was the unexpected result of an amorous caprice of Henry VIII. for Anna Boleyn, and the refusal of the Pope to approve of the king's divorce from Katharine.* The people were wholly unprepared for this schism. The separation of England from Rome effected little else than the transfer of the authority of the church to the king, and her possessions to his favorites. Religious despotism was none the less complete for assuming a dissenting form and name. The Catholics resisted spoliation. They were hanged by hundreds. The continental Protestants believed they could find an asylum in the domains of Henry. They found only persecution. The governmental reformation had nothing in common with the teachings of the Lutherans, the Anabaptists, the Calvinists. It never lost the cruel fanaticism of the expeditions against the Vaudois in Italy, the Albigenses and Camisards in France, the Anabaptists in the Netherlands. Mary Tudor persecuted in the name of Catholicism. Elizabeth proscribed that sect. The Stuarts ferociously pursued the Non-Conformists, the Presbyterians, the Puritans, the Cameronians. The Tudors exercised absolute power as a matter of fact. The Stuarts pretended that it existed by right. James I. was the most audacious advocate of the doctrine of divine right. "No Bishop, no King," said he. He asserted that kings reigned by authority derived from God, and were therefore above human laws that their decrees were of more force than parliamentary statutes; that they could disregard charters and conventions. Though the son of Marie Stuart, he furthered the severest enactments against the Catholics, using the Gunpowder Plot (1605) as a pretext for consigning them to a condition of abject political inferiority, from which they were not emancipated until within the last half century. The Puritans, while in power under Cromwell, were no more tolerant than their adversaries. The Protector waged a war of extermination in Ireland. He had no pity on the Scotch prisoners. "The Lord has delivered them into our hands." The officers and soldiers, their wives and children,

It should not be overlooked, that the pope had originally granted a dispensation for King Henry's marriage with his brother's widow. The schism of the Anglican church dates from the subsequent refusal of the pope to consent to a divorce. See W. Beach Lawrence, Revue du Droit International, 1870, p. 65; Froude, Hist. of England. i: 446, for details.

were transported to America and sold to the planters.* The restoration of the Stuarts brought about bloody reprisals. At last came the Revolution of 1688, which gave victory decidedly to the constitutional party. But the triumphs of the people's right was not effected without energetic protests, of which some, celebrated in history, such as the Solemn League and Covenant, the Declaration of Rights, express in precise and energetic language the claims and purposes of their authors. This Revolution of 1688 was like that of Holland, 1584-a momentous European event, and not merely an English conflict like that of 1648. The principles affirmed by it were transported to America, and persistently claimed by the colonists as their political heritage. Like the Genevese, they demanded their ancient libertates, franchesiæ, usus et consuetudines civi

tatis.

In fact, these principles were carried in the New World to their full and logical development. While English statesmen were speaking of the omnipotence of parliament, and its right to tax the colonies without admitting their representatives to its bosom, the Calvinistic colonists were asserting "the prerogatives which they derived from Jesus Christ." We are authorized, they said, by the law of God, as by that of nature, to defend our religious liberty and our political rights. This liberty, these rights, are innate and indefeasible. They are inscribed in the code of eternal justice, and governments are established among men, not to encroach upon or undermine them, but to protect and maintain them among the governed. When a government fails in this duty, the people ought to over

A work ascribed to General Fairfax's Chaplain, England's Recovery, which there is every reason to believe was written by the General himself, gives the prices at which some of the captives were sold. Many of them were not destitute of merit. For instance, Colonel Ninian Beall, captured at the battle of Dunbar, was sent into Maryland, where he was soon appointed commander-in-chief of the troops of that colony. A victory which he gained over the " Susquehannochs" secured him the eulogies and thanks of the province, with extraordinary gifts and honors.

Historical Magazine of America, 1857; Middle British Colonies, by Lewis Evans, Philadelphia, 1755, pages 12 and 14; Terra Maria, by Ed. Neil, Philadelphia 1867, p. 193; Bacon's Laws of Maryland, contains the Act of Gratitude, 1659, to Ninian Beall and his wife Elizabeth. See, also, Vie de Cromwell, par Raguenet, Paris, 1691; Les Conspirations D'Angleterre, Cologne, 1680.

throw it, and construct another conformable to their needs and their welfare.

A valiant Scotchman, the Reverend Mr. Craighead, had much to do with the spread of these ideas, and with giving "form and pressure" to the political principles inspired by the religious Reformation, which, later on, found their noblest and most complete expression in the Declaration of Independence. On the 11th of November, 1743, just as Walpole's corrupt ministry was expiring, Mr. Craighead convened a meeting at Octorara, in Pennsylvania.* The congregation appealed to the rights which Jesus Christ has transmitted to us. They deposed King George II. because he "has none of the qualities which the Holy Scripture requires for governing this country." They' made a solemn covenant, which they' swore to with uplifted hands and drawn swords, according to the custom of our ancestors, and of soldiers ready to conquer or to die, "to protect our persons, our property, and our consciences against all attacks, and to defend the Gospel of Christ and the liberty of the nation against enemies within and without."

