character that no one but an expert in history can distinguish between the true and the false, the fact and the fiction, very serious injury may be, in many instances will be, done to the reputation of those who have bequeathed that reputation to posterity, in the hope that it may be preserved untarnished. More especially is this true, if, the prologue says,

"the author seeks and strives

To represent the dead as in their lives."

It is well for the author of the "New-England Tragedies" that the Puritan laws are no longer in force, else he might be called to answer, not only for that he did

but that he did, moreover, interpolate matter which had neither day, nor year, nor chronicle, in point of fact, thereby giving false impressions respecting the truth of history.

The relation of events in their order is one of the first of the requisites of history. Not only the year, but sometimes the very day in which a thing is done, is of the utmost importance to a right understanding of the character of men, and of their acts also.

It is not an immaterial matter, whether the Puritans forbore, at last, to proceed capitally against the Quakers from their own conviction that such a course would cause a great sacrifice of life, and would finally fail of accomplishing their object; or whether, thirsting for blood still, they were stopped by a "mandamus" from Charles II.,-who, by the way, had no power to issue such a judicial writ, even if he might amend the charter.

It may not be amiss, therefore, to state, that the last execution, that of William Leddra, took place March 14, 1661; that Wenlock Christison, or, as the record has it, Wendlock Christopherson, who had been banished and threatened with death if he should return, confronting the judges on Leddra's trial with, “I am come here to warn you, that you shed no more innocent blood," was arrested, and, after three months, brought up for trial. Dr. Palfrey says,

--

"There was an unprecedented division among the magistrates, and they are said to have been no less than two weeks in debate.". "Christison was condemned to die; but the dreadful sentence could not again be executed. In the mean time, the General Court had met; and the evidences of opposition to any further pursuance of this rigorous policy were unmistakable. The contest of will was at an end. The trial that was to decide which party would hold out longest, had been made; and the Quakers had conquered." 1

It may be proper for me to add, that Christison, concluding that, if he might have his liberty, he had freedom to depart, was discharged from prison in June, 1661; that King Charles's letter, directing "that, if there were any of those people called Quakers amongst them, now already condemned to suffer death or other corporal punishment, or that were imprisoned and obnoxious to the like condemnation, they were to forbear to proceed any further therein," and should send such persons to England for trial, was dated Sept. 9th, of that year, and received in November. Dr. Palfrey says further:

"The command, however, produced little effect. The resolution to abstain from further capital punishments had been taken some months before; though the magistrates perhaps were not indisposed to appeal to the King's injunction, rather than avow a change of judgment on their own part." 2

And it is of some importance to know farther, that, after a representation from the government of the colony to the King on this subject, his Majesty, in a letter dated June 28th, 1662, after saying, that "the end and foundation of the charter was and is the freedom and liberty of conscience," and charging and requiring that freedom and liberty be duly admitted and allowed, so that the "Book of Common Prayer" might be used, and all persons of good and honest lives and conversations be admitted. to the sacraments and their children to baptism, adds, —

"We cannot be understood hereby to direct or wish that any indulgence should be granted to those persons commonly called Quakers, whose being inconsistent with any kind of government. We have found it necessary, by the advice of our Parliament here, to make sharp laws against them, and are well contented that you do the like there."

1 Palfrey, vol. ii. p. 481.

2 Palfrey, vol. ii. pp. 519, 520.

This is the King's final judgment on the matter.1

A few days since, a leading newspaper in a neighboring State appended to a courteous notice of this course of Lectures, a very uncourteous paragraph respecting the founders of Massachusetts, saying, that

"They were simply a band of narrow-minded sectaries, animated by no broad nor generous motives; but aiming to establish a morose and exclusive community, from which every one of broader sympathy and more tolerant spirit should be rigorously shut out."

And then, naming three of the principal men among them, it was said,

"that, so far from being the promoters of a great movement, they prove, on examination, of very moderate calibre. They were designed for village deacons, rather than for founders of states."

One cannot, and has no disposition to, repress a smile at language like this.

It is neither my duty nor my privilege, at this time, to enter into a discussion respecting the statesmanship of the founders of Massachusetts. But it lies within my province to say here and now, that, but for the religious legislation of the founders of Massachusetts, many persons would have come here, who, like some of those who went to Rhode Island, were not fit for village deacons, nor for any other honest and honorable posi

tion.

