All that could be resolved on was to retain Robert Humphrys of the

Middle Temple to interpose such delays as the law permitted; but no

attempt was made at defence upon the merits of their cause, probably

because all knew well that no such defence was possible.

Meanwhile, for technical reasons, the _quo warranto_ had been abandoned,

and a writ of _scire facias_ had been issued out of chancery. On June

18, 1684, the lord keeper ordered the defendant to appear and plead

on the first day of the next Michaelmas Term. The time allowed was too

short for an answer from America, and judgment was entered by default.

[Footnote: Decree entered June 21, 1684; confirmed, Oct. 23. Palfrey,

iii. 393, note.] The decree was arbitrary, but no effort was made to

obtain relief. The story, however, is best told by Humphrys himself:--

“It is matter of astonishment to me, to think of the returnes I haue had

from you in the affaire of your charter; that a prudent people should

think soe little, in a thing of the greatest moment to them.

“Which charge I humbly justify in the following particulars, and yet at

the same time confess that all you could haue done would but haue gained

more time, and spent more money, since the breaches assigned against

you, were as obvious as vnanswerable, soe as all the service your

councill and friends could haue done you here, would haue onely served

to deplore, not prevent the inevitable loss.

“When I sent you the lord keeper’s order of the 18th of June 1684

requireing your appeareing peromptorily the first day of Michaelmas

Tearme then next, and pleading to yssue ... you may remember I sent with

it such drafts of lettres of attorney, to pass vnder your comon seale as

were essentially necessary to empower and justify such appearance, and

pleading for you here, which you could not imagine but that you

must haue had due time to returne them in, noe law compelling

impossibilities.

“When the first day of that Michaelmas Tearme came, and your lettres

of attorney neither were, nor indeed could be return’d ... I applyd

by councill to the Court of Chancery to enlarge that time urgeing the

impossibility of hauing a returne from you in the time allotted.... But

it is true my lord keeper cutt the ground from under us which wee stood

upon, by telling us the order of the 18th of June was a surprize upon

his lordship and that he ought not to haue granted it, for that every

corporacon ought to haue an attorney in every court to appeare to his

majesties suite, and that London had such.... However certainely you

ought when my lettres were come to you, nunc pro tune, to haue past the

lettres of attorney I sent you under your comon seale and sent them me,

and not to haue stopt them upon any private surmises from other hands

then his you had entrusted in that matter; and the rather for that

the judgments of law, espetially those taken by defaults for

non appearances, are not like the laws of the Medes and Persians

irrevocable, but are often on just grounds sett aside by the court here,

and the defendants admitted to plead as if noe such judgments had been

entred vp, and the very order it selfe of the 18th of June guies you a

home instance of it.

“And indeed I did therefore forbeare giueing you an account of a further

time being denyd, and the entry of judgment against you, expecting you

would before such lettre could haue reacht you haue sent me the lettres

of attorney vnder your corporacon seale that the court might haue been

moved to admitt your appearance and plea and waiued the judgment.

“But instead of those lettres of attorney under your seale you sent me

an address to his late majesty, I confess judiciously drawne. But it

is my wonder in which of your capacityes you could imagine it should be

presented to his majesty, for if as a corporacon, a body politique,

it should have been putt under your corporacon seale if as a private

comunity it should haue been signed by your order. But the paper has

neither private hand nor publique seale to it and soe must be lost....

“In this condicon what could a man doe for you, nothing publiquely for

he had noe warrant from you to justify the accon.” [Footnote: _Mass.

Archives_, cvi. 343.]

So perished the Puritan Commonwealth. The child of the Reformation,

its life sprang from the assertion of the freedom of the mind; but

this great and noble principle is fatal to the temporal power of a

priesthood, and during the supremacy of the clergy the government was

doomed to be both persecuting and repressive. Under no circumstance

could the theocracy have endured: it must have fallen by revolt from

within if not by attack from without. That Charles II. did in fact cause

its overthrow gives him a claim to our common gratitude, for he then

struck a decisive blow for the emancipation of Massachusetts; and thus

his successor was enabled to open before her that splendid career of

democratic constitutional liberty which was destined to become the basis

of the jurisprudence of the American Union.

CHAPTER VII.

THE WITCHCRAFT.

The history of the years between the dissolution of the Company of

Massachusetts Bay and the reorganization of the country by William III.

in 1692 has little bearing upon the development of the people; for the

presidency of Dudley and the administration of Andros were followed by

a revolution that paralyzed all movement. During the latter portion of

this interval the colony was represented at London by three agents, of

whom Increase Mather was the most influential, who used every effort

to obtain the reëstablishment of the old government; they met, however,

with insuperable obstacles. Quietly to resume was impossible; for the

obstinacy of the clergy, in refusing all compromise with Charles II.,

had caused the patent to be cancelled; and thus a new grant had become

necessary. Nor was this all, for the attorney and solicitor general,

with whom the two chief justices concurred, [Footnote: _Parentator_,

p. 139] gave it as their opinion that, supposing no decree had been

rendered, and the same powers were exercised as before, a writ of _scire

facias_ would certainly be issued, upon which a similar judgment would

inevitably be entered. These considerations, however, became immaterial,

as the king was a statesman, and had already decided upon his policy.

His views had little in common with those held by the Massachusetts

ecclesiastics, and when the Rev. Mr. Mather first read the instrument in

which they had been embodied, he declared he “would sooner part with his

life than consent unto such minutes.” [Footnote: _Parentator_, p. 134.]

He grew calmer, however, when told that his “consent was not expected

nor desired;” and with that energy and decision for which he was

remarkable, at once secured the patronage.

The constitutional aspect of the Provincial Charter is profoundly

interesting, and it will be considered in its legal bearings hereafter.

Its political tendencies, however, first demand attention, for it

wrought a complete social revolution, since it overthrew the

temporal power of the church. Massachusetts, Maine, and Plymouth were

consolidated, and within them toleration was established, except in

regard to Papists; the religious qualification was swept away, and

in its stead freeholders of forty shillings per annum, or owners of

personal property to the value of forty pounds sterling, were

admitted to the franchise; the towns continued to elect the house of

representatives, and the whole Assembly chose the council, subject to

the approval of the executive. [Footnote: Hutch. _Hist._ ii. 15, 16]

The governor, lieutenant-governor, and secretary were appointed by

the crown; the governor had a veto, and the king reserved the right to

disallow legislation within three years of the date of its enactment.

Thus the theocracy fell at a single blow; and it is worthy of remark

that thenceforward prosecutions for sedition became unknown among the

people of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Yet, though the clerical

oligarchy was no longer absolute, the ministers still exerted a

prodigious influence upon opinion. Not only did they speak with all the

authority inherited with the traditions of the past; not only had they

or their predecessors trained the vast majority of the people from their

cradles to reverence them more than anything on earth, but their compact

organization was as yet unimpaired, and at its head stood the two

Mathers, the pastors of the Old North Church. Thus venerated and thus

led, the elders were still able to appeal to the popular superstition

and fanaticism with terrible effect.

Widely differing judgments have been formed of these two celebrated

divines; the ecclesiastical view is perhaps well summed up by the Rev.

John Eliot, who thus describes the President of Harvard: “He was the

father of the New England clergy, and his name and character were

held in veneration, not only by those, who knew him, but by succeeding

generations.” [Footnote: _Biographical Dictionary_, p. 312.] All must

admit his ability and learning, while in sanctimoniousness of deportment

he was unrivalled. His son Cotton says he had such a “gravity as made

all sorts of persons, wherever he came, to be struck with a sensible awe

of his presence, ... yea, if he laughed on them, they believed it not.”

“His very countenance carried the force of a sermon with it.” [Footnote:

_Parentator_, p. 40.] He kept a strict account of his mental condition,

and always was pleased when able to enter in his diary at the end of the

day, “heart serious.” He was unctuous in his preaching, and wept much

in the pulpit; he often mentions being “quickened at the Lord’s table

[during which] tears gushed from me before the Lord,” [Footnote:

_Parentator_, p. 48.] but of his self-sacrifice, his mercy, and his

truth, his own acts and words are the best evidence that remain.

When the new government was about to be put in operation, an

extraordinary amount of patronage lay at the disposal of the crown;

for, beside the regular executive officers, the entire council had to

be named, since they could not be elected until a legislature had been

organized to choose them. Increase Mather, Elisha Cooke, and Thomas

Oakes were acting as agents, and all had been bitterly opposed to the

new charter; but of the three, the English ministers thought Mather the

most important to secure. And now an odd coincidence happened in

the life of this singular man. He suddenly one day announced himself

convinced that the king’s project was not so intolerable as to be

unworthy of support; and then it very shortly transpired that he

had been given all the spoil before the patent had passed the

seals. [Footnote: Palfrey, iv. 85.] The proximity of these events is

interesting as bearing on the methods of ecclesiastical statesmen, and

it is also instructive to observe how thorough a master of the situation

this eminent divine proved himself to be. He not only appointed all his

favorite henchmen to office, but he rigidly excluded his colleagues at

London, who had continued their opposition, and every one else who had

any disposition to be independent. His creature, Sir William Phips, was

made governor; William Stoughton, who was bred for the church, and whose

savage bigotry endeared him to the clergy, was lieutenant-governor; and

the council was so packed that his excellent son broke into a shout of

triumph when he heard the news:--

“The time has come! the set time has come! I am now to receive an answer

of so many prayers. All the councellors of the province are of my own

father’s nomination; and my father-in-law, with several related unto me,

and several brethren of my own church are among them. The governor

of the province is not my enemy, but one whom I baptized; namely, Sir

William Phips, one of my own flock, and one of my dearest friends.”

[Footnote: Cotton Mather’s _Diary_; Quincy’s _History of Harvard_,

i. 60.] Such was the government the theocracy left the country as its

legacy when its own power had passed away, and dearly did Massachusetts

rue that fatal gift in her paroxysms of agony and blood.

At the close of the seventeenth century the belief in witchcraft

was widespread, and among the more ignorant well-nigh universal. The

superstition was, moreover, fostered by the clergy, who, in adopting

this policy, were undoubtedly actuated by mixed motives. Their credulity

probably made them for the most part sincere in the unbounded confidence

they professed in the possibility of compacts between the devil and

mankind; but, nevertheless, there is abundant evidence in their writings

of their having been keenly alive to the fact that men horror-stricken

at the sight of the destruction of their wives and children by magic

would grovel in the submission of abject terror at the feet of the

priest who promised to deliver them.

The elders began the agitation by sending out a paper of proposals for

collecting stories of apparitions and witchcrafts, and in obedience to

their wish Increase Mather published his “Illustrious Providences” in

1683-4. Two chapters of this book were devoted to sorceries, and the

reverend author took occasion to intimate his opinion that those who

might doubt the truth of his relations were probably themselves either

heretics or wizards. This movement of the clergy seems to have highly

inflamed the popular imagination, [Footnote: Hutch. _Hist._ ii. 24.]

yet no immediate disaster followed; and the nervous exaltation did not

become deadly until 1688. In the autumn of that year four children of a

Boston mason named Goodwin began to mimic the symptoms they had so

often heard described; the father, who was a pious man, called in

the ministers of Boston and Charlestown, who fasted and prayed, and

succeeded in delivering the youngest, who was five. Meanwhile, one of

the daughters had “cried out upon” an unfortunate Irish washerwoman,

with whom she had quarrelled. Cotton Mather was now in his element.