Shortly after this meeting was held at Octorara, this same Mr. Craighead removed to Mecklenburg County, in North Carolina. He died before the war began, but his work lived after him.

As soon as the news from Lexington arrived, meetings were held at Charlotte, the county-town (May, 1775), whereat the people, in view of their violated rights, and resolved for the struggle, directed three of its most respected and influential members, all Presbyterians, all graduates of Princeton Collegethe Reverend Hezekiah James Balch, Doctor Ephriam Brevard, and William Kennon—to propose resolutions + befitting

*A Renewal of the Covenants, National and Solemn League, A Confession of Sins, and an Engagement to Duties, and a Testimony, as they were carried on at Middle Octarara, Pennsylvania, November 11, 1743. Psalm lxxvi: 11; Jeremiah 1: 5. This curious and very interesting pamphlet was reprinted at Philadelphia in 1748. It is quite probable that it was known to Mr. Jefferson, who says (Autobiography): We rummaged everywhere to find the biblical formulas of the 'old Puritans.'" Franklin, his colleague in the committee, could not, as printer and politician, have been ignorant of its existence. The only copy which I have seen was said to have been brought from North Carolina.

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+ Two of them read thus: 'Whoever, directly or indirectly, shall have directed, in any way whatsoever, or favored attacks as unlawful and serious as those which

the solemn occasion. This intrepid conduct greatly cheered the hearts of the patriotic party and aided their cause.

Thus the English colonies in America were largely peopled by adherents of the Reformed faith, who fled from religious intolerance and political oppression, and who were animated by a profound dislike to the form of government which had driven them into exile. Here, in this immense country, lived a population of diverse origins, but united by the recollections of kindred wrongs and sufferings in the Old World, by common wants and interests and hopes in the New. The constant contests in which they engaged, either with a virgin soil covered with forests and swamps, or with the natives who were unwilling to be dispossessed, inured them to hardship, developed their inventive capacities and resources, and gave them that moral and physical vigor needed by new-born nations. Religion. divided into numerous sects, had the same body of doctrine in the Bible and Gospel, inculcated the same rules of life-the fear of God and the love of one's neighbor. The purity of morals was notable. It excited the surprise and admiration of the French officers. In their various journals and letters they mention the beauty, more often the innocence and unsullied conduct, of the American woman. The laity entertained the same aspirations for freedom of conscience and political liberty. The pastors-rigid, pious, austere, simple in life, energetic in soul, strengthened by privations-set an example of duty to their flocks, and more than one proved on the field of battle. that they knew how to defend their rights as Christian freemen.

Great Britain directs against us, is the enemy of this country, of America, and of all the indefeasible and inalienable rights of men.

"Secondly. We, the citizens of the County of Mecklenburg, break, from this time forward, the political bonds which attach us to the mother country; we free ourselves for the future from all dependence upon the crown of England, and reject all agreement, contract, or alliance with that nation, which has cruelly shed the blood of American patriots at Lexington.”—American Archives (4th Series), ii : 855 The History of North Carolina, by Wheeler, Foote, and Martin; Field-Book of the Revolution, by Lossing, ii: 617, and the numerous authorities therein cited. *Elbridge Gerry to Sam. Adams, Amer. Arch.

Journal of Claude Blanchard. Preface. Munselu, Albany, 1876. See, also, Chastellux and others.

In the American Archives and Revolutionary Records are to be found the names of several clergymen who served as officers in the Continental army.

Art. IV.—HENRY STEPHENS' GREEK THESAURUS.

BY PROF. JACOB COOPER, LL.D., Rutgers College.

THE Compilation of a dictionary is a work which belongs to the decadence of a language. For during the golden age of a literature, the intellectual activity exhibits itself in the expression of thought much more than in subtle disquisitions about the instrument by which this is effected. Such is the case necessarily, for the word must be spoken and the language take upon itself a fixed syntax, before the meaning, which is largely dependent upon the construction, can be unfolded. And since conception of great thoughts is far rarer than the ability to find words for their enunciation, such authors as feel that they have a mission to enlighten the world by new ideas, do not care to stop their higher calling to criticise the forms of speech which regulate themselves. For the winged words always come trooping to the wizard who can wield the wand of thought.

Examples in proof of this assertion are abundant. The purest, as well as the most vigorous English, is found in the authorized version of the Bible, in Shakespeare, and the contemporary writers. Yet, the Dictionary of Johnson, the first which was worthy of the name, dates nearly two centuries later. David sung and Isaiah prophesied more than two thousand years before Buxtorf and Gesenius explained the terms they employed. Sacontala and the Maha Bharata showed the subtle expression of the most artistic human language long before the Christian era; while we have not, even yet, a thoroughly reliable Sanscrit Lexicon. So Haroun Alraschid listened to that most marvelous and popular of all romances, "The Thousand and One Nights," while neither Al Camoos, Golius, nor Freytag is a satisfactory guide to the myriad shades of meaning which the flexible Arabic assumes.

This common experience of languages was also verified by the Greek. While this was properly a living tongue, instinct with expression in the mouths of Pericles and Menander, there does not seem to have been what we understand by a dictionary. Indeed, the method of instruction-the best no doubt that