A clerical friend of mine, in a sermon last Thanksgiving Day, referring to the Puritan Commonwealth and the disturbances by Roger Williams and others, happily remarked, that " every Utopia ought to be supplemented with a Narragansett."

Their experiment of founding and maintaining a civil state upon a basis which should support the worship of God according to the dictates of their conscientious convictions of duty, and an ecclesiastical state combined which should be in harmony with it, and of excluding whatever was antagonistic to its welfare, failed in its exclusiveness; but the change was only in the admission of the element of a more extended liberty of conscience; and of what is dignified by that name without its

1 Mass. Records, vol. iv. part ii. p. 165; Hutch. Coll. Papers, p. 379.

vitality; with greater liberty also of action. Their failure was partial only; their success, great and enduring.

With an intelligent appreciation of its true principles, they laid here the foundation of civil liberty upheld by law and restrained by law, and of a system of impartial justice.

In the "Body of the Liberties," enacted in 1641, is a prefatory declaration, that

"We do, therefore, this day, religiously and unanimously, decree and confirm these following Rights, liberties, and privileges, concerning our Churches, and Civil State, to be respectively, impartially, and inviolably enjoyed and observed throughout our jurisdiction for ever."

The first and second declarations following this, are, of themselves, a Massachusetts Magna Charta.

"1. No man's life shall be taken away, no man's honor or good name shall be stained, no man's person shall be arrested, restrained, banished, dismembered, nor any ways punished, no man shall be deprived of his wife or children, no man's goods or estate shall be taken away from him, nor any way indamaged under color of law or Countenance of Authority, unless it be by virtue or equity of some express law of the Country warranting the same, established by a General Court and sufficiently published, or in case of the defect of a law in any particular case, by the word of God. And in Capital cases, or in cases concerning dismembering or banishment according to that word to be judged by the General Court."

"2. Every person within this jurisdiction, whether Inhabitant or foreigner, shall enjoy the same justice and law that is general for the plantation, which we constitute and execute one towards another, without partiality or delay."1

The main principle of these declarations is recognized in the constitutions of the States, and of the United States. If it shall be abandoned, and the theory substituted that the general government is to be administered according to the will of the people, as ascertained, from time to time, by the action of Congress, civil liberty in the United States will receive a shock, from which it will never recover under that government.

With a profound conviction of the truth and of the vital importance of their religious principles, they achieved and secured to themselves liberty to worship God according to the dictates

1 Mass. Hist. Society's Coll. 3d Series, vol. viii. p. 216.

of their consciences. They disclaimed again and again power over the faith and consciences of others. If they were pertinacious in their determination that those who could not join at least in attendance upon their religious worship, and especially that those who placed themselves in hostility to their principles and practice, should find their liberty elsewhere, — their efforts to secure liberty for themselves have resulted in a larger liberty to all others.

With the rod of a persevering industry, they smote the rock of Massachusetts, literally lying in the wilderness; and if the elements of prosperity existing within did not gush forth in immediate profusion, they have since flowed in copious streams to sustain and enrich their descendants.

Let not the conclusion that the Puritans founded their State in order that they might worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, without admitting others to disturb their worship by contention about doctrines and ordinances, detract from the high estimation in which they have been held, heretofore.

Let us not even presume to believe that they would have effected a better work, had they attempted to provide entire liberty for what every man, woman, and child deemed the dictates of their several consciences.

We are not authorized to say that it would have been better if they had founded a colony on the shores of Massachusetts, with what we call liberty of conscience, liberty for every one not only to think as he pleases, which the Puritans allowed, but liberty for every one to preach, and harangue, and vituperate, and denounce every other one who differs and dissents from his or her particular notion, liberty to women to hold conventions, and make pretty invectives against government, and liberty to others to denounce the Constitution which is, or should be, the organic law. All this is supposed to be safe for us. Would it have been safe for them? On what premises shall we maintain such a position? Nay, upon what data shall we persuade ourselves that, forming their infant settlement upon such a foundation, their Patmos would not have been turned into a Pandemonium, that their experiment would not have proved a disastrous failure in its very inception?