AUSTERE PURITAN GARDENS 89 
of even greater tribulation and strife, for they were 
resolved upon the “housecleaning,” as someone has 
termed it, of that powerful body. Separation was 
the farthest thing from their purpose; but they were 
determined upon reform, upon theological purification. 
Hence they were revolutionists of the most aggres¬ 
sive type, with the revolutionist’s severity of spirit; 
and the very fact that they were men of higher station 
than the simple Scrooby congregation, made them more 
intense, more extreme, more determined—and less 
likely to tolerate what they condemned. Men of posi¬ 
tion, education and culture, they were naturally more 
imperious in their attitude, and they cultivated their 
convictions with more intellectual force—cultivated 
them so assiduously that their ever narrowing zealotry 
reached a fearful climax in the witchcraft horrors 
which stain the history of Salem toward the end of 
that same century. 
Knowing the mental bias under which they lived, 
therefore, we should know that it was never with 
gardening for pleasure that these Puritans allowed 
themselves to be occupied, even if there were no ac¬ 
tual evidence to prove it. But there is such evidence, 
indirect in a way, yet positive and conclusive. It lies 
in the lack of all reference to gardens, other than 
economic gardens, in the diaries, travelers’ tales and 
letters of the period. Governor Winthrop’s concern 
