88 



lurn from oppression on these western shores, bringing with 

 them their household gods, their principles, their hopes. 



The desire to know something of the history of our pro- 

 genitors, under ordinary circumstances, would seem a dictate 

 of nature, but from such sires New England's sons should be 

 proud to trace out their descent. We are aware, it has become 

 a favorite topic in these degenerate days to speak flippantly of 

 our puritan ancestors and to show them up as bigots and fanat- 

 ics, untouched by any of the finer feelings and sympathies of 

 our nature, — stern, inflexible, and uncompromising, particu- 

 larly towards those who differed from them in religious matters. 

 The ablest pens and the ripest scholars have been employed in 

 filling the world with malignant calumnies of their rude intol- 

 erance. Our puritan fathers were, it is true, rigid calvanists, 

 and deep enthusiasts, and were not unfortunately, on the score 

 of religious toleration, in advance ot the age in which they 

 lived, but were without one particle of what in their owntime 

 was considered fanaticism or bigotry. This has been altogether 

 a more modern idea. We hold that by the impartial historian 

 all men should be judged by the light of the age in which they 

 lived, and the influences with which they were surrounded. 

 Who of the present age will presume to say, had he lived in 

 those times he should have been one whit wiser or more liberal, 

 than our puritan ancestors '? To such, if any there should be, 

 I would address the language of Roger Clapp in 1676 — " You 

 have better food and raiment than was in former times ; but 

 have you better hearts than your forefathers had ? If so, re- 

 joice in that mercy, and let New "England then shout for joy. 

 Sure all the people of God in other parts of the world, that 

 shall hear that the descendants of the first planters of New Eng- 

 land have better hearts and are more heavenly than their pre- 

 decessors, they will doubtless greatly rejoice, and will say, 

 ' This is the generation whom the Lord hath blessed.' " Our 

 puritan ancestors had sacrificed much, had endured every thing 

 to establish a church after their own faith in this wilderness. 

 Persecution was the prevailing evil of their time. The whole 

 religious atmosphere they breathed was fraught with its bane- 

 ful influence. Throughout Christendom the principle of tolera- 

 tion had never been advanced but by the weaker party. The 

 stronger had never acknowledged it ; and if our fathers opposed 

 those doctrines among the settlers in the infancy of the colony, 

 which differed from their own, it probably arose from a fear of 

 their ultimately gaining the ascendency and subjecting the ori- 

 ginal settlers to a second persecution. The idea of compelling 



