long a time in subduing a wilderness, rugged in soil, severe in climate, infested with wild beasts and savage men, often engaged in bloody and expensive wars, and living too, without the conveniences of money and other things as we have them, so that no little part of their time was occupied in keeping the wolf, both the literal and the metaphorical, from their doors. But apart from all consideration of their physical surroundings, which, of course, were not conducive to the cultivation of belles-lettres, it seems to me that their earnestness of moral purpose was alone sufficient to determine the character and extent of their literary pursuits, whatever may have been their literary tastes. They felt, I doubt not, that there was something more important for them to do in this world than to devote their intellectual energies to the production of the lighter, or, what we deem, the more pleasing kinds of literature. It is a conceded fact that many of our Puritan fathers ranked among the most eminent scholars of their time; and it was in the interest of learning and of culture that soon after their arrival, in 1636, they founded a college in this wilderness-an example, I venture to say, whose like has not a parallel in the history of the world. And yet it was in this same seat of learning that a historian in his recent lectures exhibited not a little of this unfairness of which I have spoken.1

It is also my conviction that justice cannot be done them by those who, like many of our "liberal" historians, have no special sympathy with their religious

1 See "Massachusetts, its Historians and its History," by Charles Francis Adams.

views and aims.

And yet I cannot conceive how any person can fail to have very great respect for their sincerity of purpose and righteousness of intent. In - contrast with the harsh and often cynical criticisms of the Puritans by some recent historians, we gladly place on record a different estimate of their character by Dr. Alexander Young. In his preface to his "Chronicles of the First Planters of Massachusetts Bay," he says:

No nation or State has a nobler origin or lineage than Massachusetts. My reverence for the character of its founders constantly rises with the closer study of their lives, and a clearer insight into their principles and motives. Much as has been said in commendation of them, their worth has never been overrated, and we should never be tired of recounting their virtues.1

In pursuing the course of intolerance which they did, they were undoubtedly inconsistent. It seems to

1 Dr. Young was a Unitarian clergyman, but one of the older school. The following utterances of his in a sermon preached at the ordination of Rev. George E. Ellis, in Charlestown, March 11, 1840 (whose lamented decease has occurred during this present writing), have almost an orthodox ring. He says: “For one, I must humbly acknowledge that I do not feel the want of a speculative philosophy to put underneath and shore up my religion. I am not ashamed to avow that my faith is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. . . I cling to revelation. I hold to the record. Without the record of a supernatural faith which I find in the pages of the New Testament, I confess I should feel like the sailor set adrift on mid-ocean without rudder, compass, or chart-without his quadrant and his Practical Navigator.' I turn to the inspired word of Christ as the needle seeks the pole star. . . Above all, let Christ be preached; not the Christ of theory, of imagination, or of philosophy, but the Christ of the New Testament, the Mediator, the Redeemer, the Saviour, the Son of God, the Advocate, with the Father, the Light of the world. Let not the Christian minister fear that he shall insist on the person or the offices of Jesus with a noxious exaggeration," etc.

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me also that at times they must have had some doubts as to the rightfulness of their severest penal inflictions. But I should not care to say, as a recent historian— Charles Francis Adams, a descendant of Thomas. Shepard, of Cambridge-has said, that "they knew better. It is quite enough to say that they ought to have known better, those at least of them who had suffered from oppression in the Old World, and who in consequence knew the worth of personal religious freedom. It must be remembered of the Puritans that theirs was no easy-going, careless faith or no faith. With them religious error was soul-destroying, and hence infinitely more to be dreaded than the plague. "Doubtless," said one of the Puritan ministers, "doubtless they that are nursing fathers of their people ought as well to prevent poison as to provide food for them." They had intense convictions of the unspeakable importance of religious truth and of their own religious faith. And their whole aim was to set up in their little corner of New England-" sequestered from the rest of the world," and, as Urian Oakes and John Higginson said, "originally a plantation not for trade but for religion"-God's way and worship in purity. They aimed to exhibit to the world "a specimen or a little model of the kingdom of Christ on earth." And they knew no better way in which to establish and conserve orthodoxy in church and righteousness in State, in their little Church and State home, than to keep out, and, as their charter worded it," repulse, repell," and exclude even by force, heretics and other persons whose influence they deemed destructive of their Church and State community, and

who, as they felt, had no right to intrude themselves into their community. If ever a people on earth were conscientious, they were that people; but to say that "they knew better," is to say that they deliberately acted against their consciences. But this is to deny them all claims to greatness or goodness. Yet "these men," as Dr. Jeremiah Chaplin, in his "Life of President Dunster," well remarks, "were so truly great and good that, better than most men, they can bear the exposure which historic justice necessitates." Nor must we forget the profound truth of Froude's assertion concerning Sir Thomas More, that, "The spirit of persecution is no peculiar attribute of the pedant, the bigot, or the fanatic, but may coexist with the fairest graces of the human character."

PART III

SUBSEQUENT STRUGGLES AND FINAL TRIUMPH

DIVINE truth is immortal; it may perhaps for long be bound, scourged, crowned, crucified, and for a season be entombed in the grave, but on the third day it shall rise again victorious, and rule and triumph forever. —Hübmaier, an Anabaptist martyr, 1528.

Planting himself at the period of the Confession of the seven churches of Christ in London (1643), the Baptist historian, as he looks down the line of coming years, beholds struggles which might appall the stoutest heart, and, at the same time, triumphs which, had they been uttered in prophecy, would have been scarcely less wonderful than those ancient ones in which the seers of the Captivity proclaimed the return to Zion.-S. S. Cutting's "Historical Vindications,” p. 43.

In 1692 the Plymouth Colony was merged into that of Massachusetts, and thenceforward the governors of the consolidated Colony, or "Province," were appointed by the British Crown. By these acts, and by the doing away of any church-membership qualification for voting and office-holding, the Puritan rule of the Colony was greatly weakened for the future, as in the recent past it had been lessened by kingly authority, and especially by the annulling, in 1684, of the Massachusetts charter. For a time, under the Andros usurpation, the scales were completely turned, and Episcopalian rule became the order of the day. He carried the Episco