He took the eldest girl home with him and tried a great number of

interesting experiments as to the relative power of Satan and the Lord;

among others he gravely relates how when the sufferer was tormented

elsewhere he would carry her struggling to his own study, into which

entering, she stood immediately upon her feet, and cried out, “They are

gone! They are gone! They say they cannot--God won’t let ‘em come here.”

[Footnote: _Memorable Providences_, pp. 27, 28]

It is not credible that an educated and a sane man could ever have

honestly believed in the absurd stuff which he produced as evidence of

the supernatural; his description of the impudence of the children is

amazing.

“They were divers times very near burning or drowning of themselves, but

... by their own pittiful and seasonable cries for help still procured

their deliverance: which made me consider, whether the little ones had

not their angels, in the plain sense of our Saviour’s intimation.... And

sometimes, tho’ but seldome, they were kept from eating their meals, by

having their teeth sett when they carried any thing to their mouthes.”

[Footnote: _Idem_, pp. 15-17.]

And it was upon such evidence that the washerwoman was hanged. There is

an instant in the battle as the ranks are wavering, when the calmness

of the officers will avert the rout; and as to have held their soldiers

then is deemed their highest honor, so to have been found wanting is

their indelible disgrace; the people stood poised upon the panic’s

brink, their pastors lashed them in.

Cotton Mather forthwith published a terrific account of the ghostly

crisis, mixed with denunciations of the Sadducee or Atheist who

disbelieved; and to the book was added a preface, written by the four

other clergymen who had assisted with their prayers, the character of

which may be judged by a single extract. “The following account

will afford to him that shall read with observation, a further clear

confirmation, that, there is both a God, and a devil, and witchcraft:

that there is no outward affliction, but what God may, (and sometimes

doth) permit Satan to trouble his people withal.” [Footnote: _Memorable

Providences_, Preface.] Not content with this, Mather goaded his

congregation into frenzy from the pulpit. “Consider also, the misery of

them whom witchcraft may be let loose upon. What is it to fall into

the hands of devils?... O what a direful thing is it, to be prickt with

pins, and stab’d with knives all over, and to be fill’d all over with

broken bones? ‘Tis impossible to reckon up the varieties of miseries

which those monsters inflict where they can have a blow. No less than

death, and that a languishing and a terrible death will satisfie the

rage of those formidable dragons.” [Footnote: _Discourse on Witchcraft_,

p. 19.] The pest was sure to spread in a credulous community, fed by

their natural leaders with this morbid poison, and it next broke out

in Salem village in February, 1691-2. A number of girls had become

intensely excited by the stories they had heard, and two of them, who

belonged to the family of the clergyman, were seized with the

usual symptoms. Of Mr. Parris it is enough to say that he began the

investigation with a frightful relish. Other ministers were called

in, and prayer-meetings lasting all day were held, with the result

of throwing the patients into convulsions. [Footnote: Calef’s _More

Wonders_, p. 90 _et seq._] Then the name of the witch was asked, and the

girls were importuned to make her known. They refused at first, but soon

the pressure became too strong, and the accusations began. Among the

earliest to be arrested and examined was Goodwife Cory. Mr. Noyes,

teacher of Salem, began with prayer, and when she was brought in the

sufferers “did vehemently accuse her of afflicting them, by biting,

pinching, strangling, &c., and they said, they did in their fits see

her likeness coming to them, and bringing a book for them to sign.”

[Footnote: _Idem_, p. 92] By April the number of informers and of the

suspected had greatly increased and the prisons began to fill. Mr.

Parris behaved like a madman; not only did he preach inflammatory

sermons, but he conducted the examinations, and his questions were such

that the evidence was in truth nothing but what he put in the mouths of

the witnesses; yet he seems to have been guilty of the testimony it was

his sacred duty to truly record [Footnote: _Grounds of Complaint against

Parris_, Section 6; _More Wonders_, p. 96 (_i.e._ 56).]. And in all this

he appears to have had the approval and the aid of Mr. Noyes. Such was

the crisis when Sir William Phips landed on the 14th of May, 1692;

he was the Mathers’ tool, and the result could have been foretold.

Uneducated and credulous, he was as clay in the hands of his creators;

and his first executive act was to cause the miserable prisoners to

be fettered. Jonathan Cary has described what befell his wife: “Next

morning the jaylor put irons on her legs (having received such a

command) the weight of them was about eight pounds; these irons and

her other afflictions, soon brought her into convulsion fits, so that I

thought she would have died that night.” [Footnote: _More Wonders_, p.

97]

At the beginning of June the governor, by an arbitrary act, created a

court to try the witches, and at its head put William Stoughton. Even

now it is impossible to read the proceedings of this sanguinary tribunal

without a shudder, and it has left a stain upon the judiciary of

Massachusetts that can never be effaced.

Two weeks later the opinion of the elders was asked, as it had been of

old, and they recommended the “speedy and vigorous prosecutions of such

as have rendered themselves obnoxious,” [Footnote: Hutch. _Hist._

ii. 53.] nor did their advice fall upon unwilling ears. Stoughton was

already at work, and certain death awaited all who were dragged before

that cruel and bloodthirsty bigot; even when the jury acquitted, the

court refused to receive the verdict. The accounts given of the legal

proceedings seem monstrous. The preliminary examinations were conducted

amid such “hideous clamours and screechings,” that frequently the voice

of the defendant was drowned, and if a defence was attempted at a trial,

the victim was browbeaten and mocked by the bench. [Footnote: _More

Wonders_, p. 102.]

The ghastly climax was reached in the case of George Burroughs, who had

been the clergyman at Wells. At his trial the evidence could hardly be

heard by reason of the fits of the sufferers. “The chief judge asked

the prisoner, who he thought hindered these witnesses from giving

their testimonies? and he answered, he supposed it was the devil. That

honourable person then replied, How comes the devil so loath to have any

testimony born against you? Which cast him into very great confusion.”

Presently the informers saw the ghosts of his two dead wives, whom

they charged him with having murdered, stand before him “crying for

vengeance;” yet though much appalled, he steadily denied that they were

there. He also roused his judges’ ire by asserting that “there neither

are, nor ever were, witches.” [Footnote: _Idem_, pp. 115-119.]

He and those to die with him were carried through the streets of Salem

in a cart. As he climbed the ladder he called God to witness he was

innocent, and his words were so pathetic that the people sobbed aloud,

and it seemed as though he might be rescued even as he stood beneath the

tree. Then when at last he swung above them, Cotton Mather rode among

the throng and told them of his guilt, and how the fiend could come to

them as an angel of light, and so the work went on. They cut him down

and dragged him by his halter to a shallow hole among the rocks, and

threw him in, and there they lay together with the rigid hand of the

wizard Burroughs still pointing upward through his thin shroud of earth.

[Footnote: _More Wonders_, pp. 103, 104.]

By October it seemed as though the bonds of society were dissolving;

nineteen persons had been hanged, one had been pressed to death, and

eight lay condemned; a number had fled, but their property had been

seized and they were beggars; the prisons were choked, while more than

two hundred were accused and in momentary fear of arrest; [Footnote:

_Idem_, p. 110.] even two dogs had been killed. The plague propagated

itself; for the only hope for those cried out upon was to confess their

guilt and turn informers. Thus no one was safe. Mr. Willard, pastor

of the Old South, who began to falter, was threatened; the wife of Mr.

Hale, pastor of Beverly, who had been one of the great leaders of the

prosecutions, was denounced; Lady Phips herself was named. But the race

who peopled New England had a mental vigor which even the theocracy

could not subdue, and Massachusetts had among her sons liberal and

enlightened men, whose voice was heard, even in the madness of the

terror. Of these, the two Brattles, Robert Calef, and John Leverett

were the foremost; and they served their mother well, though the debt of

gratitude and honor which she owes them she has never yet repaid.

On the 8th, four days before the meeting of the legislature, and

probably at the first moment it could be done with safety, Thomas

Brattle wrote an admirable letter, [Footnote: _Mass. Hist. Coll._ first

series, v. 61.] in which he exposed the folly and wickedness of the

delusion with all the energy the temper of the time would bear; had he

miscalculated, his error of judgment would probably have cost him his

life. At the meeting of the General Court the illegal and blood-stained

commission came to an end, and as the reaction slowly and surely set

in, Phips began to feel alarm lest he should Be called to account in

England; accordingly, he tried to throw the blame on Stoughton: “When

I returned, I found people much dissatisfied at the proceedings of the

court; ... The deputy-governor, [Stoughton] notwithstanding, persisted

vigorously in the same method.... When I put an end to the court, there

was at least fifty persons in prison, in great misery by reason of the

extreme cold and their poverty.... I permitted a special superior

court to be held at Salem, ... on the third day of January, the

lieutenant-governor being chief judge.... All ... were cleared,

saving three.... The deputy-governor signed a warrant for their speedy

execution, and also of five others who were condemned at the former

court.... But ... I sent a reprieve; ... the lieutenant-governor upon

this occasion was enraged and filled with passionate anger, and

refused to sit upon the bench at a superior court, at that time held

at Charlestown; and, indeed, hath from the beginning hurried on these

matters with great precipitancy, and by his warrant hath caused the

estates, goods, and chattels of the executed to be seized and disposed

of without my knowledge or consent.” [Footnote: Phips to the Earl

of Nottingham, Feb. 21, 1693. Palfrey, iv. 112, note 2.] Some months

earlier, also, just before the meeting of the legislature, he had called

on Cotton Mather to defend him against the condemnation he had even then

begun to feel, and the elder had responded with a volume which remains

as a memorial of him and his compeers [Footnote: _Wonders of the

Invisible World_.] He gave thanks for the blood that had already flowed,

and “prayed to God for more.” They were some of the gracious words,

inserted in the advice, which many of the neighbouring ministers, did

this summer humbly lay before our honourable judges: ‘We cannot but with

all thankfulness, acknowledge the success which the merciful God has

given unto the sedulous and assiduous endeavours of our honourable

rulers, to detect the abominable witchcrafts which have been committed

in the country; humbly praying that the discovery of those mysterious

and mischievous wickednesses, may be perfected.’ If in the midst of the

many dissatisfactions among us, the publication of these trials, may

promote such a pious thankfulness unto God, for justice being so far,

executed among us, I shall rejoyce that God is glorified; and pray

that no wrong steps of ours may ever sully any of his glorious works.”

[Footnote: _Wonders of the Invisible World_, pp. 82, 83.]

“These witches ... have met in hellish randez-vouszes.... In these

hellish meetings, these monsters have associated themselves to do no

less a thing than to destroy the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, in

these parts of the world.... We are truly come into a day, which by

being well managed might be very glorious, for the exterminating of

those, accursed things,... But if we make this day quarrelsome,...

Alas, O Lord, my flesh trembles for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy

judgments.” [Footnote: _Idem_, pp. 49-60.]

While reading such words the streets of Salem rise before the eyes,

with the cart dragging Martha Cory to the gallows while she protests her

innocence, and there, at her journey’s end, at the gibbet’s foot, stands

the Rev. Nicholas Noyes, pointing to the dangling corpses, and saying:

“What a sad thing it is to see eight firebrands of hell hanging there.”

[Footnote: _More Wonders_, p. 108.]

