This people were prepared by a course of discipline for such an event as their settlement in this country. Like the Hebrews in Egypt, they were subjected to injustice and oppression, to trial and hard service. Some of them had suffered imprisonment and the confiscation of property in their native land. It was in the school of adversity that they were prepared for the immortal honor of laying the foundations of this happy Republic. If they had not courage and patience, if they could not brave danger and endure hardships, if they were not content with plain fare and coarse apparel and rude houses, if they could not act for the good of posterity and for the honor of God, with faith and submission and hope, they were not the right sort of men and women to engage in this noble enterprise. An early historian says, "God sifted three kingdoms to find the seed with which to sow this country." The PURITANS were the only race of men on earth, who could have made New England what it is. No pagan or infidel ancestry would have trained up such a posterity. A colony of papists would not have transmitted down to us our Bibles and schools, our civil liberty or free press. Nor would a band of Episcopalians, who could live in ease and luxury at home, in the embraces of the maternal church, ever have submitted to the sacrifices and labors of subduing this mighty wilderness. The ejected and oppressed Puritans were the only people, who without a miracle could lay the foundations of this great Republic.

And who were the Puritans? The name was originally given as a term of reproach, but subsequently assumed for the sake of distinction. They were a part of the English Protestants, who desired a more complete separation from the Papal church. "They were," says Neal, "a people of severe morals, Calvinists in doctrine, and Non-Conformists to the ceremonies and discipline of the English Church." They set up the Bible, the inspired word of God, as the only infallible standard of faith and practice. And while they embraced the doctrinal Articles of the Episcopal church, they dissented from its form of government and modes of worship, and hence were denominated Dissenters. And because they aspired to a more complete reformation from the Romish apostasy, in respect to its arrogant claims, its superstitious customs and its religious services, they were called Puritans. The name is of little importance, however momentous the thing. And they were called Congregationalists from their form of church government, disclaiming the authority of bishop or presbytery, and maintaining that all ecclesiastical power is vested by Christ in the congregation or assemblage of the brethren in covenant.

It is to be remembered that the Pilgrims of New England were Congregationalists. Such were they, who trode on the Rock of Plymouth, and they who settled around the Massachusetts Bay,

and they who migrated to found the colonies of Connecticut, and they who spread along the shores of Maine, and over the hills of New Hampshire and Vermont. All the early churches of New England, with the single exception of that in Providence, R. I. were Congregational. To say that they were strictly orthodox or evangelical is to introduce terms of disputed import. But if we wish to know what they did believe as to doctrine and discipline, we have undisputed sources of intelligence. We may read in our own tongue the Creeds and Confessions of those ancient churches, the Westminster Assembly's Catechism, to which they gave the most public and cordial assent, and which they were accustomed to teach their children in the school and at the fire-side, and the Cambridge Platform which was adopted in a full assembly of the Elders and Messengers of the churches, and published with the approbation of the General Court of Massachusetts.

Were they a people of pure blood, not rendered effeminate by luxury or emaciated with inveterate disease? Did reason control sensual appetite? Were they content with extreme simplicity, and ready to exercise self-denial from moral considerations and a regard to futurity? Could they endure toil, cold and hunger, and brave the storms of winter? Poor houses and scanty fare and coarse apparel did not frighten them in their adventurous enterprise. A sound body, as the receptacle of a vigorous and healthful mind, is no contemptible portion in our fair inheritance.

Were they a people of patient industry and rigid temperance? The culture of the soil was the ordinary employment. A competent number were exercised in the mechanic arts. Some were early engaged in commerce on a small scale and in the fisheries. But idlers, and gentlemen of no professional employment, who despised manual labor, and vagrants who lived by rapine on the community, were unknown among the Pilgrims of New England. Whatever was right and useful, was reputable and proper to be done. Hereditary title or rank, like hereditary slavery, was not recognized among them. Active exercise in some useful and appropriate labor, whether in man or woman, gave firmness to the muscle and healthful circulation to the blood. Stimulants were little known in diet. Alcoholic liquors, as a beverage, were not in ordinary use. Tea and coffee, whether from the East or West Indies, were not yet imported into England. And that filthy weed, the tobacco-plant, was hardly known to the civilized nations of Europe. Still they lived in tolerable comfort, and many of them survived to old age."

*

* Some of the first emigrants fell victims to the severity of this climate and to the great change in their habits of life, but there were many instances of longevity among their children of the early generations.-The tobacco-plant was introduced into England from North Carolina by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1583, and in a course

Were they friends to order and good government? This was implanted in their nature. Such was their reverence for age, such was their submission to parental authority, such was their instinctive regard to the peace of society, that there was little need of municipal vigilance or restraint. The jail, if known at all, was not a stately edifice of hewn stone. Nor was the calendar of the court a long catalogue of crimes. Government was considered a divine institution, and obedience to it was an imperious duty. The administration of it might well be patriarchal, as the officers were men of like spirit, chosen by the people for gravity and wisdom, and because the public welfare required no arbitrary dictation or military force. The midnight cabal, the popular mob, the direct or combined resistance of civil authority, was a thing unknown. A high sense of liberty, a stern tenacity of civil rights, a strong aversion to foreign tribute, grew out of their love to a government of law, founded in sober reason and just principles. They were not rude barbarians or visionary theorists, abjectly submissive or instinctively rebellious.

