Great odium has been cast upon the law and its administration, in the infliction of those extreme punishments, and upon the clergy, so far as they participated. I submit, whether the responsibility is not chargeable rather upon the lamentable state of medical science at that time, which, while busying itself with catnip and elecampane, millipedes and powder of baked toads, had not discovered that there was any other form of mental disease than that which manifested itself in a furious. derangement. How should lawgivers, judges, and jurors, or clergymen even, ascertain the fact of insanity, a matter so foreign to their ordinary studies, - when the studies and diag nosis of the physician failed to perceive it. Medical science at a much later day, under the lead of jurisprudence, has redeemed its character. The medical profession having left the investigation of the virtues of baked toad-powder for that of the phenomena of mental disease, the law seeks information on that subject, in aid of its administration.

Medical testimony is heard on the question, sane or insane? Medical experts give their opinions, and the interests of humanity are subserved, and the cause of justice often promoted; though it must be acknowledged, that the notion of mental derangement is carried to an extreme, when a jury finds a defendant sane the moment immediately before, and sane again the moment immediately following, the commission of a very deliberate homicide, but insane at the precise moment when the deed was committed. I admit that the Bench deserves censure, when it fails to rebuke such a perversion of principles. But it would be unreasonable to expect too much from a judiciary elected by a popular vote, and whose tenure of office is for a short term of years.

Upon the question whether their institutions were endangered by the Quakers, the Puritans are entitled to be heard.

In a humble petition and address of the General Court, presented to the King in February, 1660, it is, among other things, said,

"Concerning the Quakers, open, capital blasphemers, open seducers from the Glorious Trinity, the Lord's Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ, &c., the blessed Gospel, and from the Holy Scriptures as the rule of life, open enemies to government itself as established in the hands of any

but men of their own principles, malignant and assiduous promoters of doctrines directly tending to subvert both our churches and state; after all other means, for a long time used in vain, we were at last constrained, for our own safety, to pass a sentence of banishment against them, upon pain of death. Such was their dangerous, impetuous, and desperate turbulency, both to religion and to the state, civil and ecclesiastical, as that, how unwilling soever, could it have been avoided, the magistrate at last, in conscience both to God and man, judged himself called, for the defence of all, to keep the passage with the point of the sword held toward them. This could do no harm to him that would be warned thereby; their wittingly rushing themselves thereupon was their own act, and we, with all humility, conceive a crime bringing their bloods upon their own head." 1

Assuming this representation to be true, the colonists must stand excused.

Dr. Palfrey says, "Imprudently calculating on the effect of their threats, the Court had placed themselves in a position which they could not maintain without grievous severity, nor abandon without humiliation and danger. For a little time there seemed reason to hope that the law would do its office without harm to any one."

Again," Whether or not their imaginations had exaggerated the original danger, it could no longer, after an experiment of more than three years, be justly considered great."

And again," But among the colonies of New England, it is the unhappy distinction of the chartered and therefore at once more self-confident and more endangered — colony of Massachusetts, to have been the only one in which Quakers who refused to absent themselves were condemned to die. Her right to her territory was absolute, deplorable as was the extreme assertion of it. No householder has a more unqualified title to declare who shall have the shelter of his roof, than had the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay to decide who should be sojourners or visitors within their precincts. Their danger was real, though the experiment proved it to be far less than was at first supposed. The provocations which were offered were exceedingly offensive. It is hard to say what should have been done with disturbers so unmanageable. But that one thing should not have been done till they had become more mischievous, is plain enough. They should not have been put to death. Sooner than put them to death, it were devoutly to be wished that the annoyed dwellers in Massachusetts had opened their hospitable drawing

1 Mass. Records, vol. iv. part i. p. 451.

rooms to naked women, and suffered their ministers to ascend the pulpits by steps paved with fragments of glass bottles."1

But if the danger of the civil Commonwealth was not extreme, that of the religious government connected with it was imminent. If the Quakers might contravene and defy the laws which protected the religious institutions and worship of the Puritans, all others might do the same. Their peculiar religious government was thus in extreme peril. With regard to that, the controversy was preservation or destruction; and the result was the latter.

The infliction of the punishment of death did not avail. The Quakers had an indomitable perseverance, and much encouragement to continue the contest. The law inflicting this penalty had passed but by a majority of one. There was much opposition to its execution. The military guard shows the fear which existed of an outbreak. The opposition was such that the government gave up any farther attempt to execute the extreme penalties. The Quakers came in greater numbers, and committed greater extravagancies. The government mitigated the penalties, and finally submitted to the intrusion. The Quakers triumphed; and the experiment of the Puritans, the theologic freehold, the Commonwealth which was to exclude unsound doctrine and practice, failed then and there, and, so far as we can perceive, from that time forth, for evermore.