The sequence of cause and effect is sufficiently obvious. Although at a

moment when the panic had got beyond control, even the most ultra of the

clergy had been forced by their own danger to counsel moderation, the

conservatives were by no means ready to abandon their potent allies from

the lower world; the power they gave was too alluring. “‘Tis a strange

passage recorded by Mr. Clark, in the life of his father, That the

people of his parish refusing to be reclaimed from their Sabbath

breaking, by all the zealous testimonies which that good man bore

against it; at last [one night] ... there was heard a great noise,

with rattling of chains, up and down the town, and an horrid scent of

brimstone.... Upon which the guilty consciences of the wretches, told

them, the devil was come to fetch them away; and it so terrify’d them,

that an eminent reformation follow’d the sermons which that man of God

preached thereupon.” [Footnote: _Wonders of the Invisible World_, p.

65.] They therefore saw the constant acquittals, the abandonment of

prosecutions, and the growth of incredulity with regret. The next

year Cotton Mather laid bare the workings of their minds with cynical

frankness. “The devils have with most horrendous operations broke in

upon our neighbourhood, and God has at such a rate overruled all the

fury and malice of those devils, that ... the souls of many, especially

of the rising generation, have been thereby waken’d unto some

acquaintance with religion; our young people who belonged unto the

praying meetings, of both sexes, apart would ordinarily spend whole

nights by the whole weeks together in prayers and psalms upon these

occasions; ... and some scores of other young people, who were strangers

to real piety, were now struck with the lively demonstrations of hell

... before their eyes.... In the whole--the devil got just nothing, but

God got praises, Christ got subjects, the Holy Spirit got temples, the

church got addition, and the souls of men got everlasting benefits.”

[Footnote: _More Wonders_, p. 12.]

Mather prided himself on what he had done. “I am not so vain as to say

that any wisdom or virtue of mine did contribute unto this good order

of things; but I am so just as to say, I did not hinder this good.”

[Footnote: _Idem_, p. 12.] Men with such beliefs, and lured onward

by such temptations, were incapable of letting the tremendous power

superstition gave them slip from their grasp without an effort on their

own behalf; and accordingly it was not long before the Mathers were once

more at work. On the 10th of September, 1693, or about nine months after

the last spasms at Salem, and when the belief in enchantments was fast

falling into disrepute, a girl named Margaret Rule was taken with

the accustomed symptoms in Boston. Forthwith these two godly divines

repaired to her bedside, and this is what took place:--

* * * * *

Then Mr. M---- father and son came up, and others with them, in the

whole were about thirty or forty persons, they being sat, the father on

a stool, and the son upon the bedside by her, the son began to question

her:

Margaret Rule, how do you do? Then a pause without any answer.

_Question._ What. Do there a great many witches sit upon you? _Answer._

Yes.

_Question._ Do you not know that there is a hard master?

Then she was in a fit. He laid his hand upon her face and nose, but, as

he said, without perceiving breath; then he brush’d her on the face with

his glove, and rubb’d her stomach (her breast not being covered with the

bed clothes) and bid others do so too, and said it eased her, then she

revived.

_Q._ Don’t you know there is a hard master? _A._ Yes.

_Reply._ Don’t serve that hard master, you know who.

_Q._ Do you believe? Then again she was in a fit, and he again rub’d her

breast &c.... He wrought his fingers before her eyes and asked her if

she saw the witches? _A._ No....

_Q._ Who is it that afflicts you? _A._ I know not, there is a great many

of them....

_Q._ You have seen the black man, hant you? _A._ No.

_Reply._ I hope you never shall.

_Q._ You have had a book offered you, hant you?

_A._ No.

_Q._ The brushing of you gives you ease, don’t it?

_A._ Yes. She turn’d herselfe, and a little groan’d.

_Q._ Now the witches scratch you, and pinch you, and bite you, don’t

they? _A._ Yes. Then he put his hand upon her breast and belly, viz. on

the clothes over her, and felt a living thing, as he said; which moved

the father also to feel, and some others.

_Q._ Don’t you feel the live thing in the bed?

_A._ No....

_Q._ Shall we go to pray ... spelling the word.

_A._ Yes. The father went to prayer for perhaps half an hour, chiefly

against the power of the devil and witchcraft, and that God would bring

out the afflicters.... After prayer he [the son] proceeded.

_Q._ You did not hear when we were at prayer did you? _A._ Yes.

_Q._ You don’t hear always? you don’t hear sometimes past a word or two,

do you? _A._ No. Then turning him about said, this is just another Mercy

Short....

_Q._ What does she eat or drink? _A._ Not eat at all; but drink rum.

[Footnote: _More Wonders_, pp. 13, 14.]

* * * * *

To sanctify to the godly the ravings of this drunken and abandoned wench

was a solemn joy to the heart of this servant of Christ, who gave his

life to “unwearied cares and pains, to rescue the miserable from the

lions and bears of hell,” [Footnote: _Idem_, p. 10.] therefore he

prepared another tract. But his hour was well-nigh come. Though it was

impossible that retribution should be meted out to him for his crimes,

at least he did not escape unscathed, for Calef and the Brattles, who

had long been on his father’s track and his, now seized him by the

throat. He knew well they had been with him in the chamber of Margaret

Rule, that they had gathered all the evidence; and so when Calef sent

him a challenge to stand forth and defend himself, he shuffled and

equivocated.

At length a rumor spread abroad that a volume was to be published

exposing the whole black history, and then the priest began to cower.

His Diary is full of his prayers and lamentations. “The book is printed,

and the impression is this week arrived here.... I set myself to humble

myself before the Lord under these humbling and wondrous dispensations,

and obtain the pardon of my sins, that have rendered me worthy of such

dispensations....

“28d. 10m. Saturday.--The Lord has permitted Satan to raise an

extraordinary storm upon my father and myself. All the rage of Satan

against the holy churches of the Lord falls upon us. First Calf’s book,

and then Coleman’s, do set the people in a mighty ferment. All the

adversaries of the churches lay their heads together, as if, by blasting

of us, they hoped utterly to blow up all. The Lord fills my soul with

consolations, inexpressible consolations, when I think on my conformity

to my Lord Jesus Christ in the injuries and reproaches that are cast

upon me....

“5d. 2m. Saturday [1701].--I find the enemies of the churches are set

with an implacable enmity against myself; and one vile fool, namely, R.

Calf, is employed by them to go on with more of his filthy scribbles to

hurt my precious opportunities of glorifying my Lord Jesus Christ. I had

need be much in prayer unto my glorious Lord that he would preserve his

poor servant from the malice of this evil generation, and of that vile

man particularly.” [Footnote: _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._ 1855-58, pp.

290-293.]

“More Wonders of the Invisible World” appeared in 1700, and such was the

terror the clergy still inspired it is said it had to be sent to London

to be printed, and when it was published no bookseller in Boston dared

to offer it in his shop. [Footnote: _Some Few Remarks_, p. 9.] Yet

though it was burnt in the college yard by the order of Increase

Mather, it was widely read, and dealt the deathblow to the witchcraft

superstition of New England. It did more than this: it may be said to

mark an era in the intellectual development of Massachusetts, for it

shook to its centre that moral despotism which the pastors still

kept almost unimpaired over the minds of their congregations, by

demonstrating to the people the necessity of thinking for themselves.

But what the fate of its authors would have been had the priests still

ruled may be guessed by the onslaught made on them by those who sat at

the Mathers’ feet. “Spit on, Calf; thou shalt be but like the viper on

Pauls hand, easily shaken off, and without any damage to the servant of

the Lord.” [Footnote: _Idem_, p. 22.]

CHAPTER VIII.

BRATTLE CHURCH.

If the working of the human mind is mechanical, the quality of its

action must largely depend upon the training it receives. Viewed as

civilizing agents, therefore, systems of education might be tested by

their tendency to accelerate or retard the intellectual development

of the race. The proposition is capable of being presented with almost

mathematical precision; the receptive faculty begins to fail at a

comparatively early age; thereafter new opinions are assimilated with

increasing difficulty until the power is lost. This progressive period

of life, which is at best brief, may, however, be indefinitely shortened

by the interposition of artificial obstacles, which have to be overcome

by a waste of time and energy, before the reason can act with freedom;

and when these obstacles are sufficiently formidable, the whole time

is consumed and men are stationary. The most effectual impediments

are those prejudices which are so easily implanted in youth, and which

acquire tremendous power when based on superstitious terrors. Herein,

then, lies the radical divergence between theological and scientific

training: the one, by inculcating that tradition is sacred, that

accurate investigation is sacrilege, certain to be visited with

terrific punishment, and that the highest moral virtue is submission to

authority, seeks to paralyze exact thought, and to produce a condition

in which dogmatic statements of fact, and despotic rules of conduct,

will be received with abject resignation; the other, by stimulating the

curiosity, endeavors to provoke inquiry, and, by encouraging a

scrutiny of what is obscure, tries to put the mind in an impartial and

questioning attitude toward all the phenomena of the universe.

The two methods are irreconcilable, and spring from the great primary

instincts which are called conservatism and liberality. Necessarily the

movement of any community must correspond exactly with the preponderance

of liberalism. Where the theological incubus is unresisted it takes the

form of a sacred caste, as among the Hindoos; appreciable advance then

ceases, except from some external pressure, such as conquest. The same

tendencies in a mitigated form are seen in Spain, whereas Germany is

scientific.

Such being the ceaseless conflict between these natural forces, the

vantage-points for which the opposing parties have always struggled in

western Europe are the pulpits and the universities. Through women the

church can reach children at their most impressionable age, while at

the universities the teachers are taught. Obviously, if a priesthood can

control both positions their influence must be immense. At the beginning

of any movement the conservatives are almost necessarily in possession,

and their worst reverses have come from defection from within; for

unless their organization is so perfect as not only to be animated by

a single purpose, but capable of being controlled by a single will,

liberals will penetrate within the fold, and if they can maintain their

footing and preach with the authority of the ancient tradition it leads

to revolution. It was thus the Reformation was accomplished.

The clergy of Massachusetts, with the true priestly instinct, took in

the bearings of their situation from the instant they recognized that

their political supremacy was passing away, and in order to keep their

organization in full vigor they addressed themselves with unabated

energy to enforcing the discipline which had been established; at the

same time they set the ablest of their number on guard at Harvard. But

the task was beyond their strength; they might as well have tried to dam

the rising tide with sand.

There is a limit to the capacity of even the most gifted man, and

Increase Mather committed a fatal error when he tried to be professor,

clergyman, and statesman at once. He was, it is true, made president in

1685, but the next year John Leverett and William Brattle were chosen

tutors and fellows, who soon developed into ardent liberals; so it

happened that when the reverend rector went abroad in 1688, in his

character of politician, he left the college in the complete control of

his adversaries. He was absent four years, and during this interval the

man was educated who was destined to overthrow the Cambridge Platform,

the corner-stone of the conservative power.

Benjamin Colman was one of Leverett’s favorite pupils and the intimate

friend of Pemberton. As he was to be a minister, he stayed at Cambridge

until he took his master’s degree in 1695; he then sailed at once

for England in the Swan. When she had been some weeks at sea she was

attacked by a French privateer, who took her after a sharp action.

During the fight Colman attracted attention by his coolness; but he

declared that though he fired like the rest, “he was sensible of no

courage but of a great deal of fear; and when they had received two

or three broadsides he wondered when his courage would come, as he had

heard others talk.” [Footnote: _Life of B. Colman_, p. 6.]

