that there is in New England a species of frog, "which chirp in the spring like sparrows, and croak like toads in autumn;" some of which "when they sit upon their breech are a foot high;" while "up in the country" they are as big as a child of a year old." He tells of swallows which, loving to dwell in chimneys, construct their nests so as to hang down " by a clew-like string a yard long." These swallows, he adds, "commonly have four or five young ones, and when they go away, which is much about the time that swallows use to depart, they never fail to throw down one of their young birds into the room by way of gratitude. I have more than once observed that, against the ruin of the family, these birds will suddenly forsake the house and come no more.' "2 He gives a brilliant description of the Pilhannaw, "a monstrous great bird . . . four times as big as a goshawk, white-mailed, having two or three purple feathers in her head as long as geese's feathers; . . . her head is as big as a child's of a year old; a very princely bird. When she soars abroad, all sort of feathered creatures hide themselves; yet she never preys upon any of them, but upon fawns and jackals. She aeries in the woods upon the high hills of Ossapy." These sentences upon the Pilhannaw are indeed delightful, the last one in particular being very sweet, with a certain far-off, appealing melody; and the artistic merit of the whole picture is perhaps enhanced by the consideration, that it seems to have been on his part an exploit of pure imagination, supplemented by some guess-work and hear-say,-this princely bird of Josselyn's being probably nothing but "a confused conception made up from several accounts of large birds" seen in different parts of America. It may not surprise us to ascertain that this author, whose scientific methods had in them so little severity, should have stopped occasionally to reproach his "skeptic 1 "New England's Rarities," 76–77. Ibid. 40-41. 2 Ibid. 40. 4 Professor E. Tuckerman, ibid. note. readers" for "muttering out of their scuttle-mouths" expressions of derisive unbelief in his statements. As a student of nature, his own capacity for receiving at the hands of other narrators prodigious gift-horses which he was too polite to look very sharply in the mouth, implied in him at least this compensating merit-a tolerant and catholic mood. And is it not possible, after all, that in our search for knowledge, swiftness to reject may be as great an impediment to progress as swiftness to accept? If extreme credulity swallows down a good deal of error, may it not be that extreme incredulity spurns away a good deal of truth? At any rate, our gentle author seems to have had some such notion; for in his life-time he walked quite freely about this earth, keeping his eyes and ears open for the discovery of such matters as he had not known before, and believing, as he tells us, "that there are many stranger things in the world than are to be seen between London and Stanes." 1 1 "Two Voyages to N. E." 229. Josselyn also published in London, in 1674, "Chronological Observations of America, from the year of the World to the year of Christ, 1673." It is reprinted in 3 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. III. 355-396; and is meagre and unimportant. CHAPTER VIII. NEW ENGLAND: THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS WRITERS. I. The supremacy of the clergy in early New England-Their worthiness -Their public manifestations-How they studied and preached—The quality and vastness of the work they did. II.—Thomas Hooker one of the three greatest-His career in England— Comes to Massachusetts-Founds Hartford-A prolific writer-His commanding traits as a man and an orator-His published writings-Literary characteristics-His frankness in damnatory preaching-Total depravity -Formalism-Need of Christ-The versatility and pathos of his appeals. III.-New England's debt to Archbishop Laud-Thomas Shepard's animated interview with him, and its consequences-Shepard's settlement in America-Personal peculiarities-Illustrations of his theology and method of discourse. IV.-John Cotton-His brave sermon in St. Mary's Church, Cambridge— Becomes rector of St. Botolph's, Boston-His great fame in EnglandHis ascendency in New England—Correspondence with Cromwell-His death announced by a comet-As a student and writer. V.-A group of minor prophets-Peter Bulkley founder of Concord-The man -His "Gospel Covenant "-John Norton-Succeeds John Cotton-His style as a writer-William Hooke-His life-His New England's Tears for Old England's Fears "-Charles Chauncey's career in England and America-Becomes president of Harvard-Great usefulness as an educator-His scholarship, industry, old age-His "Plain Doctrine of Justification "His unpublished writings made useful. I. AMONG the earliest official records of Massachusetts, there is a memorandum of articles needed there and to be procured from England. The list includes beans, pease, vine-planters, potatoes, hop-roots, pewter-bottles, brassladles, spoons, and ministers. It is but just to add that in the original document the article here mentioned last, stands first; even as in the seventeenth century, in New England, that article would certainly have stood first in any conceivable list of necessaries, for this world or the world to come. An old historian, in describing the establishment of the colony of Plymouth, gives the true sequence in the two stages of the process when he says, they "planted a church of Christ there and set up civil government."1 In the year 1640, a company of excellent people resolved to found a new town in Massachusetts, the town of Woburn; but before getting the town incorporated, they took pains to build a meeting-house and a parsonage, to choose a minister, and to fix the arrangements for his support. New England was a country, as a noted writer of the early time expresses it, "whose interests were most remarkably and generally enwrapped in its ecclesiastical circumstances; "s it followed that for any town within its borders the presence or absence of a "laborious and illuminating ministry" meant the presence or absence of external prosperity. Indeed, the same writer stated the case with delightful commercial frankness when he remarked: "The gospel has evidently been the making of our towns.' During the first sixty years, New England was a theocracy, and the ministers were in reality the chief officers of state. It was not a departure from their sphere for them to deal with politics; for everything pertaining to the state was included in the sphere of the church. On occasion of an exciting popular election, in 1637, Mr. John Wilson, one of the pastors of Boston, climbed upon the bough of a tree, and from that high pulpit, with great authority, harangued the crowd upon their political duties. The greatest political functionaries, recognizing the ministers as in some sense their superior officers, "asked their advice upon the most important occasions," and sometimes even appealed to them for the settlement of personal differences that 1 Edw. Johnson, "Wonder-Working Providence," 18. 2 Ibid. W. F. Poole's Introd. xci. 34 'John Eliot, in 1 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. X. 1. Ibid. I. 89. had arisen among themselves. In 1632, the deputy-governor, Thomas Dudley, having a grievance against the governor, John Winthrop, made complaint to two ministers, John Wilson and Thomas Welde; whereupon a council of five ministers was convened to call before them the governor and the lieutenant governor, and to hear what they had to say for themselves; having heard it, the ministers "went apart for one hour," and then returned with their decision, to which the governor meekly submitted.1 To speak ill of ministers was a species of sedition. In 1636, a citizen of Boston was required to pay a fine of forty pounds and to make a public apology, for saying that all the ministers but three preached a covenant of works. The objects of so much public deference were not unaware of their authority: they seldom abused it; they never forgot it. If ever men, for real worth and greatness, deserved such preeminence, they did; they had wisdom, great learning, great force of will, devout consecration, philanthropy, purity of life. For once in the history of the world, the sovereign places were filled by the sovereign men. They bore themselves with the air of leadership: they had the port of philosophers, noblemen, and kings. The writings of our earliest times are full of reference to the majesty of their looks, the awe inspired by their presence, the grandeur and power of their words. Men like these, with such an ascendency as this over the public, could not come before the public too often, or stay there too long; and on two days in every seven, they presented themselves in solemn state to the people, and challenged undivided attention. Their pulpits were erected far aloft, and as remote as possible from the congregation, typifying the awful distance and the elevation of the sacred office which there exercised its mightiest function. Below, among the pews, the people were arranged, not in 'J. Winthrop, "Hist. N. E." I. 98. 2 T. Hutchinson, "Hist. Mass. Bay," I. 60, |