Had we regarded the clouds which threatened rain at Cambridge on August i8th, 1905, we should have missed a pleasant walk we took on the afternoon of that day from the University City to Oakington.
The country around Cambridge is very flat, consequently the scenery is not attractive; but on reaching Oakington we noticed that the village was not lacking picturesqueness. One object we had in view in going to Oakington was to visit a friend, who, after we had partaken tea, kindly took us to see the Baptist Chapel, which is a very neat and well-fitted building.
But what more particularly interested us in our walk through the village was a visit we made in company with our friend to a private garden, well cultivated with flowers and fruit, in the center of which there are three graves, each surmounted by a square tomb about five feet high, inscribed with the names of three eminent Nonconformist ministers, who were buried beneath the enclosure of the iron rails which surround the monuments.
Two of these worthy men here interred lived during the time when unjust Acts of Parliament forced many godly ministers out of the Church of England because they would not conform to an anti-christian and antibiblical prayer book. These two noble champions for the truth suffered imprisonment rather than defile their consciences by obeying a wicked act of the state, which required every clergyman to swear his hearty “assent and consent to all and everything contained and prescribed in and by the book entitled the book of common prayer,” on pain of ejectment from his living; and because these good men could not, and would not, against their conscience declare their unfeigned assent and consent to a book which contained baptismal regeneration, priestly absolution, do., and thus maintain some of the most fatal errors of popery, they were forced from their pulpits, their livings, and spheres of usefulness.
Subsequent to the passing of the Act under which these men suffered, the “Conventicle Act” was passed which affected the laity, inasmuch as it prohibited meetings in numbers above five for any religious exercise whatever “in other manner than as allowed by the Liturgy or Practice of the Church of England.” This act proved a terrible scourge. Under it the Nonconformists were kept in constant terror, so that many were afraid to pray in their families if above four of their acquaintance, who me only to visit them, were present. Some families scrupled asking a blessing on their meat if five strangers were at table.
Francis Holcroft, M.A., sometime fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, was one of the three whose remains await the resurrection at this sacred spot. For preaching in the village of Oakington, in 1663, he was imprisoned nearly nine years in Cambridge Castle. A second bondage of three years soon followed. He died at Triplow, January 6th, 1692, and was buried at this spot. On his tomb is inscribed the following expressive word: “They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.”
It is recorded of this good man that during his long imprisonment, by the connivance of the jailer, he would make several stays out of prison all night to secretly preach the gospel and administer the sacrament. He departed this life uttering these words: “For I know that if the earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, I have a building, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
Next to the tomb of Mr. Holcroft is that of Mr. Joseph Oddy, who appears to have been his colleague. The inscription states he died May 3rd, 1687, and has the following text: “Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace.” This godly man was frequently imprisoned for preaching, on one occasion for five years; but as soon as he obtained his freedom he would preach again. He obtained a fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, and the degree of Master of Arts, but lost his fellowship and living for his adherence to the truth. He had an ardent love to the perishing souls of men, and was an earnest preacher, chiefly in the Fen district. While his faithful friend, Mr. Holcroft, was in prison, Mr. Oddy preached often with great success in the woods between Cottenham and Willingham, establishing a church in the latter place. He continued preaching the Gospel as an itinerant preacher till his death.
Mr. Oddy was a wit as well as a divine; but he was no trifler with the souls of men. Indeed, the suffering times in which these good men lived must have precluded much cheerfulness of spirit. It is said that a Cambridge man, looking at the emaciated body of this servant of God, thus accosted him:
“Good day, Mr. Oddy: pray, how fares your body?
Methinks you look damnably thin.”
This drew from Mr. Oddy at once the quaint, but forcible reply:
“That’s, sir, your mistake: ‘tis for righteousness sake;
Damnation’s the fruit of your sin.’”
On the third tomb is the following inscription:
“Here lyeth the body of MR. HY. OASLAND, Minister of the Gospel, Who, after 17 years’ faithful dispensation of the same, in the Church gathered in Willingham and Cottenham, ended this life Novr. the 19th, ANNO DOMINI 1711, in the 43rd year of his age.”
Little is known of his ancestry, but there is a strong presumptive proof that he was the son of Mr. Henry Oasland, of Worcestershire, a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who was ejected from his living on August 24th, 1662. It is said of him that when the soldiers came to take him for Packington’s plot he was reading a chapter to his family. His servant maid told him that a troop of horse stood at the door. He was advised to secure himself, which he did so artfully in his own house, that they could not find him: but, considering with himself, that being charged with high treason, though he was very innocent, his absconding would by many be reckoned an evidence of his guilt, he came forth from his hiding place, stood before the soldiers,. and asked them who it was they wanted. They answered, Mr. Oasland. “I am the man,” said he, “and am ready to answer to what any man has to say against me.” He spo with such a spirit as struck a visible terror into the men, who did not for some time speak to, nor offer to lay hold on him. As a preacher he excelled, and spoke with such boldness and resolution, that some called his discretion in question. He would often fix his eye upon some particular auditors with great earnestness, and with authority ask them, “Will you obey this word? or will you avoid this or that sin? O, do, for God’s sake, or for Christ’s sake;” which had so much influence upon some that they cried out in the congregation, “I will, sir! I will, sir!” If this was the spirit of his father, who lived and worked in the service of Christ, and died at the age of eighty, but eight years before his son, then it may fairly be believed, that bound together by the ties of affinity and persecution, the son would prove himself worthy of such a sire. Certain it is, by the inscription on the stone, that he preached seventeen years in the neighborhood of Oakington, and he, and the other two suffering servants of God, were buried in this spot about a stone’s throw from the church yard, presumably because, having dissented from the church, their remains were not permitted to be put into the so-called consecrated ground of the church yard.
It is stated that as recently as 1867 some of the relatives of Mr. Oasland were living, and could remember their grandsires and granddames rehearsing the tales of midnight meetings held in the hollow and copse, and anxious hearts waiting for the moon to rise ere the pastor could read of truth; of the constable, whose heart God had touched, and who shut his eyes when sent to take the children of God, and declared he never saw them; of hairbreadth escapes from the minions of the law; and of many a fervent prayer for the interposition of God’s own hand.
We may say that we stood on ground consecrated by fervent prayer, and on leaving the sacred spot felt we were bidding adieu, as it were, to the dust of Zion.
We are indebted to the kindness of Mr. Morris for a sight of the graves, and also the information concerning the three good men, which we have extracted from a pamphlet he kindly lent us containing a “Narrative of the proceedings at the Commemoration Festival held at Oakington, on Wednesday, July 24th, 1867,” to do honor to the memory of the three Nonconformist worthies whose ashes are buried in the garden before named.
S. B. New Cross.