After the capture the Frenchmen stripped him and put him in the hold,

and had it not been for a Madame Allaire, who kept his money for him, he

might very possibly have perished from the exposure of an imprisonment

in France, for his lungs were delicate. Moreover, at this time of his

life he was always a pauper, for he was not only naturally generous, but

so innocent and confiding as to fall a victim to any clumsy sharper. Of

course he reached London penniless and in great depression of spirits;

but he soon became known among the dissenting clergy, and at length

settled at Bath, where he preached two years. He seems to have formed

singularly strong friendships while in England, one of which was with

Mr. Walter Singer, at whose house he passed much time, and who wrote him

at parting, “Methinks there is one place vacant in my affections, which

nobody can fill beside you. But this blessing was too great for me, and

God has reserved it for those that more deserved it.--I cannot but hope

sometimes that Providence has yet in store so much happiness for me,

that I shall yet see you.” [Footnote: _Life of B. Colman_, p. 48.]

Meanwhile opinion was maturing fast at home; the passions of the

witchcraft convulsion had gone deep, and in 1697 a movement began

under the guidance of Leverett and the Brattles to form a liberal

Congregational church. The close on which the meetinghouse was to stand

was conveyed by Thomas Brattle to trustees on January 10, 1698, and

from the outset there seems to have been no doubt as to whom the pastor

should be. On the 10th of May, 1699, a formal invitation was dispatched

to Colman by a committee, of which Thomas Brattle was chairman, and it

was accompanied by letters from many prominent liberals. Leverett wrote,

“I shall exceedingly rejoice at your return to your country. We want

persons of your character. The affair offered to your consideration is

of the greatest moment.” William Brattle was even more emphatic, while

Pemberton assured him that “the gentlemen who solicit your return are

mostly known to you--men of repute and figure, from whom you may expect

generous treatment; ... I believe your return will be pleasing to all

that know you, I am sure it will be inexpressibly so to your unfeigned

friend and servant.” [Footnote: _Life of B. Colman_, pp. 43, 44.] It

was, however, thought prudent to have him ordained in London, since

there was no probability that the clergy of Massachusetts would perform

the rite. When he landed in November, after an absence of four years,

he was in the flush of early manhood, highly trained for theological

warfare, having seen the world, and by no means in awe of his old

pastor, the reverend president of Harvard.

The first step after his arrival was to declare the liberal policy,

and this was done in a manifesto which was published almost at once.

[Footnote: _History of Brattle St. Church_, p. 20.] The efficiency of

the Congregational organization depended upon the perfection of the

guard which the ministers and the congregations mutually kept over each

other. On the one hand no dangerous element could creep in among the

people through the laxness of the elder, since all candidates for the

communion had to pass through the ordeal of a public examination; on

the other the orthodoxy of the ministers was provided for, not only by

restricting the elective body to the communicants, but by the power of

the ordained clergy to “except against any election of a pastor who

... may be ... unfit for the common service of the gospel.” [Footnote:

Propositions determined by the Assembly of Ministers. _Magnalia_, bk. 5,

Hist. Remarks, Section 8.]

The declaration of the Brattle Street “undertakers” cut this system

at the root, for they announced their intention to dispense with the

relation of experiences, thus practically throwing their communion open

to all respectable persons who would confess the Westminster Creed; and

more fatal still, they absolutely destroyed the homogeneousness of the

ecclesiastical constituency: “We cannot confine the right of chusing

a minister to the male communicants alone, but we think that every

baptized adult person who contributes to the maintenance, should have

a vote in electing.” [Footnote: _History of Brattle St. Church_, p. 25,

Prop. 16.]

They also proposed several innovations of minor importance, such

as relaxing the baptismal regulations, and somewhat changing the

established service by having the Bible read without comment.

Their temporal power was gone, toleration was the law of the land

they had once possessed, and now an onslaught was to be made upon the

intellectual ascendency which the clergy felt certain of maintaining

over their people, if only they could enforce obedience in their own

ranks. The danger, too, was the more alarming because so insidious; for,

though their propositions seemed reasonable, it was perfectly obvious

that should the liberals succeed in forcing their church within the pale

of the orthodox communion, discipline must end, and the pulpits might

at any time be filled with men capable of teaching the most subversive

doctrines. Although such might be the inexorable destiny of the

Massachusetts hierarchy, it was not in ecclesiastical human nature

to accept the dispensation with meekness, and the utterances of the

conservative divines seem hardly to breathe the spirit of that gospel

they preached at such interminable length.

Yet it was very difficult to devise a scheme of resistance. They were

powerless to coerce; for, although Increase Mather had taken care,

when at the summit of his power, to have a statute passed which had the

effect of reënacting the Cambridge Platform, it had been disapproved by

the king; therefore, moral intimidation was the only weapon which could

be employed. Now, aside from the fact that men like Thomas Brattle

and Leverett were not timorous, their position was at this moment very

strong from the stand they had taken in the witchcraft troubles, and

worst of all, they were openly supported by William Brattle, who was

already a minister, and by Pemberton, who was a fellow of Harvard, and

soon to be ordained.

The attack was, however, begun by Mr. Higginson, and Mr. Noyes, of

witchcraft memory, in a long rebuke, whose temper may be imagined from

such a sentence as this: “We cannot but think you might have entered

upon your declaration with more reverence and humility than so solemnly

to appeal to God, your judge, that you do it with all the sincerity and

seriousness the nature of your engagement commands from you; seeing you

were most of you much unstudied in the controversial points of church

order and discipline, and yet did not advise with the neighboring

churches ... but with a great deal of confidence and freedom, set up

by yourselves.” The letter then goes on to adjure them to revoke the

manifesto, and adjust matters with the “neighbouring elders,” “that

so the right hand of fellowship may be given to your pastor by other

pastors, ... and that you may not be the beginning of a schism that will

dishonour God, ... and be a matter of triumph to the bad.” [Footnote:

_History of Brattle St. Church_, pp. 29-37.]

Cotton Mather’s Diary, however, gives the most pleasing view of the high

churchmen:--

“1699. 7th, 10th m. (Dec.) I see another day of temptation begun upon

the town and land. A company of headstrong men in the town, the chief of

whom are full of malignity to the holy ways of our churches, have built

in the town another meetinghouse. To delude many better meaning men in

their own company, and the churches in the neighbourhood, they passed a

vote in the foundation of the proceedings that they would not vary from

the practice of these churches, except in one little particular.

“But a young man born and bred here, and hence gone for England, is

now returned hither at their invitation, equipped with an ordination to

qualify him for all that is intended on his returning and arriving here;

these fallacious people desert their vote, and without the advice or

knowledge of the ministers in the vicinity, they have published, under

the title of a manifesto, certain articles that utterly subvert our

churches, and invite an ill party, through all the country, to throw

all into confusion on the first opportunities. This drives the ministers

that would be faithful unto the Lord Jesus Christ, and his interests in

the churches, unto a necessity of appearing for their defence. No little

part of these actions must unavoidably fall to my share. I have already

written a large monitory letter to these innovators, which, though most

lovingly penned, yet enrages their violent and imperious lusts to carry

on the apostacy.”

“1699. 5th d. 11th m. (Saturday.) I see Satan beginning a terrible shake

in the churches of New England, and the innovators that had set up a new

church in Boston (a new one indeed!) have made a day of temptation among

us. The men are ignorant, arrogant, obstinate, and full of malice and

slander, and they fill the land with lies, in the misrepresentations

whereof I am a very singular sufferer. Wherefore I set apart this day

again for prayer in my study, to cry mightily unto God.” [Footnote:

_History of Harvard_, Quincy, i. 486, 487, App. x.]

“21st d. 11th m. The people of the new church in Boston, who, by their

late manifesto, went on in an ill way, and in a worse frame, and

the town was filled with sin, and especially with slanders, wherein

especially my father and myself were sufferers. We two, with many

prayers and studies, and with humble resignation of our names unto

the Lord, prepared a faithful antidote for our churches against the

infection of the example, which we feared this company had given them,

and we put it into the press. But when the first sheet was near composed

at the press, I stopped it, with a desire to make one attempt more for

the bringing of this people to reason. I drew up a proposal, and, with

another minister, carried it unto them, who at first rejected it, but

afterward so far embraced it, as to promise that they will the next

week publicly recognize their covenant with God and one another, and

therewithall declare their adherence to the Heads of Agreement of the

United Brethren in England, and request the communion of our churches in

that foundation.” [Footnote: _History of Harvard_, i. 487, App. x.]

This last statement is marked by the exuberance of imagination for which

the Mathers are so famed. In truth, Dr. Mather had nothing to do with

the settlement. The facts were these: after Brattle Street Church

was organized, the congregation voted that Mr. Colman should ask the

ministers of the town to keep a day of prayer with them. On the 28th of

December, 1699, they received the following suggestive answer:--

* * * * *

MR. COLMAN:

Whereas you have signified to us that your society have desired us to

join with them in a public fast, in order to your intended communion,

our answer is, that as we have formerly once and again insinuated

unto you, that if you would in due manner lay aside what you call your

manifesto, and resolve and declare that you will keep to the heads of

agreement on which the United Brethren in London have made their

union, and then publicly proceed with the presence, countenance, and

concurrence of the New England churches, we should be free to give you

our fellowship and our best assistance, which things you have altogether

declined and neglected to do; thus we must now answer, that, if you

will give us the satisfaction which the law of Christ requires for

your disorderly proceedings, we shall be happy to gratify your desires;

otherwise, we may not do it, lest ... we become partakers of the

guilt of those irregularities by which you have given just cause of

offence....

INCREASE MATHER. JAMES ALLEN. [Footnote: _History of Brattle St.

Church_, p. 55.]

* * * * *

Under the theocracy a subservient legislature would have voted the

association “a seditious conspiracy,” and the country would have been

cleared of Leverett, Colman, the Brattles, and their abettors; but in

1700 the priests no longer manipulated the constituencies, and there was

actual danger to the conservative cause from their violence; therefore

Stoughton exerted himself to muzzle the Mathers, and he did succeed in

quieting them for the moment, though Sewall seems to intimate that they

submitted with no very good grace: [1699/1700.] “January 24th. The Lt

Govr [Stoughton] calls me with him to Mr. Willards, where out of two

papers Mr. Wm Brattle drew up a third for an accommodation to bring on

an agreement between the new-church and our ministers; Mr. Colman got

his brethren to subscribe it.... January 25th. Mr. I. Mather, Mr. C.

Mather, Mr. Willard, Mr. Wadsworth, and S. S. wait on the Lt Govr at Mr.

Coopers: to confer about the writing drawn up the evening before. Was

some heat; but grew calmer, and after lecture agreed to be present at

the fast which is to be observed January 31.” [Footnote: _Mass. Hist.

Coll._ fifth series, vi. 2.]

Humility has sometimes been extolled as the crowning grace of Christian

clergymen, but Cotton Mather’s Diary shows the intolerable arrogance of

the early Congregational divines.

“A wonderful joy filled the hearts of our good people far and near, that

we had obtained thus much from them. Our strife seemed now at an end;

there was much relenting in some of their spirits, when they saw our

condescension, our charity, our compassion. We overlooked all past

offences. We kept the public fast with them ... and my father preached

with them on following peace with holiness, and I concluded with

prayer.” [Footnote: _History of Harvard_, i. 487, App. x.]

