Maryland. 1666.-Alsop's description.

He that desires to see the real Platform of a quiet and sober Government extant, Superiority with a meek and yet commanding power sitting at the Helme, steering the actions of a State quietly, through the multitude and adversity of Opinionous waves that diversely meet, let him look on Maryland the Miracle of this Age.-Hart, I, 268.

Maine. John Josselyn, in 1675, tells us of the Maine group:

The people may be divided into Magistrates, Hus. bandmen, or Planters, and fishermen; of the Magistrates some be Royalists, the rest perverse Spirits, the like are the planters and fishers.

The planters have a custom of taking tobacco, sleeping at noon, sitting long at meals sometimes four times a day, and now and then drinking a dram of the bottle extraordinarily : the smoking of Tobacco, if moderately used refresheth the weary much, and so doth sleep.

If a man came where they are roystering and gulling in Wine with a dear felicity, he must be sociable and Roly-poly with them, taking off their liberal cups as freely, or else be gone, which is best for him. .-Josselyn, in

Hart, I, 430.

7. Religion.

The charters from 1584 on put religion as one of the chief motives of the crown in furthering colonization. Nor was this wholly a spiritual spirit with some, as the extract from Peckham given above shows a most keen appreciation of the commercial value of Christianity. But at any rate we always find the crown zealous for conversion

it being the hon'r of our Crowne, [wrote Chas. II. to the Council in 1660,] and of the Protestant Religion, that all persons in any of our Dominions should be taught the knowledge of God, and be made acquainted with the misteries of Salvation.

William Bradford, in 1607, tells us how the English Puritans,

seeing themselves thus molested and that ther was no hope of their continuance ther [in England] resolved to goe into ye Low-countries, wher they heard was freedom of Religion for all men.

[And from their wanderings and travels it came that] by these so publick troubls, in so many eminente places, their cause became famous, and occasioned many to look into ye same; and their godly cariage and Christian behaviour was such as left a deep impression in the minds of many. And though some few shrunk at these first conflicts, and sharp beginnings [as it was no marvell] yet many more came as with fresh courage, and greatly animated others.

When they resolved to leave Holland for America, to the thousand fears and ill prophecies,

it was answered that all great, and honorable actions, are accompanied with great difficulties; and must be, both enterprised, and overcome with answerable courages. It was granted ye dangers were great, but not desperate; the diffi culties were many, but not invincible. For though their were many of them likly yet they were not certaine. . Their condition was not ordinarie; their ends were good and honorable; their calling lawfull, and urgente; and therfore they might expect ye blessing of God in their proceeding. Bradford's History of Mass.

We foresee from the above what Rev. Peter Bulkeley, in 1651, expressed as that to which New England was called.

There is no people but will strive to excell in some thing; what can we excell in, if not in holinesse? If we look to number, we are the fewest; If to strength, we are the weakest; If to wealth and riches, we are the poorest of all the people of God through the whole world; . . and if we come short in grace and holinesse too, we are the most despicable people under heaven strive we therefore herein to excell and suffer not this crown to be taken away from us.

-Hart, I, 452.

Massachusetts-The Massachusetts Company, in 1629, wrote to their colonists regarding their ministers that

because their Doctrine will hardly bee well esteemed whose persons are not reverenced, wee desire that both by your owne Example and by commanding all others to do the like, our Ministers may receive due Honor.-Am. Antiquarian Society Proceedings.

Only eight years later Governor Winthrop, when examining Anne Hutchinson, says to her:

Your conscience you must keep or it must be kept for you

[a most comprehensive critique on Puritan theology]→ Hutchison, History of Mass. Bay Colony.

No time was lost in passing laws by which the church forced reverence from all. And things went on this way until, in 1660, Edward Burrough, an English Quaker, gained the king's ear for the miseries of the Massachusetts Quakers. One horrible example is enough:

Two beaten with pitched ropes, the blows amounting to an hundred thirty-nine, by which one of them was brought near unto death, much of his body being beat like unto a jelly, and one of their own Doctors, a Member of their Church, who saw him said, 'It would be a Miracle if ever he recovered, he expecting the flesh should rot off the bones'; who afterwards was banished upon pain of death.—Hart, I, 484.

In 1659 Mary Dyer, a condemned Quakeress, wrote a justification to the General Court:

Was ever the like Laws heard of among a People that profess Christ came in the flesh? And have such no other weapons but such Laws, to fight against Spiritual Wickedness withall, as you call it? —Hart, I, 479.

