130 THE RETROSPECT OF THE YEAR. 



refused to acknowledge the supremacy of the national 

 church, withdrew from its attendance and set up a sepa- 

 rate worship in conventicles of their own. The conform- 

 ists and non-conformists united in opposition to this class 

 as tending to disorder and faction. The lecturer said, in 

 describing the non-conformists, that they detested the 

 forms and ceremonies of the established church as adopted 

 from the Roman church, and to the bishops' courts and 

 the court of high commission through which their obser- 

 vance was empowered. They claimed that these forms 

 and ceremonies were not authorized by scripture that 

 they were the inventions of men, and that to observe them 

 was idolatry ; but this did not affect their regard for a loy- 

 alty to the church itself. They were members of it. They 

 subscribed fully to its doctrines and to the ecclesiastical 

 unity upon which it was based. In all essentials they were 

 sincere churchmen, and they did not love the church itself 

 less because of obnoxious forms and ceremonies imposed 

 upon it. They lived in an age when it was the general 

 belief that it was impossible for different sects to exist in 

 the same community without such conflicts as would en- 

 danger the peace not only of the churches but of society. 

 The day of toleration had not dawned. To them tolera- 

 tion was not only mischievous but sinful. 



The lecturer gave an interesting account of the settle- 

 ment of Cape Ann made by a company from Dorchester, 

 England, who for some years had been engaged in fishing 

 on the New England coast. The fishing experiment not 

 proving successful, and the land at Cape Ann not being 

 suitable for planting, Conant in the fall of 1626 removed 

 to Salem, "a pleasant and fruitful neck of land," under 

 encouragement of Rev. John White of Dorchester, Eng- 

 land, who took great interest in the enterprise. Endicott 

 came over from England in 1628 with a company and took 