Yet, although there had been this ostensible reconciliation, those who

have appreciated the sensitiveness to sin, of him whom Dr. Eliot calls

the patriarch and his son, must already feel certain they were incapable

of letting Colman’s impiety pass unrebuked; indeed, the Diary says the

“faithful antidote” was at that moment in the press, and it was not

long before it was published, sanctified by their prayers. The patriarch

began by telling how he was defending the “cause of Christ and of his

churches in New England,” and “if we espouse such principles... we then

give away the whole Congregational cause at once.” [Footnote: _Order of

the Gospel_, pp. 8, 9.] He assured his hearers that a “wandering Levite”

like Colman was no more a pastor than he who “has no children is a

father,” [Footnote: _Idem_, p. 102.] he was shocked at the abandonment

of the relation of experiences, and was so scandalized at reading the

Bible without comment he could only describe it as “dumb.” In a

word, there was nothing the new congregation had done which was not

displeasing to the Lord; but if they had offended in one particular

more than another it was in establishing a man in “the pastoral office

without the approbation of neighbouring churches or elders.” [Footnote:

_Idem_, p. 8.] To this solemn admonition Colman and William Brattle had

the irreverence to prepare a reply smacking of levity; nevertheless,

they began with a grave and noble definition of their principles. “The

liberties and privileges which our Lord Jesus Christ has given to his

church ... consist ... in ... that our consciences be not imposed on by

men or their traditions.” “We are reflected on as casting dishonour

on our parents, & their pious design in the first settlement of this

land.... Some have made this the great design, to be freed from the

impositions of men in the worship of God.... In this we are risen up

to make good their grounds.” [Footnote: _Gospel Order Revived_, Epistle

Dedicatory.]

They then went on to expose the abuse of public relations of

experiences: “But this is the misery, the more meek and fearful

are hereby kept out of God’s house, while the more conceited and

presumptuous never boggle at this, or anything else. But it seems there

is a gross corruption of this laudable practice which the author does

well to censure; and that is, when some, who have no good intention of

their own, get others to devise a relation for them.” [Footnote: _Idem_,

p. 9.] They even dared to intimate that it did not savor of modesty for

the patriarch “to think any one of his sermons, or short comments, can

edifie more than the reading of twenty chapters.” [Footnote: _Idem_, p.

15.] And then they added some sentences, which were afterward declared

by the venerable victim to be as scurrilous as other portions of the

pamphlet were profane.

“We are assured, the author is esteemed more a Presbyterian than a

Congregational man, by scores of his friends in London. He is lov’d and

reverenced for a moderate spirit, a peaceable disposition, and a

temper so widely different from his late brothers in London.... Did our

reverend author appear the same here, we should be his easie proselites

too. But we are loath to say how he forfeits that venerable character,

which might have consecrated his name to posterity, more than his

learning, or other honorary titles can.” [Footnote: _Gospel Order

Revived_, pp. 34, 35.]

No printer in Boston dared to be responsible for this ribaldry, and

when it came home from New York and was actually cast before the people,

words fail to convey the condition into which the patriarch was thrown.

At last his emotions found a vent in a tract which he prepared jointly

with his son.

“A moral heathen would not have done as he has done. [Footnote:

_Collection of Some of the More Offensive Matters_, Preface.]... There

is no one thing, which does more threaten or disgrace New-England, than

want of due respect unto superiors. [Footnote: _Idem_, p. 10.]... It

is a disgrace to the name of Presbyterian, that such as he is should

pretend unto it. [Footnote: _Idem_, p. 12.]... and if our children

should learn from them, ... we may tremble to think, what a flood of

profaneness and atheism would break in upon us, and ripen us for the

dreadfullest judgments of God. [Footnote: _Idem_, p. 7.]... They assault

him [the aged president] with a volley of rude jeers and taunts, as if

they were so many children of Bethel.” [Footnote: _Idem_, p. 8.]

Among these taunts some struck deep, for they are quoted at length.

“‘Abundance of people have long obstinately believed, that the contest

on his part, is more for lordship and dominion, than for truth.’ But

there are many more such passages, which laid altogether, would make a

considerable dung-hil.” [Footnote: _Idem_, p. 9.] They dwelt with pathos

upon those sacred rites desecrated by these “unsanctified” “young men”

in their “miserable pamphlet.” “The Lord is exceedingly glorified, and

his people are edified, by the accounts, which the candidates, of the

communion in our churches give of that self-examination which is by

plain institution ... a qualification, of the communicants. Now these

think it not enough to charge the churches, which require & expect such

accounts, with exceedingly provoking the Lord. But of the tears dropt by

holy souls on those occasions, they say with a scoff, ‘whether they be

for joy or grief, we are left in the dark.’” [Footnote: _Collection of

Some of the More Offensive Matters_, p. 6.] But the suffering divines

found peace in knowing that Christ himself would inflict the punishment

upon these abandoned men which the priests would have meted out with

holy joy had they still possessed the power.

“Considering that the things contained in their pamphlet, are a deep

apostasy, in conjunction with such open impiety, and profane scurrility

against the holy wayes in which our fathers walked, in case it become

the sin of the land, (as it will do if not duely testified against) we

may fear that some heavy judgment will come upon the whole land. And

will not the holy Lord Jesus Christ, who walks in the midst of his

golden candlesticks, make all the churches to know ... that these men

have provoked the Lord!” [Footnote: _Idem_, pp. 18, 19.]

Yet, notwithstanding the Mathers’ piteous prayers, God heeded them

not, and the rising tide that was sweeping over them soon drowned their

cries. Brattle Street congregation became an honored member of the

orthodox communion, the principles which animated its founders spread

apace, and the name of Benjamin Colman waxed great in the land. The

liberals had penetrated the stronghold of the church.

CHAPTER IX.

HARVARD COLLEGE.

For more than two centuries one ceaseless anthem of adulation has been

chanted in Massachusetts in honor of the ecclesiastics who founded

Harvard University, and this act has not infrequently been cited as

incontrovertible proof that they were both liberal and progressive at

heart. The laudation of ancestors is a task as easy as it is popular;

but history deals with the sequence of cause and effect, and an

examination of facts, apart from sentiment, tends to show that in

building a college the clergy were actuated by no loftier motive than

intelligent self-interest, if, indeed, they were not constrained thereto

by the inexorable exigencies of their position.

The truth of this proposition becomes apparent if the soundness of the

following analysis be conceded.

There would seem to be a point in the pathway of civilization where

every race passes more or less completely under the dominion of a

sacred caste; when and how the more robust have emerged into freedom is

uncertain, but enough is known to make it possible to trace the process

by which this insidious power is acquired, and the means by which it is

perpetuated. A flood of light has, moreover, been shed on this class

of subjects by the recent remarkable investigations among the Zuñis.

[Footnote: Made by Mr. F. H. Cushing, of the Bureau of Ethnology,

Smithsonian Institution.]

Most American Indians are in the matriarchal period of development,

which precedes the patriarchal; and it is then, should they become

sedentary, that caste appears to be born. Some valuable secret, such as

a cure for the bite of the rattlesnake, is discovered, and this gives

the finder, and chosen members of his clan with whom he shares it, a

peculiar sanctity in the eyes of the rest of the tribe. Like facts,

however, become known to other clans, and then coalitions are made which

take the form of esoteric societies, and from these the stronger

savages gradually exclude the weaker and their descendants. Meanwhile

an elaborate ritual is developed, and so an hereditary priesthood

comes into life, which always claims to have received its knowledge by

revelation, and which teaches that resistance to its will is sacrilege.

Nevertheless the sacerdotal power is seldom firmly established without a

struggle, the memory whereof is carefully preserved as a warning of the

danger of incurring the divine wrath. A good example of such a myth is

the fable of the rebellious Zuñi fire-priest, who at the prayer of his

orthodox brethren was destroyed with all his clan by a boiling torrent

poured from the burning mountain, sacred to their order, by the avenging

gods. Compare this with the story of Korah; and it is interesting to

observe how the priestly chronicler, in order to throw the profounder

awe about his class, has made the great national prophet the author of

the exclusion of the body of the Levites from the caste, in favor of his

own brother. “And they gathered themselves together against Moses and

against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing

all the congregation are holy, ... wherefore then lift ye up yourselves

above the congregation of the Lord?

“And when Moses heard it, he fell upon his face.” Then he told Korah and

his followers, who were descendants of Levi and legally entitled to act

as priests by existing customs, to take censers and burn incense, and it

would appear whether the Lord would respect their offering. So every man

took his censer, and Korah and two hundred and fifty more stood in the

door of the tabernacle.

Then Moses said, if “the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with

all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then

ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord....

“And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their

houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their

goods.

“They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit,

and the earth closed upon them:... And all Israel that were round about

them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us

up also.” [Footnote: _Numbers_ xvi.] Traces of a similar conflict are

found in Hindoo sacred literature, and probably the process has been

well-nigh universal. The caste, therefore, originates in knowledge, real

and pretended, kept by secret tradition in certain families, and

its power is maintained by systematized terrorism. But to learn the

mysteries and ritual requires a special education, hence those destined

for the priesthood have careful provision made for their instruction.

The youthful Zuñi is taught at the sacred college at the shrine of his

order; the pious Hindoo lives for years with some famous Brahmin; as

soon as the down came on the cheek, the descendants of Aaron were taken

into the Temple at Jerusalem, and all have read how Hannah carried the

infant Samuel to the house of the Lord at Shiloh, and how the child did

minister unto the Lord before Eli the priest.

These facts seem to lead to well-defined conclusions when applied to New

England history. In their passionate zeal the colonists conceived

the idea of reproducing, as far as they could, the society of the

Pentateuch, or, in other words, of reverting to the archaic stage of

caste; and in point of fact they did succeed in creating a theocratic

despotism which lasted in full force for more than forty years.

Of course, in the seventeenth century such a phase of feeling was

ephemeral; but the phenomena which attended it are exceptionally

interesting, and possibly they are somewhat similar to those which

accompany the liberation of a primitive people.

The knowledge which divided the Massachusetts clergy from other men was

their supposed proficiency in the interpretation of the ancient writings

containing the revelations of God. For the perpetuation of this lore a

seminary was as essential to them as an association of priests for the

instruction of neophytes is to the Zuni now, or as the training at the

Temple was to the Jews. In no other way could the popular faith in their

special sanctity be sustained. It is also true that few priesthoods have

made more systematic use of terror. The slaughter of Anne Hutchinson

and her family was exultingly declared to be the judgment of God for

defaming the elders. Increase Mather denounced the disobedient Colman

in the words of Moses to Korah; Cotton Mather revelled in picturing

the torments of the bewitched; and, even in the last century Jonathan

Edwards frightened people into convulsions by his preaching. On the

other hand, it is obvious that the reproduction of the Mosaic law could

not in the nature of things have been complete; and the two weak points

in the otherwise strong position of the clergy were that the spirit

of their age did not permit them to make their order hereditary, nor,

although their college was a true theological school, did they perceive

the danger of allowing any lay admixture. The tendency to weaken the

force of the discipline is obvious, yet they were led to abandon the

safe Biblical precedent, not only by their own early associations, but

by their hatred of anything savoring of Catholicism.

Men to be great leaders must exalt their cause above themselves; and

if so godly a man as the Rev. Increase Mather can be said to have had

a human failing it was an inordinate love of money and of flattery. The

first of these peculiarities showed itself early in life when, as his

son says, he was reluctant to settle at the North Church, because of

“views he had of greater service elsewhere.” [Footnote: _Parentator_,

p. 25.] In other words, the parish was not liberal; for it seems “the

deacons ... were not spirited like some that have succeeded them; and

the leaders of the more honest people also, were men of a low,

mean, sordid spirit.... For one of his education, and erudition, and

gentlemanly spirit, and conversation, to be so creepled and kept in such

a depressing poverty!--In these distresses, it was to little purpose for

him to make his complaint unto man! If he had, it would have been basely

improved unto his disadvantage.” [Footnote: _Idem_, p. 30.] His diary

teemed with repinings. “Oh! that the Lord Jesus, who hears my complaints

before him, would either give an heart to my people to look after my

comfortable subsistance among them, or ... remove me to another people,

who will take care of me, that so I may be in a capacity to attend his

work, and glorify his name in my generation.” [Footnote: _Idem_, p. 33.]

