28 WINTER SKETCHES. 



very erroneous ideas we have entertained of 

 the intolerance of our Puritan forefathers, and 

 we may thereby discern in what this sup- 

 posed fault really consisted. We shall find 

 that a more liberal spirit prevailed among the 

 churches in the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 centuries than was afterwards exhibited in the 

 earlier part of the nineteenth century, and per- 

 haps even at the present day. It is true that 

 there were some terrible preachers like Ed- 

 wards, who, later on, endeavored to " per- 

 suade men by the terrors of the law " ; but al- 

 though the Assembly's catechism was taught 

 on general principles as a text-book, — which 

 might as well have been written in Greek or 

 Hebrew, — and not infrequently, profoundly 

 soporific, unintelligible, and consequently harm- 

 less hydra-headed discourses on original sin 

 and election were preached in the absence of 

 such exciting topics as are now at hand, it is 

 simple justice to the memory of the clergy of 

 those days to say that in the main, their ser- 

 mons were practical, conveying to men views 

 of daily duty which they could not obtain 

 through the mists of theology. Such was the 

 teaching, for the most part, of the old minis- 

 ters of New England. They were honest, 