Were they imbued with the sentiments of civil and religious liberty? This was a prominent motive, which induced them to seek an asylum in this wilderness. This spirit sustained them in dangers, and comforted them in trials. They were not allowed in England to worship God without molestation, and to administer the ordinances of religion without forms and ceremonies, which they considered superstitious. Their preachers were silenced, and often imprisoned; their religious assemblies were dispersed by military officers; their houses of worship were shut up: Some fled to Holland, others to Germany, and many to Switzerland. If they had not perfect views of liberty of conscience, it cannot be denied that they were much in advance of the age in which they lived. Hume, the historian, who had no partiality to the Puritans, attributes much in the free institutions of the English government, to their influence. When they settled on these shores, they planted the tree of civil and religious freedom, and sat down under its branches with great delight.

Were they an intelligent and educated people? High attainments in polite literature, or in abstract science, or in the fine arts, are not claimed in their behalf. There were some honorable exceptions of individuals, who were scholars of rank in the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. But they all possessed the elements of knowledge, as they could read and write and compute numbers. They knew how to appreciate a learned and able ministry. They established schools, and early adopted measures

of time was transferred to Ireland and to the continent of Europe. Tea began to be imported into England in 1641, and coffee in 1666, and into New England in 1720. The general use of either is much more recent.

to found the College at Cambridge. The schoolmaster was next in reputation to the civil magistrate and the pastor of the church. Legal provision was made for the support of schools, and public contributions were solicited in the churches for the use of the College. Each family was a little school. They were a reading people. The few books which they possessed, were much valued and carefully preserved. The periodical press was early in operation. The means of knowledge were alike accessible to all. The children of the poor were as freely admitted to the school as the children of the rich. And all persons, whatever their age or state, (infancy, sickness, and decrepitude excepted,) were required to attend on the instructive ordinances of divine worship. Thus their intellectual powers were called into exercise and subjected to discipline, and they became capable of deliberate judgment, and deep research, and active enterprise, and they are entitled to the reputation of an intelligent and educated people.

Did they possess the Bible in their own language? Did they institute the church, in their judgment, according to the simple model of the apostolic age? Did they sanctify the Sabbath with a holy vigilance? Did they uniformly sustain the public, social and domestic worship of God? Let us look more directly at their moral and religious character, and investigate the secret springs of their courage and self-denial. It is the solemn and explicit testimony of ministers, statesmen, and historians, that religion was the grand cause why these colonies were founded; it was not conquest or commerce, the acquisition of territory or wealth. From this uniform testimony, there can be no evasion or dissent. They wished to establish a pure church: they wished to enjoy freedom in their religious worship, without fear of an ecclesiastical hierarchy, and without contamination by superstitious customs: they wished to educate their children in a godly way, and to transmit the spirit and principles of a pure religion to a late posterity. To the accomplishment of these objects their prayers and labors were directed. For these purposes, they wished to settle down alone, and that others of different example or principles would stay away, or choose some other location. This was very natural. Their plans might otherwise be defeated, their dearest hopes be disappointed, and the benign results of their sacrifices and toils be lost. If, in this state of things, they betrayed to some extent a narrow prejudice, a religious bigotry, or an intolerant spirit, it can be easily explained, and may be justly ascribed to the circumstances of the case, and the ordinary imperfection of our nature. While we ought not to magnify the facts, we need not be zealous to deny them. We ought to think of their redeeming qualities, and of the moral sublimity of the enterprise in which they were engaged. Nor ought we to forget that they were much in advance of their cotemporaries in Christian Europe.

What principles of doctrine did they deduce from the Bible? These embraced the being, attributes, and moral government of God, the purity and obligation of his law,-man's native sinfulness, the true and proper deity and humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, his atonement and intercession,-the efficiency of the Holy Spirit in the work of regeneration,-the free and full offers of mercy in the gospel,-the duty of repentance, faith, and personal holiness, and an everlasting state of rewards and punishments beyond the grave. These and similar principles are fully expressed in the 39 Articles of the Episcopal Church, to which they cordially assented, in the Westminster Assembly's Catechism, which they taught their children, and in the sermons and other volumes which they published.

And what was the moral influence of these doctrines on their social and religious character? This is a good test of orthodoxy. And there is no fear in appealing to the opposers of evangelical doctrine for an answer. Where can the community be found on the face of the earth, whose records are stained with so few crimes as the early history of New England? They were eminently conscientious, peaceful and honest: they were humane and compassionate: the persons, property and character of others. were sacred they believed that God would call them to give a strict account for their words and actions. Visit their place of religious concourse on the Sabbath, and witness all the people punctually and devoutly assembled to worship God, to sing his praise, to make confession of sin, to implore mercy in the Saviour's name, to read the Scriptures, and to exhort one another to love and good works. Resort to their houses, and witness the domestic worship, the tender affection of parents and the filial duty of children, the respectful subordination, mutual love, and social virtue of all the members. Go through the villages, and no profane words are heard, and no acts of drunkenness or violence are seen, and few or no crimes are reported. There are no prisons, penitentiaries or alms-houses. The people do not lock up their barns or bolt their doors at night. Industry, order, competence and contentment prevail. "We think more," says one of their number, "of going home to heaven, than of going back to old England."

II. What are some of the advantages which flow to us from such an ancestry?

Much depends on the ancestry of a people in respect to their literary and political, their social and moral state. A community is one continuous chain in its successive generations.

It is little to say that we inherit the lands which our fathers cultivated, that we gather fruit from the trees which they planted,