CHAPTER XXVI.

PECULIARITY OF ORIGINAL EUROPEAN INHABITANTS.-Their character and previous drcumstances. General influence they exerted. Inauspicious and painful occurrences of their first settlement. Their industry and skill. Habits of life. Their stern, unaffected piety. Salutary influence in domestic and social life, in the local politics of the districts they inhabited, and subsequently in the councils of the nation. General diffusion of Protestant Christianity over the land. The firm belief of the Pilgrim Fathers in the beneficent purposes of the Almighty in their expatriation. The evident approval of God of their plans and efforts. His continued blessing on the plans and enterprises of their successors. Influence of the belief in the purpose and providence of God both in the discovery and settlement of the New World, Prevalent conviction of the final evangelization of America, and that the vast influence it is destined to exercise in the conversion of the world is the subject of ancient prediction.

The peculiarity of the origin of the European inhabitants of the United States, and the decided religious influence that they exerted on the character of the Republic, must ever be reckoned among the chief causes of her moral and national greatness. No one can calculate what has been the influence of religion, as diffused by the first settlers in Massachusetts, in raising America to all that she is in character, in happiness, and in power. Every family was a centre both of civilisation and of religion. It is not valour in war, not policy in government, not genius in invention, not extent of dominion, not rich mines of gold and silver, nor magazines, nor armies, nor forts, nor councils, nor fleets, but " RIGHTEOUSNESS that exalteth a nation," that constitutes its honour, its safety, its reWhile liberty is the security for order,-education and religion are the supports and safeguards of liberty.

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America was first settled to an extent sufficient to give a cast to its character and institutions by that extraordinary race of men—the English Puritans, to whom reference has been already made. They were separatists from the Established Church; some exiled to Leyden, and called "Brownists," and others "Nonconformists," from England. The former landed at Plymouth, in December, 1620; the latter, in 1629, at Massachusetts Bay, now Boston, about twenty-six miles distant, along the coast to the south, in the reign of James the First. Brown returned

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to the Established Church, and was succeeded as a leader of the "Brownists" by Robinson. These had originally been driven by persecution from England into Holland, but were urged by various circumstances to remove to America, and at length sailed from Delft Haven in the Mayflower. They were some of the very best of England's sons. They were men who, while they felt that there was no true domestic happiness where Christianity was not the law of the family, and no security against perfidy and the breach of the social compact where the restraining influence of the Gospel was not acknowledged; felt, also, that there was no political freedom worthy of the name where the law of the land was not commensurate with the law of Christ. They were men whose stern, uncompromising principles of freedom even David Hume, who cannot be suspected of bias in their favour, confessed, secured the liberties of Great Britain several centuries ago;*-men of rigid conscientiousness, who

"No one at this stage of our history denies that it was from the religious spirit of the people that our liberties grew. Even David Hume, while be derides the principles of the Puritans, admits that it was their unbending spirit that achieved the triumph. Even he, astonished by the temper which broke forth simultaneously from all parts of the country, is forced to acknowledge that it brought with it to the contest some principles of singular energy. Even be, when he sees it refusing to compromise the rights of conscience to Elizabeth,-sustaining without dismay the augmented authority of James,-braving without alarm the thunders of Charles's prerogative, and never swerving or faltering in the course which it had adopted,-even be is compelled to admit that there was a virtue in this, whose sources he could not appreciate, but whose strength he could not but admire. It was the spirit of religion which led our Fathers into that great conflict, and sustained them in it; and it was this that nerved the arm and supported the resolution of the great men who toiled through these anxious days."―J. C. Colquhoun, M.P., Intro. Lec. delivered at Glasgow, in the Mechanics' Institution.

Thus says Hume: "The precious spark of liberty had been kindled, and was preserved by the Puritans alone, and it was to this sect that the English owed the whole freedom of their constitution." "The evils which they checked were great and numerous, and the blessings they secured for mankind of inexpressible value. But the religious liberty for which they contended was still more important; and the enduring firmness and holy heroism with which they resisted the attempted encroachments of power upon the rights of conscience deserves to be commemo. rated in the most grateful expressions of a richly-benefitted posterity. Religion was the substance of their noble tree of liberty, bending with the fruits of domestic comfort, public and private wealth, law, order, and devotion."

The odious and iniquitous persecutions of the Puritans," says another author, "resulted in a great benefit to the human race, and gave the first strong impulse to that spirit of resistance which ultimately overthrew opposition. It caused also the colonization of New England to be effected by a class of men far superior in industry, energy, principle, and character, to those who usually left their English homes to seek their fortunes in a new country.”

spurned at all compromise of truth, all sacrifice to expediency, who believed in the Invisible Jehovah, and rested in that belief; -men in whom the love of God and the love of the rights of men were united into one firm, indomitable principle of action. To summarise the constituents of their character, they may be said to have been distinguished by tender benevolence, by patience, the most blameless virtue, the most spiritual piety, the strongest faith, the most entire devotedness. Religion was their ruling principle, and liberty they valued next; and while these great principles swelled their hearts with holy heroism, they maintained the conflict against despotism under their old Puritan banner, with its motto, "Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietam."

The English Puritans were the men who saved to England, not only her Constitution, but her Protestant religion,-who, having excited in their own country the spirit which led to what Englishmen are accustomed to call the "Glorious Revolution," sought a wider and more congenial home on this side the waters. "Their names unknown till persecution dragged them into fame."