However, matters mended with him, for we are assured that “the Glorious

One who knew the works, and the service and the patience of this tempted

man, ordered it, that several gentlemen of good estate, and of better

spirit, were become the members of his church;” and from them he had

“such filial usages... as took away from him all room of repenting,

that he had not under his temptations prosecuted a removal from them.”

[Footnote: _Parentator_, pp. 34, 35.]

The presidency of Harvard, though nominally the highest place a

clergyman could hold in Massachusetts, had always been one of poverty

and self-denial; for the salary was paid by the legislature, which,

as the unfortunate Dunster had found, was not disposed to be generous.

Therefore, although Mr. Mather was chosen president in 1685, and was

afterward confirmed as rector by Andros, he was far too pious to be led

again into those temptations from which he had been delivered by the

interposition of the Glorious One; and the last thing he proposed was

to go into residence and give up his congregation. Besides, he was

engrossed in politics and went to England in 1688, where he stayed four

years. Meanwhile the real control of education was left in the hands of

Leverett, who was appointed tutor in 1686, and of William Brattle, who

was in full sympathy with his policy. Among the many powers usurped by

the old trading company was that of erecting corporations; hence the

effect of the judgment vacating the patent had been to annul the college

charter which had been granted by the General Court; [Footnote: 23 May,

1650. _Mass. Rec._ iii. 195.] and although the institution had gone

on much as usual after the Revolution, its position was felt to be

precarious. Such being the situation when the patriarch came home in

1692 in the plenitude of power, he conceived the idea of making himself

the untrammelled master of the university, and he forthwith caused a

bill to be introduced into the legislature which would certainly have

produced that result. [Footnote: _Province Laws_, 1692-93, c. 10.] Nor

did he meet with any serious opposition in Massachusetts, where his

power was, for the moment, well-nigh supreme. His difficulty lay

with the king, since the fixed policy of Great Britain was to foster

Episcopalianism, and of course to obtain some recognition for that sect

at Cambridge. And so it came to pass that all the advantage he reaped

by the enactment of this singular law was a degree of Doctor of Divinity

[Footnote: Sept. 5, 1692. Quincy’s _History of Harvard_, i. 71.] which

he gave himself between the approval of the bill by Phips and its

rejection at London. The compliment was the more flattering, however, as

it was the first ever granted in New England. But the clouds were fast

gathering over the head of this good man. Like many another benefactor

of his race, he was doomed to experience the pangs inflicted by

ingratitude, and indeed his pain was so acute he seldom lost an

opportunity of giving it public expression; to use his own words of some

years later, “these are the last lecture sermons... to be preached by

me.... The ill treatment which I have had from those from whom I had

reason to have expected better, have discouraged me from being any

more concerned on such occasions.” [Footnote: Address to Sermon, _The

Righteous Man a Blessing_, 1702.]

Certainly he was in a false position; he was necessarily unappreciated

by the liberals, and he had not only alienated many staunch

conservatives by his acceptance of the charter, but he had embittered

them, by rigorously excluding all except his particular faction from

Phips’s council. To his deep chagrin, the elections of 1693 went in

favor of many of these thankless men, and his discontent soon took the

form of an intense longing to go abroad in some official position which

would give him importance. The only possible opening seemed to be to get

himself made agent to negotiate a charter for Harvard; and therefore

he soon had “angelical” suggestions that God needed him in England to

glorify his name.

“1693. September 3d. As I was riding to preach at Cambridge, I prayed

to God,--begged that my labors might be blessed to the souls of the

students; at the which I was much melted. Also saying to the Lord,

that some workings of his Providence seemed to intimate, that I must be

returned to England again; ... I was inexpressibly melted, and that for

a considerable time, and a stirring suggestion, that to England I

must go. In this there was something extraordinary, either divine or

angelical.”

“December 30th. Meltings before the Lord this day when praying, desiring

being returned to England again, there to do service to his name, and

persuasions that the Lord will appear therein.”

“1694. January 27th. Prayers and supplications that tidings may come

from England, that may be some direction to me, as to my returning

thither or otherwise, as shall be most for his glory.”

“March 13th. This morning with prayers and tears I begged of God that

I might hear from my friends and acquaintance in England something that

should encourage and comfort me. Such tidings are coming, but I know not

what it is. God has heard me.” [Footnote: _History of Harvard_, i. 475,

476, App. ix.]

His craving to escape from the country was increased by the nagging of

the legislature; for so early as December, 1693, the representatives

passed the first of a long series of resolves, “that the president of

Harvard College for the time being shall reside there, as hath been

accustomed in time past.” [Footnote: _Court Rec._ vi. 316.] Now this was

precisely what the Reverend Doctor was determined he would not do; nor

could he resign without losing all hope of his agency; so it is not

surprising that as time went on he wrestled with the Deity.

1698. “September 25th. This day as I was wrestling with the Lord, he

gave me glorious and heart-melting persuasions, that he has work for me

to do in England, for the glory of his name. My soul rejoiceth in the

Lord.” [Footnote: _History of Harvard_, i. 480, App. ix.]

Doubtless his trials were severe, but the effect upon his temper was

unfortunate. He brought forward scheme after scheme, and the corporation

was made to address the legislature, and then the legislature was

pestered to accede to the prayer of the corporation, until everybody was

wrought to a pitch of nervous irritation; he himself was always jotting

in his Diary what he had on foot, mixed with his hopes and prayers.

“1696. December 11th. I was with the representatives in the General

Court, and did acquaint them with my purpose of undertaking a voyage for

England in the spring (if the Lord will), in order to the attainment of

a good settlement for the college.”

“December 28th. The General Court have done nothing for the poor

college.... The corporation are desirous that I should go to England on

the college’s account.”

1696. “April 19th (Sabbath.) In the morning, as I was praying in my

closet, my heart was marvellously melted with the persuasion, that I

should glorify Christ in England.”

“1697. June 7th. Discourse with ministers about the college, and the

corporation unanimously desired me to take a voyage for England on the

college’s account.” [Footnote: _History of Harvard_, i. 476, App. ix.]

But of what the senior tutor was doing with the rising generation he

took no note at all. His attention was probably first attracted by

rumors of the Brattle Church revolt, for not till 1697 was he able to

divert his thoughts from himself long enough to observe that all was not

as it should be at Cambridge. Then, at length, he made an effort to get

rid of Leverett by striking his name from the list of fellows when a

bill for incorporation was brought into the legislature; but this

crafty politician had already become too strong in the house of

representatives, of which he was soon after made speaker.

Two years later, however, the conservative clergy made a determined

effort and prepared a bill containing a religious test, which they

supported with a petition praying “that, in the charter for the college,

our holy religion may be secured to us and unto our posterity, by a

provision, that no person shall be chosen president, or fellow, of the

college, but such as declare their adherence unto the principles of

reformation, which were espoused and intended by those who first settled

the country ... and have hitherto been the general profession of New

England.” [Footnote: _Idem_, i. 99.] This time they narrowly missed

success, for the bill passed the houses, but was vetoed by Lord

Bellomont.

Hitherto Cotton Mather had shown an unfilial lack of interest in his

father’s ambition to serve the public; but this summer he also began

to have assurances from God. One cause for his fervor may have been

the death of the Rev. Mr. Morton, who was conceded to stand next in

succession to the presidency, and he therefore supposed himself to be

sure of the office should a vacancy occur. [Footnote: _Idem_, i. 102.]

“1699. 7th d. 4th m. (June.) The General Court has, divers times of

late years, had under consideration the matter of the settlement of

the college, which was like still to issue in a voyage of my father to

England, and the matter is now again considered. I have made much prayer

about it many and many a time. Nevertheless, I never could have my mind

raised unto any particular faith about it, one way or another. But this

day, as I was (may I not say) in the spirit, it was in a powerful manner

assured me from heaven, that my father should one day be carried into

England, and that he shall there glorify the Lord Jesus Christ;...

And thou, O Mather the younger, shalt live to see this accomplished!”

[Footnote: _History of Harvard_, i. 482, 483, App. x.]

“16th d. 5th m. (July.) Being full of distress in my spirit, as I was at

prayer in my study at noon, it was told me from heaven, that my father

shall be carried from me unto England, and that my opportunities to

glorify the Lord Jesus Christ will, on that occasion, _be gloriously

accommodated_.”

“18th d. 5th m.... And now behold a most unintelligible dispensation!

At this very time, even about noon, instead of having the bill for the

college enacted, as was expected, the governor plainly rejected it,

because of a provision therein, made for the religion of the country.”

After the veto the patriarch seems to have got the upper hand for

a season, and to have made some arrangement by which he evicted his

adversary, as appears by a very dissatisfied letter written by Leverett

in August, 1699: “As soon as I got home I was informed, that Rev.

President (I. M.), held a corporation at the college the 7th inst., and

the said corporation, after the publication of the _new settlement_,

made choice of Mr. Flynt to be one of the tutors at college.... I have

not the late act for incorporating the college at hand, nor have I seen

the new temporary settlement; but I perceive, that all the members of

the late corporation were not notified to be at the meeting. I can’t

say how legal these late proceedings are; but it is wonderful, that an

establishment for so short a time as till October next, should be made

use of so soon to introduce an unnecessary addition to that society.”

[Footnote: _History of Harvard_, i. 500, App. xvi.]

A long weary year passed, during which Dr. Mather must have suffered

keenly from the public ingratitude; still, at its end he was happy,

since he felt certain of being rewarded by the Lord; for, just as the

earl’s administration was closing, he had succeeded by unremitting toil

in so adjusting the legislature as to think the spoil his own; when,

alas, suddenly, without warning, in the most distressing manner, the

prize slipped into Bellomont’s pocket. How severely his faith was tried

appears from his son’s Diary.

“1700. 16th d. 4th mo. (Lord’s Day.) I am going to relate one of

the most astonishing things that ever befell in all the time of my

pilgrimage.

“A particular faith had been unaccountably produced in my father’s

heart, and in my own, that God will carry him unto England, and there

give him a short but great opportunity to glorify the Lord Jesus

Christ, before his entrance into the heavenly kingdom. There appears no

probability of my father’s going thither but in an agency to obtain a

charter for the college. This matter having been for several years upon

the very point of being carried in the General Assembly, hath strangely

miscarried when it hath come to the birth. It is now again before the

Assembly, in circumstances wherein if it succeed not, it is never like

to be revived and resumed any more....

“But the matter in the Assembly being likely now to come unto nothing, I

was in this day in extreme distress of spirit concerning it.... After I

had finished all the other duties of this day, I did in my distress cast

myself prostrate on my study floor before the Lord.... I spread before

him the consequences of things, and the present posture and aspect of

them, and, having told the Lord, that I had always taken a particular

faith to be a work of heaven on the minds of the faithful, but if it

should prove a deceit in that remarkable instance which was now the

cause of my agony, I should be cast into a most wonderful confusion; I

then begged of the Lord, that, if my particular faith about my father’s

voyage to England were not a delusion, he would be pleased to renew it

upon me. All this while my heart had the coldness of a stone upon it,

and the straitness that is to be expected from the lone exercise of

reason. But now all on the sudden I felt an inexpressible force to fall

on my mind, an afflatus, which cannot be described in words; _none knows

it but he that has it_.... It was told me, that the Lord Jesus Christ

loved my father, and loved me, and that he took delight in us, as in

two of his faithful servants, and that he had not permitted us to be

deceived in our particular faith, but that my father should be carried

into England, and there glorify the Lord Jesus Christ before his passing

into glory....

