change in their characters, and for their subsequent knowledge and perseverance, and boldness, and success. If he rose not from the dead, I cannot account for those things; and the whole subject remains to me a deep historical mystery.

Simple, honest, excellent men! raised up by Providence for wonderful ends by wonderful means! Your lives, unadorned as they are, and comprehended in a few plain words, are yet alone among the lives of men; alone, in the varieties and contrasts of their fortunes; alone, in the multitude and importance of their consequences. We should be senseless, if we did not perceive the influence which you have exerted on the character and opinions of mankind. We should be thankless, if we did not acknowledge the benefits of that influence, and bless God that we live to know and feel them. And we humbly pray to God, the universal Father, the Source of all excellence and truth, that our fidelity to our common Master may be like yours; that our perseverance in executing his commands may be like yours; and that like yours may be our courage and constancy, if we should ever be called on to sacrifice comfort, worldly consideration, or life itself, to duty, conscience, and faith.' pp. 118-120.

We take our leave of Mr Greenwood, grateful for the pleasure he has afforded us, and the valuable contribution he has made to the stock of American literature. Before we part, however, we would express the hope, that he will enrich another edition of his work, which we are happy to hear is peremptorily called for, with the Lives of the evangelists, Mark and Luke, and of the apostle Paul. We assure him that it will greatly enhance the value and interest of his work.

ART. XI. A Discourse pronounced at the Request of the Essex Historical Society, on the 18th of September, 1828, in Commemoration of the First Settlement of Salem, in the State of Massachusetts. By JOSEPH STORY. Boston. Hilliard, Gray, Little, & Wilkins. 1828. 8vo. pp. 90.

We have read this Discourse with pleasure, and though we do not propose to review it as a literary performance, it contains some passages which cannot be too widely circulated, and fall peculiarly within the province of this journal. These we shall set before our readers, and add a few remarks of our own, confining ourselves to what is said of the religious character of our ancestors, and particularly of their intolerance, and the remains of this vice still existing.

In considering the object they had in view, and their severe trials, and the manner in which these trials were met and sustained, the discourse eulogizes, as it should, the piety and constancy of the first colonists.

'What better origin could we desire, than from men of characters like these? Men, to whom conscience was everything, and worldly prosperity nothing. Men, whose thoughts belonged to eternity rather than to time. Men, who in the near prospect of their sacrifices, could say, as our forefathers did say, "When we are in our graves, it will be all one, whether we have lived in plenty or in penury; whether we have died in a bed of down, or locks of straw. Only this is the advantage of the mean condition, THAT IT IS A MORE FREEDOM TO DIE. And the less comfort any have in the things of this world, the more liberty they have to lay up treasure in heaven." Men, who in answer to the objection, urged by the anxiety of friendship, that they might perish by the way, or by hunger or the sword, could answer, as our forefathers did, "We may trust God's providence for these things. Either he will keep these evils from us; or will dispose them for our good, and enable us to bear them." Men, who in still later days, in their appeal for protection to the throne, could say with pathetic truth and simplicity, as our forefathers did, "that we might enjoy divine worship without human mixtures, without offence to God, man, or our own consciences, with leave, but not without tears, we departed from our country, kindred, and fathers' houses into this Patmos ; in relation whereunto we do not say, our garments are become old by reason of the very long journey, but that ourselves, who came away in our strength, are, by reason of long absence, many of us become grey-headed, and some of us stooping for age."

'If these be not the sentiments of lofty virtue; if they breathe not the genuine spirit of Christianity; if they speak not high approaches towards moral perfection; if they possess not an enduring sublimity ;-then, indeed, have I ill read the human heart; then, indeed, have I strangely mistaken the inspirations of religion. If men, like these, can be passed by with indifference, because they wore not the princely robes, or the sacred lawn, because they shone not in courts, or feasted in fashionable circles, then, indeed, is Christian glory a vain shadow, and human virtue a dream, about which we disquiet ourselves in vain.

But it is not so-it is not so. There are those around me, whose hearts beat high, and whose lips grow eloquent, when the remembrance of such ancestors comes over their thoughts; when they read in their deeds, not the empty forms, but the essence of holy living and holy dying. Time was, when the exploits of war, the heroes of many battles, the conquerors of millions, the men, who waded through slaughter to thrones, the kings, whose footsteps were darkened with blood, and the sceptred oppressors of the earth, were alone deemed worthy themes for the poet and the orator, for the song of the minstrel, and the hosannas of the multitude. Time was, when feats of arms, and tournaments, and crusades, and the high array of chivalry, and the pride of royal banners waving for victory, engrossed all minds. Time was, when the ministers of the altar sat down by the side of the tyrant, and numbered his victims, and stimulated his persecutions, and screened the instruments of his crimes—and there was praise and glory and revelry for these things. Murder, and rapine, burning cities, and desolated plains, if so be they were at the bidding of royal or baronial feuds, led on by the courtier or the clan, were matters of public boast, the delight of courts, and the treasured pleasure of the fireside tales. But these times have passed away. Christianity has resumed her meek and holy reign. The Puritans have not lived in vain. The simple piety of the Pilgrims of New England casts into shade this false glitter, which dazzled and betrayed men into the worship of their destroyers. pp. 40-42.