John Cotton, as sketched by John Norton in 1652, illustrates perfectly the solid and attractive parts of the Puritan minister:

He was a general Scholar, studious to know all things, the want whereof might in one of his profession be denominated ignorance. He was a man of much Communion with God, and acquaintance with his own heart, observing the daily passages of his life. He had a deep sight into the Mystery of God's grace, and man's corruption, and large apprehensions of these things. He began the Sabbath at evening [on Saturday]; therefore then performed Familyduty after supper, being larger than ordinary in Exposition, after which he Catechised his children and servants, and then returned into his Study. Upon his return from Meeting he returned again into his Study private devotion: where (having a small repast carried him up for his dinner) he continued till the tolling of the bell. The publick service being over, he withdrew for a space to his prementioned Oratory for his sacred addresses unto God as in the forenoon; then came down, repeated the sermon in

unto his

the family, prayed, after supper sang a Psalm, and towards bed-time betaking himself again to his Study, he closed une day with prayer. In his Study he neither sat down unto, nor arose from his meditations without prayer: whilst his eyes were upon his book his expectation was from God. He had learned to study because he had learned to pray.Hart, I, 337-38.

Two entertaining Dutch travelers in New England in 1680 give us a very amusing, but rather caustic, account of religion in Boston. One of the ministers being sick, a day of fasting and prayer was observed.

In the first place a minister made a prayer in the pulpit, of full two hours in length; after which an old minister delivered a sermon an hour long, and after that a prayer was made, and some verses sung out of the psalms. In the afternoon, three or four hours were consumed with nothing except prayers, three ministers relieving each other alternately; when one was tired, another went up into the pulpit. There was no more devotion than in other churches, and even less than at New York; no respect, no reverence; in a word, nothing but the name of independents; and that was all.

The ministers seemed to be

persons who seemed to possess zeal but no just knowledge of Christianity. The auditors were very worldly and inattentive. The best of the ministers

John Eliot.

is a very old man, named

They are all Independents in matters of religion, if it can be called religion; many of them perhaps more for the purposes of enjoying the benefit of its privileges than for any regard to truth and godliness. . . . All their religion consists in observing Sunday, by not working or going into the taverns on that day; but the houses are worse than the taverns. No stranger or traveler can therefore be entertained on a Sunday, which begins at sunset on Saturday, and continues until the same time on Sunday. At these two hours you see all their countenances change. Saturday evening the constable goes around into all the taverns of the city . . . stopping all noise and debauchery, which frequently causes him to stop his search, before his search causes the debauchery to stop. There is a penalty for cursing and swearing, such as they please to impose. Nevertheless, you discover little difference between this and other places. Drinking and fighting over there not less than elsewhere; and as to truth

and true godliness, you must not expect more of them than of others.-Long Island Hist. Society, Memoirs.

Alas, the children were not all they should be, either. Chief Justice Sewall tells us how for

his playing at Prayer-time and eating when Return Thanks he whipped his boy Joseph "pretty smartly." [We do not wonder that even Puritan theology failed to repress hunger, but it is a shock to find that there was enough juvenility left to assert itself at such a critical moment.]

Rev. Nathaniel Wood, in 1647, sums up best the Puritan view of toleration in its most viru. lent form.

To tolerate more these indifferents is not to deale indifferently to God. The power of all Religion and Ordinances, lies in their purity: their purity is their simplicity; then are mixtures pernicious. That state is wise, that will improve all paines and patience rather to compose, then tolerate differences in Religion. He that is willing to tolerate any religion, or discripant way of Religion, besides his own, unless it be in matters meerly indifferent, either doubts of his own, or is not sincere in it. He that is willing to tolerate any unsound Opinion, that his own may also be tolerated, though never so sound, will for a need hang God's Bible at the Devills girdle. Every toleration of false Religion, or Opinions hath as many errors and sins in it, as all the false Religions and Opinions it tolerats and one sound one more. That State that will give Liberty of Conscience in matters of Religion, must give Liberty of Conscience and Conversation in their Morall Laws, or else the Fiddle will be out of tune.

There is no rule given by God for any State to give an affirmative Toleration to any false Religion, or Opinion whatsoever; they must connive in some cases, but may not concede in any.-Hart, I, 394–95.

Maryland. It is a relief to turn from this to a colony where toleration was more worthily conceived of. In 1633 Lord Baltimore summed up his long instructions to the colonists with the injunction:

In fine . . . bee very carefull to do justice to every man w'th'out partiality [and the result was, as Alsop wrote in 1666, that] here the Roman Catholick and the Protestant Episcopal . concur in an unanimous parallel of friendship, and inseparable love infugled unto one another.