“Having left a flood of tears from me, by these rages from the invisible

world, on my study floor, I rose and went into my chair. There I took

up my Bible, and the first place that I opened was at Acts xxvii.

23-25, ‘There stood by me an angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve,

saying, Fear not, thou must be brought before Caesar.’ ... A new

flood of tears gushed from my flowing eyes, and I broke out into these

expressions. ‘What! shall my father yet appear before Caesar! Has an

angel from heaven told me so! And must I believe what has been told me!

Well then, it shall be so! It shall be so!’”

“And now what shall I say! When the affair of my father’s agency after

this came to a turning point in the court, it strangely miscarried! All

came to nothing! Some of the Tories had so wrought upon the governor,

that, though he had first moved this matter, and had given us both

directions and promises about it, yet he now (not without base

unhandsomeness) deferred it. The lieutenant-governor, who had formerly

been for it, now (not without great ebullition of unaccountable

prejudice and ingratitude) appeared, with all the little tricks

imaginable, to confound it. It had for all this been carried, had not

some of the council been inconveniently called off and absent. But now

the whole affair of the college was left unto the management of the Earl

of Bellamont, so that all expectation of a voyage for my father unto

England, on any such occasion, is utterly at an end.” [Footnote:

_History of Harvard_, i. 484-486, App. x.]

During all these years the legislature had been steadily passing

resolutions requiring the president to go into residence; and in 1698

they went so far as to vote him the liberal salary, for that age, of two

hundred pounds, and appointed a committee to wait upon him. Judge Sewall

describes the interview:--

“Mr. President expostulated with Mr. Speaker ... about the votes being

alter’d from 250 [£.?].” ... “We urg’d his going all we could; I told

him of his birth and education here; that he look’d at work rather than

wages, all met in desiring him.... Objected want of a house, bill for

corporation not pass’d ... must needs preach once every week, which

he preferred before the gold and silver of the West-Indies. I told him

would preach twice aday to the students. He said that [exposition]

was nothing like preaching.” [Footnote: Sewall’s _Diary_. _Mass. Hist.

Coll._ fifth series, v. 487.] And in this the patriarch spoke the truth;

for if there was anything he loved more than money it was the incense of

adulation which steamed up to his nostrils from a great congregation.

Of course he declined; and yet this importunity pained the good man, not

because there was any conflict in his mind between his duty to a

cause he held sacred and his own interest, but because it was “a thing

contrary to the faith marvellously wrought into my soul, that God will

give me an opportunity to serve and glorify Christ in England, I set the

day apart to cry to heaven about it.” [Footnote: _History of Harvard_,

vi. 481, App. ix.]

There were limits, however, even to the patience of the Massachusetts

Assembly with an orthodox divine; and no sooner was the question of the

agency decided by the appointment of Bellomont, than it addressed itself

resolutely to the seemingly hopeless task of forcing Dr. Mather to

settle in Cambridge or resign his office. On the 10th of July, 1700,

they voted him two hundred and twenty pounds a year, and they appointed

a committee to obtain from him a categorical answer. This time he

thought it prudent to feign compliance; and after a “suitable place...

for the reception and entertainment of the president” had been prepared

at the public expense, he moved out of town and stayed till the 17th of

October, when he went back to Boston, and wrote to tell Stoughton his

health was suffering. His disingenuousness seems to have given Leverett

the opportunity for which he had been waiting; and his acting as

chairman of a committee appointed by the representatives suggests his

having forced the issue; it was resolved that, should Mr. Mather be

absent from the college, his duties should devolve upon Samuel Willard,

the vice-president; [Footnote: _History of Harvard_, i. 111; _Court

Rec._ vii. 172, 175.] and in March the committee apparently reported the

president’s house to be in good condition. Stimulated by this hint,

the doctor went back to Cambridge and stayed a little more than three

months, when he wrote a characteristic note to Stoughton, who was acting

governor. “I promised the last General Court to take care of the college

until the Commencement. Accordingly I have been residing in Cambridge

these three months. I am determined (if the Lord will) to return to

Boston the next week, and no more return to reside in Cambridge; for it

is not reasonable to desire me to be (as, out of respect to the public

interest, I have been six months within this twelve) any longer absent

from my family.... I do therefore earnestly desire, that the General

Court would... think of another president.... It would be fatal to

the interest of religion, if a person disaffected to the order of the

Gospel, professed and practised in these churches, should preside over

this society. I know the General Assembly, out of their regard to the

interest of Christ, will take care to prevent it.” [Footnote: _History

of Harvard_, i. 501, App. xvii.] Yet though he himself begged the

legislature to select his successor, in his inordinate vanity he did not

dream of being taken at his word; so when he was invited to meet both

houses in the council chamber he explained with perfect cheerfulness how

“he was now removed from Cambridge to Boston, and ... did not think fitt

to continue his residence there, ... but, if the court thought fit to

desire he should continue his care of the colledge as formerly, he would

do so.” [Footnote: _Court Records_, vii. 229.]

Increase Mather delighted to blazon himself as Christ’s foremost

champion in the land. He predicted, and with reason, that should those

who had been already designated succeed him at Harvard, it would be

fatal to that cause to which his life was vowed. The alternative was

presented of serving himself or God, and to him it seemed unreasonable

of his friends to expect of him a choice. And yet when, as was his wont,

he would describe himself from the pulpit, as a refulgent beacon blazing

before New England, he would use such words as these: “Every ... one

of a publick spirit ... will deny himself as to his worldly interests,

provided he may thereby promove the welfare of his people.... He

will not only deny himself, but if called thereto, will encounter the

greatest difficulties and dangers for the publicks sake.” [Footnote:

Sermon, _The Publick Spirited Man_, pp. 7, 9.]

The man had presumed too far; the world was wearying of him. On

September 6, 1701, the government was transferred to Samuel Willard,

the vice-president, and Harvard was lost forever. [Footnote: _History of

Harvard_, i. 116.]

No education is so baleful as the ecclesiastical, because it breeds the

belief in men that resistance to their will is not only a wrong to their

country and themselves, but a sacrilege toward God. The Mathers were now

to give an illustration of the degree to which the theocratic training

debauched the mind; and it is only necessary to observe that Samuel

Sewall, who tells the story, was educated for the ministry, and was

perhaps as staunch a conservative as there was in the province.

1701, “October 20. Mr. Cotton Mather came to Mr. Wilkins’s shop, and

there talked very sharply against me as if I had used his father worse

than a neger; spake so loud that people in the street might hear him....

I had read in the morn Mr. Dod’s saying; Sanctified afflictions are good

promotions. I found it now a cordial.”

“October 9. I sent Mr. Increase Mather a hanch of very good venison; I

hope in that I did not treat him as a negro.”

“October 2, 1701. I, with Major Walley and Capt. Samuel Checkly, speak

with Mr. Cotton Mather at Mr. Wilkins’s.... I told him of his book of

the Law of Kindness for the Tongue, whether this were correspondent with

that. Whether correspondent with Christ’s rule:

“He said, having spoken to me before there was no need to speak to me

again; and so justified his reviling me behind my back. Charg’d the

council with lying, hypocrisy, tricks, and I know not what all. I ask’d

him if it were done with that meekness as it should; Answer’d, Yes.

Charg’d the council in general, and then shew’d my share, which was my

speech in council; viz. If Mr. Mather should goe to Cambridge again to

reside there with a resolution not to read the Scriptures, and expound

in the Hall: I fear the example of it will do more hurt than his going

thither will doe good. This speech I owned.... I ask’d him if I should

supose he had done somthing amiss in his church as an officer; whether

it would be well for me to exclaim against him in the street for it.”

“Thorsday October 23. Mr. Increase Mather said at Mr. Wilkins’s, If I

am a servant of Jesus Christ, some great judgment will fall on Capt.

Sewall, or his family.” [Footnote: Sewall’s _Diary. Mass. Hist. Coll._

fifth series, vi. 43-45.]

Had the patriarch been capable of a disinterested action, for the

sake of those principles he professed to love, he would have stopped

Willard’s presidency, no matter at what personal cost, for he knew

him to be no better than a liberal in disguise, and he had already

quarrelled bitterly with him in 1697 when he was trying to eject

Leverett. Sewall noted on “Nov. 20.... Mr. Willard told me of the

falling out between the president and him about chusing fellows last

Monday. Mr. Mather has sent him word, he will never come to his house

more till he give him satisfaction.” [Footnote: _Mass. Hist. Coll._

fifth series, v. 464.] But they had in reality separated years before;

for when, in the witchcraft terror, Willard was cried out upon, and had

to look a shameful death in the face, he learned to feel that the men

who were willing to risk their lives to save him were by no means

public enemies. And so, as the vice-president lived in Boston, the

administration of the college was left very much to Leverett and the

Brattles, who were presently reinstated.

Joseph Dudley was the son of that old governor who wrote the verses

about the cockatrice to be hatched by toleration, yet he inherited very

little of his father’s disposition. He was bred for the ministry, and as

the career did not attract him, he turned to politics, in which he made

a brilliant opening. At first he was the hope of the high churchmen, but

they afterward learned to hate him with a rancor exceptional even toward

their enemies. And he gave them only too good a handle against him, for

he was guilty of the error of selling himself without reserve to the

Andros government. At the Revolution he suffered a long imprisonment,

and afterward went to England, where he passed most of William’s

reign. There his ability soon brought him forward, he was made

lieutenant-governor of the Isle of Wight, was returned to Parliament,

and at last appointed governor by Queen Anne. Though Massachusetts owes

a deeper debt to few of her chief magistrates, there are few who have

found scantier praise at the hands of her historians. He was, it is

true, an unscrupulous politician and courtier, but his mind was broad

and vigorous, his policy wise and liberal, and at the moment of his

power his influence was of inestimable value.

Among his other gifts, he was endowed with infinite tact, and when

working for his office he managed not only to conciliate the Mathers,

but even to induce the son to write a letter in his favor; and so when

he arrived in 1702 they were both sedulous in their attentions in the

expectation of controlling him. A month had not passed, however, before

this ominous entry was made in the younger’s diary:--

“June 16, 1702. I received a visit from Governour Dudley.... I said to

him ... I should be content, I would approve it, ... if any one should

say to your excellency, ‘By no means let any people have cause to say,

that you take all your measures from the two Mr. Mathers.’ By the same

rule I may say without offence,’ By no means let any people say,

that you go by no measures in your conduct, but Mr. Byfield’s and Mr.

Leverett’s.’... The WRETCH went unto those men and told them, that I

had advised him to be no ways advised by them; and inflamed them into

an implacable rage against me.” [Footnote: _Mass. Hist. Coll._ first

series, iii. 137.]

Leverett, on the contrary, now reached his zenith; from the house

he passed into the council and became one of Dudley’s most trusted

advisers. The Mathers were no match for these two men, and few routs

have been more disastrous than theirs. Lord Bellomont’s sudden death

had put an end to all hope of obtaining a charter by compromise with

England, and no further action had been taken, when, on September 12,

1707, Willard died. On the 28th of October the fellows met and

chose John Leverett president of Harvard College; and then came a

demonstration which proved not only Increase Mather’s prescience, when

he foretold how a liberal university would kill a disciplined church,

but which shows the mighty influence a devoted teacher can have upon his

age. Thirty-nine ministers addressed Governor Dudley thus:--

“We have lately, with great joy, understood the great and early care

that our brethren, who have the present care and oversight of the

college at Cambridge, have taken, ... by their unanimous choice of Mr.