Imprisoned, maimed, oppressed at home, they looked beyond the Atlantic for a better world,—a world where it would not be a civil offence to have a conscience. Their energetic passion was nurtured by trust in the Divine protection; their power of will was directed by their vigorous and holy creed; and under the banner of the Gospel, with that fervent and enduring love, and that stern simplicity which distinguished the myriads who in Europe adopted the creed of Calvin,-the heartfelt, unearthly religion of the Bible, they sacrificed their country and their kindred, braving the dangers of the ocean and the wilderness. They sailed far away from the tyranny which trampled upon popular rights, which aimed to govern by the Star Chamber without Parliaments;-far away from the tortures, fines, and dungeons, the whole train of evils and disabilities that were imposed by Elizabeth and the infatuated dynasty of the Stuarts; -far away from Popery and Prelacy,-from the traditions of the church,—from hereditary power, from the sovereignty of an earthly king,-from all dominion but that of the Bible, conscience, reason, and the principles of equity.

The ideas which had borne the New England emigrants to this transatlantic world were thus polemic and republican in their origin and their tendency. They asked for the freedom of

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the press, for viva voce discussion, for the freedom of the pulpit, for the free maintenance and diffusion of their principles ;and these they at once adopted and maintained in their voluntary exile as their natural right. And now have the centuries matured the contest for mankind.*

They were not impelled to their expatriation to the New World, as the Spaniard, by sordid ambition, by the lust of gain or gold, nor for the sole sake of trade, commerce, or profitable speculation. Their chief design was to establish a community which in a new country might perpetuate their religious, social, civil, and political views; at the same time they sought a sanctuary where such a community might dwell in security and peace.

The difficulties and discouragements which this pious and devoted band-men who had been derided by a cold-hearted, bigotted, inane multitude as visionary enthusiasts +-had to

* See Bancroft's Revolution.

+ The Puritans bave been stigmatized, traduced, and misrepresented by Butler in his "Hudibras," by Halliburton in his "Rule and Misrule of the English," &c., by Hildreth in his "History of America," by the "Edinburgh Review," and by others who were unequal to an accurate delineation of the finer and more ethereal elements of their character. They have been held up to derision as unamiable, contumacious, narrow-minded hypocrites, who veiled under their profession much singularity and selfishness. Some such there were found among them doubtless; but these were not the exponents of the religion of the great majority. All, too, doubtless, had their infirmities as men, and such as arose from their circumstances and the times in which they lived. But let justice be done to that more divine life which has been in every age the prolific source of union and of human charity. They had errors, which we should avoid; their faults were human, their virtues we may almost call divine. Among other errors, as recorded in the sketch of Rhode Island, the Puritans, basing their theories of civil government too exclusively on Scripture, fell into the error of confounding sins against the Almighty with crimes against society; and, animated with the best possible intentions, they established laws essentially tryannical, and endeavoured to exclude from all civil rights those who were only obnoxious to ecclesiastical censure or discipline: thus, de facto, creating a Church and State establishment of their own.

"The first settlers of Massachusetts were strict Calvinists. There they planted their churches, and founded their university, and laid their foundations, with the hope of perpetuating these principles through all time. As they were pilgrims and exiles for religious considerations, religion was with them the first and great interest, and they founded a christian commonwealth, in which none could enjoy the right of suffrage who were not communicants of the church. This was a mistake from which many sad consequences resulted. It led many to seek admission to the church, in order to secure civil privileges, who were not couverted; and it arrayed against the church all who were not willing to purchase political position by living in the sin of hypocrisy. They could not enjoy the privileges of freemen save by turning bypocrites. The above law was repealed soon after the accession of Charles H., but not until it had caused the seeds of discontent to be very. widely sown. "-Eclectic Review.

encounter in their first settlement were calculated to appal the stoutest heart. They had to endure long days of most laborious toil, followed by weary and solitary nights; sometimes famishing for lack of sustenance, or dying from thirst; struggling against circumstances the most adverse and disheartening; in constant danger from savage beasts and savage men.

Amidst all these, and numberless other difficulties and dangers, had the Pilgrim Fathers to rely only upon the self-sustaining power of their own minds. What exquisite mental anguish and severe bodily sufferings must not these poor wayfarers have experienced! What lassitude of spirit and unsatisfied longings! Nothing could have enabled them to bear up against such sufferings and dreariness of heart but the most powerful motives for action. Such motives they possessed.

They were not afraid of poverty, but they disdained to be slaves. Their desire was to worship God in the way of his appointment, and to promote his glory in the salvation and happiness, of their fellowmen: they thus persevered, trusting in God.

The Pilgrim Fathers carried with them to the land of their expatriation not only a love of civil liberty, but European arts and sciences, and manufactures, with an inherent taste for domestic cleanliness, economy, and industry; qualities which, through this channel, have been so largely diffused through the United States. "Many of them," said an historian of that day, were the ablest designers and manufacturers, the purest and most industrious of citizens; with that mercantile energy which, if it had not been impeded, would have made the then imbecile navy of the country that drove them forth, powerful on every

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They were men who, by the avowal of their enemies, combined the qualities of the citizen, that is, respect for the law, application to their work, attachment to their duties, and the frugality of the poorer classes, with those of the christian, viz., a strong love of their religion, a manifest desire to conform their conduct to their conscience, a constant fear of the judgments of God."

The Pilgrim Fathers were men of whose enlightened benevolence America may well be proud, and whose virtuous and religious example can never be lost, they were men over whose graves Liberty weeps amidst the unwithering garlands which Christianity has strewn on their repose.