1650-51.] THE RIVAL COLONIES. 329 



service rarely brought their wives to the wilderness. 

 The fur-trader, moreover, is always the worst of 

 colonists ; since the increase of population, by dimin- 

 ishing the numbers of the fur-bearing animals, is 

 adverse to his interest. But behind all this there 

 was in the religious ideal of the rival colonies an 

 mfiuence which alone would have gone far to pro- 

 duce the contrast in material growth. 



To the mind of the Puritan, heaven was God's 

 throne ; but no less was the earth His footstool : and 

 each in its degree and its kind had its demands on 

 man. He held it a duty to labor and to multiply ; 

 and, building on the Old Testament quite as much 

 as on the New, thought that a reward on earth as 

 well as in heaven awaited those who were faithful 

 to the law. Doubtless, such a belief is widely open 

 to abuse, and it would be folly to pretend that it 

 escaped abuse in New England ; but there was in 

 it an element manly, healthful, and invigorating. 

 On the other hand, those who shaped the character, 

 and in great measure the destiny, of New France 

 had always on their lips the nothingness and the 

 vanity of life. For them, time was nothing but a 

 preparation for eternity, and the highest virtue con- 

 sisted in a renunciation of all the cares, toils, and 

 interests of earth. That such a doctrine has often 

 been joined to an intense woiidliness, all history 

 proclaims ; but with this we have at present 

 nothing to do. If all mankind acted on it in 

 good faith, the world would sink into decrepitude. 

 It is the monastic idea carried into the wide 

 field of active life, and is like the error of those 



28* 



