‘I find them full of humanity and humility’ is the testimony of one who was not disposed in their favour to begin with. To a visitor, Edward Lenton, Ferrar gave a reason for his retirement: ‘They had found divers perplexities, distractions, and almost utter ruin in their callings: if others knew what comfort God had ministered to them since their sequestration, they might take the like course’ (Mayor, Letter of Lenton, xxix.) In fact the institution at Little Gidding did not profess to be the beginning of an order; it aimed at nothing but the organisation of a family life on the basis of putting devotion in the first place among practical duties. Ferrar had no special mission to mankind, nor passion for influencing others. He was not even desirous of doing much literary work, but contented himself with framing a harmony of the gospels and of the history of the Books of Kings and Chronicles. Besides this he translated the ‘Divine Considerations’ of Valdez and Lessio ‘On Temperance,’ works which he submitted to his friend George Herbert for approval and amendment.
The quiet life at Little Gidding continued without any greater interruption than a visit from Bishop Williams or from Charles I in 1633 (Rushworth, ii. 178), or the questionings of a scandalised protestant, or the request of Charles I for a copy of Ferrar's ‘Concordance,’ till the beginning of November 1637, when Ferrar's feeble constitution began to give way before the austerities of his life. He gradually grew weaker, and died on 4 Dec. His death did not break up the community established at Little Gidding, where John Ferrar and his son Nicholas continued to live according to the same rule. But the increase of religious differences which preceded the outbreak of the civil war brought Little Gidding into greater prominence, and in 1641 a pamphlet was issued, addressed to parliament, ‘The Arminian Nunnery, or a Brief Description and Relation of the newly erected Monasticall Place called the Arminian Nunnery at Little Gidding’ (reprinted by Hearne; appendix to pref. to Peter Langtoft, cxxv, &c.). This pamphlet was a defamatory garbling of a letter written in 1634 by Edward Lenton of Notley, near Thame, to Sir Thomas Hatley; and Lenton, when his attention was called to the pamphlet, indignantly protested against the construction put upon his letter (Mayor, pref. xxiii, &c., from Hearne, Caii Vindiciæ, ii. 702, &c.). In 1640 young Nicholas Ferrar died at the early age of twenty-one, and the life of the inmates of Little Gidding was disturbed by the increase of civil strife. In 1642 Charles I solaced himself by a hurried visit to the settlement, and said, ‘Truly, this is worthy of the sight. I did not think to have seen a thing in this kind that so well pleaseth me. God's blessing be upon the founders of it.’
In 1647 the house and church of Little Gidding were spoiled by some adherents of the parliament, and the little community was broken up. In 1853 the church of Little Gidding was carefully restored, and some of the furniture placed there by Ferrar has been recovered. Many elaborate volumes—‘harmonies’ of scripture—prepared by members of the Gidding household, and elaborately bound in leather or velvet, are still extant. Two harmonies of the gospels made by Ferrar himself are in the British Museum, Bibl. Reg. C. 23, e 3, 4, one dated 1635 having been made for the king; there is also in the same collection a ‘History of the Israelites,’ by Ferrar, presented to the king in 1637. Another copy of Ferrar's ‘Harmony of the Gospels,’ illustrated throughout, belongs to Captain Acland Troyte of Huntsham Court, Bampton, Devonshire; a fourth copy, made by Ferrar's nieces (1640), is the property of Miss Heming, Hillingdon Hill, Uxbridge; a fifth, illustrated throughout, is the property of Lord Arthur Hervey, bishop of Bath and Wells; a sixth, entitled ‘Monotessaron,’ belongs to Lord Normanton; and a seventh, bound in purple velvet and stamped gold, to Lord Salisbury. A harmony of the Mosaic Law, made for Archbishop Laud, is among the manuscripts of St. John's College, Oxford. A splendidly bound copy of the Pentateuch belongs to Captain Gaussen, Brookman's Park, Hatfield. A portrait of Nicholas Ferrar, by Janssen, is in the master's lodge, Magdalene College, Cambridge.
