, unexceptional clergyman for ye office intended."

The reputation of Rev. Thomas Bray, D. D., vicar of St. Botolph's Church, near Oldgate, England, we are told, "hindered the Bishop from being one moment

at a loss whom to choose as the fittest person to model that infant church and establish it on a solid foundation."

In April, 1696, the Bishop offered Dr. Bray the office of Commissary of Maryland. Disregarding his own interest and the great profit which would have arisen from finishing his course of lectures which he had been successfully publishing, he soon determined in his own mind that there might be a greater field of doing good in the plantations than by his labors in England. With this in view he laid before the bishop the conditions"a library would be the best encouragement to studious and sober men to go into the service, and that as the great inducement to himself to go would be to do the greatest good he could be capable of doing, he did therefore propose to their Lordships that if they thought fit to encourage and assist him in providing parochial libraries for the ministers who should be sent he would then accept the commissary's office in Maryland."

This proposal for parochial libraries being well approved of by the bishops, and due encouragement being promised in the prosecution of the design both by their Lordships and others, he set himself with all possible application wholly to provide missionaries and to furnish them with libraries, with an intent so soon as he should have sent both, to follow himself. That it was no easy matter to raise the necessary funds for his purpose we can judge from his eloquent appeals in his published pamphlets.

To the gentry and clergy of the Kingdom he addresses a proposal for purchasing lending libraries in all the deaneries of England and parochial libraries for Maryland,

Virginia and other foreign plantations. The proposal is as follows:

"Honorable Sirs: Amongst the many laudable contrivances for promoting Religion and learning in the world, in which several persons of a Publick spirit have labored more or less in all ages, there seem none to me would be of greater advantages to either, would tend more adapted to the present circumstances of our Parochial Clergy (one-third of whom I am afraid are not enabled by their Preferments to purchase a fourth part of those Books which it is absolutely necessary for every Pastor should peruse, and yet from whom great measures of knowledge are expected in this inquisitive age) than if we could have Lending libraries disposed, one in every Deanery throughout the Kingdom, for the service of those who have occasion to borrow."

"Standing libraries," he continues, "will signifie little in the country where persons must ride some miles to look into a book; but lending libraries, which come home to them without charge, may tolerably well supply the vacancies in their own studies till such times as these Lending may be improved into Parochial Libraries."

To show how closely the ideas of the seventeenth century scholar corresponded with the twentieth century plan of preserving the traveling libraries, we shall give Dr. Bray's own plan as submitted to his contemporaries: "It being designed that these lending libraries should travel abroad, it may seem that the Books will be in danger to be soon lost by passing through so many hands. However, in order to their being fully secured it may be provided by these following methods: 1. That they be marked upon the cover to what Deanery they belong.