John Leverett, ... to be the president ... Your Excellency personally

knows Mr. Leverett so well, that we shall say the less of him. However,

we cannot but give this testimony of our great affection to and esteem

for him; that we are abundantly satisfied ... of his religion, learning,

and other excellent accomplishments for that eminent service, a long

experience of which we had while he was senior fellow of that house; for

that, under the wise and faithful government of him, and the Rev. Mr.

Brattle, of Cambridge, the greatest part of the now rising ministry in

New England were happily educated; and we hope and promise ourselves,

through the blessing of the God of our fathers, to see religion and

learning thrive and flourish in that society, under Mr. Leverett’s wise

conduct and influence, as much as ever yet it hath done.” [Footnote:

_History of Harvard_, i. 504, App. xx.]

His salary was only one hundred and fifty pounds a year; but the man

worked for love of a great cause, and did not stop to haggle. Nor were

he and Dudley of the temper to leave a task half done. Undoubtedly at

the governor’s instigation, a resolve was introduced into the Assembly

reviving the Act of 1650 by which the university had been incorporated,

and it is by the sanction of this lawless and masterly feat of

statesmanship that Harvard has been administered for almost two hundred

years.

Sewall tells how Dudley went out in state to inaugurate his friend. “The

governour prepared a Latin speech for instalment of the president. Then

took the president by the hand and led him down into the hall;... The

governour sat with his back against a noble fire.... Then the governour

read his speech ... and mov’d the books in token of their delivery.

Then president made a short Latin speech, importing the difficulties

discouraging, and yet that he did accept: ... Clos’d with the hymn to

the Trinity. Had a very good dinner upon 3 or 4 tables.... Got home

very well. _Laus Deo._” [Footnote: _Mass. Hist. Coll._ fifth series, vi.

209.]

Nor did Dudley fail to provide the new executive with fit support. By

the old law he had revived the corporation was reduced to seven; of this

board Leverett himself was one, and on the day he took his office both

the Brattles and Pemberton were also appointed. And more than this,

when, a few years later, Pemberton died, the arch-rebel, Benjamin

Colman, was chosen in his place. The liberal triumph was complete, and

in looking back through the vista of the past, there are few pages of

our history more strongly stamped with the native energy of the New

England mind than this brilliant capture of Harvard, by which the

ancient cradle of bigotry and superstition was made the home of American

liberal thought. As for the Mathers, when they found themselves beaten

in fair fight, they conceived a revenge so dastardly that Pemberton

declared with much emotion he would humble them, were he governor,

though it cost him his head. Being unable longer to withstand Dudley by

honorable means, they tried to blast him by charging him with felony.

Their letters are too long to be reproduced in full; but their purport

may be guessed by the extracts given, and to this day they remain choice

gems of theocratic morality.

* * * * *

SIR, That I have had a singular respect for you, the Lord knows; but

that since your arrival to the government, my charitable expectations

have been greatly disappointed, I may not deny....

1st. I am afraid you cannot clear yourself from the guilt of bribery and

unrighteousness....

2d. I am afraid that you have not been true to the interest of your

country, as God (considering his marvellous dispensations towards you)

and his people have expected from you....

3d. I am afraid that you cannot clear yourself from the guilt of much

hypocrisy and falseness in the affair of the college....

4th. I am afraid that the guilt of innocent blood is still crying in the

ears of the Lord against you. I mean the blood of Leister and Milburn.

My Lord Bellamont said to me, that he was one of the committee of

Parliament who examined the matter; and that those men were not only

murdered, but barbarously murdered....

5th. I am afraid that the Lord is offended with you, in that you

ordinarily forsake the worship of God in the holy church to which you

are related, in the afternoon on the Lord’s day, and after the publick

exercise, spend the whole time with some persons reputed very ungodly

men. I am sure your father did not so.... Would you choose to be

with them or such as they are in another world, unto which you are

hastening?... I am under pressures of conscience to bear a publick

testimony without respect of persons.... I trust in Christ that when I

am gone, I shall obtain a good report of my having been faithful before

him. To his mercy I commend you, and remain in him,

Yours to serve, I. MATHER. [Footnote: _Mass. Hist. Coll._ first series,

iii. 126.] BOSTON, _January_ 20, 1707-8. To the Governour.

* * * * *

BOSTON, _Jan_. 20, 1707-8.

Sir, There have appeared such things in your conduct, that a just

concern for the welfare of your excellency seems to render it necessary,

that you should be _faithfully_ advised of them.... You will give me

leave to write nothing, but in a style, whereof an ignorant mob, to

whom (as well as the General Assembly) you think fit to communicate what

_fragments_ you please of my letters, must be _competent judges_. I must

proceed accordingly.... I weakly believed that the wicked and horrid

things done before the righteous Revolution, had been heartily repented

of; and that the rueful business at New York, which many illustrious

persons ... called a barbarous murder, ... had been considered with such

a repentance, as might save you and your family from any further storms

of heaven for the revenging of it.... Sir, your _snare_ has been that

thing, the _hatred_ whereof is most expressly required of the _ruler_,

namely COVETOUSNESS. When a governour shall make his government more an

engine to enrich himself, than to _befriend his country_, and shall by

the unhallowed hunger of riches be prevailed withal to do many wrong,

base, dishonourable things; it is a covetousness which will shut out

from the kingdom of heaven; and sometimes the _loss of a government

on earth_ also is the punishment of it.... The main channel of that

covetousness has been the reign of bribery, which you, sir, have set

up in the land, where it was hardly known, till you brought it in

fashion.... And there lie affidavits before the queen and council, which

affirm that you have been guilty of it in very many instances. I do also

know that you have....

Sir, you are sensible that there is a judgment to come, wherein the

glorious Lord will demand, how far you aimed at serving him in your

government; ... how far you did in your government encourage those that

had most of his image upon them, or place your eyes on the wicked of the

land. Your _age_ and _health_, as well as other circumstances, greatly

invite you, sir, to entertain _awful thoughts_ of this matter, and

solicit the divine mercy through the only sacrifice.... Yet if the

troubles you brought on yourself should procure your abdication and

recess unto a more private condition, and your present _parasites_

forsake you, as you _may be sure they will_, I should think it my duty

to do you all the good offices imaginable.

Finally, I can forgive and forget injuries; and I hope I am somewhat

ready for _sunset_; the more for having discharged the duty of this

letter....

Your humble and faithful servant,

COTTON MATHER. [Footnote: _Mass. Hist. Coll._ first series, iii. 128.]

* * * * *

But these venomous priests had tried their fangs upon a resolute and an

able man. Dudley shook them off like vermin.

* * * * *

GENTLEMEN, Yours of the 20th instant I received; and the contents, both

as to the matter and manner, astonish me to the last degree. I must

think you have extremely forgot your own station, as well as my

character; otherwise it had been impossible to have made such an open

breach upon all the laws of decency, honour, justice, and Christianity,

as you have done in treating me with an air of superiority and contempt,

which would have been greatly culpable towards a Christian of the lowest

order, and is insufferably rude toward one whom divine Providence has

honoured with the character of your governour....

Why, gentlemen, have you been so long silent? and suffered sin to lie

upon me years after years? You cannot pretend any new information as

to the main of your charge; for you have privately given your tongues

a loose upon these heads, I am well assured, when you thought you could

serve yourselves by exposing me. Surely murder, robberies, and other

such flaming immoralities were as reprovable then as now....

Really, gentlemen, conscience and religion are things too solemn,

venerable, or sacred, to be played with, or made a covering for actions

so disagreeable to the gospel, as these your endeavours to expose me

and my most faithful services to contempt; nay, to unhinge the

government....

I desire you will keep your station, and let fifty or sixty good

ministers, your equals in the province, have a share in the government

of the college, and advise thereabouts as well as yourselves, and I hope

all will be well....

I am your humble servant,

J. DUDLEY.

To the Reverend Doctors Mathers. [Footnote: _Mass. Hist. Coll._ first

series, iii. 135.]

CHAPTER X.

THE LAWYERS.

In the age of sacred caste the priest is likewise the law-maker and the

judge, and as succeeding generations of ecclesiastics slowly spin the

intricate web of their ceremonial code, they fail not to teach the

people that their holy ordinances were received of yore from divine lips

by some great prophet. This process is beautifully exemplified in the

Old Testament: though the complicated ritualism of Leviticus was always

reverently attributed to Moses, it was evidently the work of a much

later period; for the present purpose, however, its date is immaterial,

it suffices to follow the account the scribes thought fit to give in

Kings.

Long after the time of Solomon, Josiah one day sent to inquire about

some repairs then being made at the Temple, when suddenly, “Hilkiah the

high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the

law in the house of the Lord.” And he gave the book to Shaphan.

“And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book...

he rent his clothes.” And he was greatly alarmed for fear of the wrath

of the Lord, because their fathers had not hearkened unto the words

of this book; as indeed it was impossible they should, since they knew

nothing about it. So, to find out what was best to be done, he sent

Hilkiah and others to Huldah the prophetess, who told them that the

wrath of the Lord was indeed kindled, and he would bring evil unto the

land; but, because Josiah’s heart had been tender, and he had humbled

himself, and rent his clothes, and wept when he had heard what was

spoken, he should be gathered into his grave in peace, and his eyes

should not see the evil. [Footnote: 2 _Kings_ xxii.]

Such is an example of the process whereby a compilation of canonical

statutes is brought into practical operation by adroitly working upon

the superstitions fears of the civil magistrate; at an earlier period

the priests administer justice in person.

Eli judged Israel forty years, and Samuel went on circuit all the days

of his life; “and he went from year to year in circuit to Bethel, and

Gilgal, and Mizpeh, and judged Israel in all those places.” [Footnote:

1 _Samuel_ iv., vii.] But, sooner or later, the time must come when a

soldier is absolutely necessary, both to fight foreign enemies and to

enforce obedience at home; and then some chief is set up whom the clergy

think they can control: thus Samuel anointed Saul to be captain over

the Lord’s inheritance. [Footnote: 1 _Samuel_ x.] So long as the king

is submissive to authority all goes well, but any insubordination is

promptly punished; and this was the fate of Saul. On one occasion, when

he was in difficulty and Samuel happened to be away, he was so rash

as to sacrifice a burnt offering himself; his presumption offended the

prophet, who forthwith declared that his kingdom should not continue.

[Footnote: 1 _Samuel_ xiii.] After this the relations between them

went from bad to worse, and it was not long before the priest began

to intrigue with David, whom he presently anointed. [Footnote: _Idem_,

xvi.] The end of it was that Saul was defeated in battle, as Samuel’s

ghost foretold, for not obeying “the voice of the Lord;” and after a

struggle between the houses of Saul and David, all the elders of Israel

went to Hebron, where David made a league with them, and in return they

anointed him king. [Footnote: 2 _Samuel_ v.].

Thenceforward, or from the moment when a layman assumed control of

the temporal power, the Jewish chronicles teem with the sins and the

disasters of those rulers who did not walk in the way of their fathers,

or who, in other words, were restive under ecclesiastical dictation.

So long as this period lasts, during which the sovereign is forced

to obey the behests of the priesthood, an arbitrary despotism is

inevitable; nor can the foundation of equal justice and civil liberty be

laid until first the military, and then the legal profession, has become

distinct and emancipated from clerical control, and jurisprudence has

grown into the recognized calling of a special class.