The civil government did not fail, the religion did not fail; but the principle of the legal exclusion of error received a fatal blow.

The failure was not merely because the Quakers had conquered, but by reason of the causes through which they had conquered.

I quote from Dr. Palfrey once more, p. 482, –

"It was settled that the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay were not to have the disposal of their home. They had bought it, and paid dear for it. They had on their side that sort of rigid justice which accredited writers recognize, when they lay down the rule that a perfect right may be maintained at any cost to the invader. But trespassers had come who would not be kept away, except by violent measures, which had

1 Palfrey's New England, vol. ii. pp. 474, 476, 484.

produced only a partial effect, and which the invaded could not prevail upon themselves any longer to employ. The feeling of humanity, which all along had pleaded for a surrender, at length uttered itself in overpowering tones."

And Sir Ferdinando Gorges, in his "Brief Narration of the Original Undertakings of the Advancement of Plantations into the Parts of America," published in 1658, speaking of the charter, says,

"By the authority whereof the undertakers proceeded so effectually, that in a very short time numbers of people of all sorts flocked thither in heaps, that at last it was specially ordered by the King's command, that none should be suffered to go without license first had and obtained, and they to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance. So that what I long before prophesied, when I could hardly get any for money to reside there, was now brought to pass in a high measure. The reason of that restraint was grounded upon the several complaints, that came out of those parts, of the divers sects and schisms that were amongst them, all contemning the public government of the ecclesiastical state. And it was doubted that they would, in short time, wholly shake off the royal jurisdiction of the Sovereign Magistrate." 1

We can see now that it was impossible that their peculiar religious institutions," God's institutions," as Mr. Cotton called them, should be maintained for a long period against the influx of population "contemnning the public government of the ecclesiastical state" here: we can see that it would have been better, (to use a common form of speech), infinitely better, had they voluntarily yielded to the pressure, at an earlier day, and quietly submitted to a modification of their religious establishment, giving greater liberty for dissent, and more tolerance to opposition. The civil state can hardly be said to have been in danger of overthrow. It may not have been wise, it may not have evinced sound statesmanship, for them to attempt to maintain their experiment against the intrusion of the Quakers, considering the opposition which was made to it.

If, under the existing circumstances, they saw the impending inevitable consequences, they cannot be held excused in sacrificing life to the end that their church polity might be vigorously enforced for a little time, only to be overthrown within a short

1 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 3d Series, vol. vi. p. 80.

period. Anger and passion, under great provocation, can afford at best but palliation.

But, assuming that there was no danger to their civil government, the principle which lay at the foundation of their whole government, civil as well as ecclesiastical,— the principle of excluding what they deemed fundamental error in religion by the civil arm, — was on trial; and if, on the other hand, they might well believe, and did believe, that God's institutions committed to their charge could be sustained, error excluded, their peace preserved, and their peculiar Commonwealth maintained, by the rigid enforcement of their laws, even unto death, the danger which menaced their institutions from the proceedings of the Quakers must hold them excused. On what authority shall we pronounce that they must have seen the first, and could not have acted upon the last, of these propositions?

Their Commonwealth was one of small beginnings. If it could have been kept a small Commonwealth, - distinct and independent, its religious legislation enforced as it might have been under such circumstances, - it would, doubtless, have preserved its original constitution much longer; and with their knowledge of the mutability of human affairs, they could not have anticipated that it was to endure for all generations. They were authorized originally, by the circumstances to which I have referred, to anticipate for it a reasonable duration, and they were men who could commit to God's providence the ordering of the future. The extract from Sir Ferdinando Gorges' " Brief Narration" shows that they did not anticipate that the example of their emigration would be followed by such a numerous company of men, who, of divers sects and with divers schisms, "contemning the public government of the ecclesiastical state," claimed liberty, not so much to worship God according to the dictates of their consciences, as liberty not to worship Him at all.

There is a grave question, I think, not as yet sufficiently considered, how far writers of fiction, whether of prose or poetry, are at liberty to represent historical personages otherwise than on the basis of historical truth.

If the fiction be like Irving's Knickerbocker's New York, - a burlesque so transparent that no one is for a moment misled,— there is no harm done. But if the tale or poem be of that