Still it is difficult to speak as we should of the character of our ancestors, many of whose vices were in some sense virtues, as they thought them to be virtues, and practised them at great sacrifices. It is a difficult question in morals, perhaps the most difficult, how far sincerity is an excuse for material errors affecting the conduct, and seriously and permanently injuring the disposition. To us, however, it is quite clear that if a man is really factious, vindictive, and intolerant, no matter how he may have become so, and no matter how sincerely, still he is in point of fact, and so far as these qualities go, a bad citizen, and a bad Christian. Apologists will sometimes say, that it is in the highest degree unreasonable to suppose that our fathers could have been any better than they were, considering the age and circumstances in which they lived. Perhaps this is true; but we must not infer that a defect should be excused, merely because we can account for its existence. At any rate it does not cease to be a defect. Two mistakes have betrayed men into false, though very different estimates of the character of the Puritans, according to the different prejudices with which they have approached the subject. An admirer is apt to be dazzled by the distinctness and prominency of a few virtues which they unquestionably exhibited in an uncommon degree, and deceives himself into a belief that they ought to be ranked according to their character in these respects, and not according to their character as a whole. The Cavaliers, on the other hand, affected to despise the Puritans; but, though there were many things in that remarkable people to be feared, and many things to be condemned, there was hardly anything that could be regarded, properly speaking, as an object of contempt, much less of merriment or banter. There was a fierce and determined spirit, mingled even with their fooleries and absurdities, before which the scoffer quailed.

The view which this discourse gives of the errors and vices of our forefathers, is one which the candid and judicious of all parties must approve.

'It has been said, that our forefathers were bigoted, intolerant, and persecuting; that while they demanded religious freedom for themselves, they denied it to all others; that in their eyes even error in ceremony or mode of worship was equally reprehensible with error in doctrine, and, if persisted in, deserved the temporal punishments denounced upon heresy. Mr Hume has dwelt with no small complacency upon the fact, that the Puritans "maintained that they themselves were the only pure church; that their principles and practices ought to be established by law; and that no others ought to be tolerated."

'I am not disposed to deny the truth of this charge, or to conceal, or to extenuate the facts. I stand not up here the apologist for persecution, whether it be by Catholic or Protestant, by Puritan or Prelate, by Congregationalist or Covenanter, by Church or State, by the Monarch or the Peo

ple. Wherever, and by whomsoever, it is promulgated or supported, under whatever disguises, for whatever purposes, at all times, and under all circumstances, it is a gross violation of the rights of conscience, and utterly inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity. I care not, whether it goes to life, or property, or office, or reputation, or mere private comfort, it is equally an outrage upon religion and the unalienable rights of man. If there is any right, sacred beyond all others, because it imports everlasting consequences, it is the right to worship God according to the dictates of our own consciences. Whoever attempts to narrow it down in any degree, to limit it by the creed of any sect, to bound the exercise of private judgment, or free inquiry, by the standard of his own faith, be he priest or layman, ruler or subject, dishonors so far the profession of Christianity, and wounds it in its vital virtues. The doctrine, on which such attempts are founded, goes to the destruction of all free institutions of government. There is not a truth to be gathered from history more certain, or more momentous, than this, that civil liberty cannot long be separated from religious liberty without danger, and ultimately without destruction to both. Wherever religious liberty exists, it will, first or last, bring in, and establish political liberty. Wherever it is suppressed, the church establishment will, first or last, become the engine of despotism, and overthrow, unless it be itself overthrown, every vestige of political right. How it is possible to imagine, that a religion breathing the spirit of mercy and benevolence, teaching the forgiveness of injuries, the exercise of charity, and the return of good for evil; how it is possible, I say, for such a religion to be so perverted, as to breathe the spirit of slaughter and persecution, of discord and vengeance for differences of opinion, is a most unaccountable and extraordinary moral phenomenon. Still more extraordinary, that it should be the doctrine, not of base and wicked men merely, seeking to cover up their own misdeeds; but of good men, seeking the way of salvation with uprightness of heart and purpose. It affords a melancholy proof of the infirmity of human judgment, and teaches a lesson of humility, from which spiritual pride may learn meekness, and spiritual zeal a moderating wisdom.

'Let us not, then, in examining the deeds of our fathers, shrink from our proper duty to ourselves. Let us not be untrue to the lights of our own days, to the religious privileges, which we enjoy, to those constitutions of government, which proclaim Christian equality to all sects, and deny the power of persecution to all. Our fathers had not arrived at the great truth, that action, not opinion, is the proper object of human legislation; that religious freedom is the birthright of man; that governments have no authority to inflict punishment for conscientious differences of opinion; and that to worship God according to our own belief is not only our privilege, but is our duty, our absolute duty, from which no human tribunal can absolve us. We should be unworthy of our fathers, if we should persist in error, when it is known to us. Their precept, like their example, speaking as it were from their sepulchres, is, to follow truth, not as they saw it, but as we see it, fearlessly and faithfully.' pp. 45-47.

The vulgar charge of inconsistency in their intolerance, often brought against the first settlers of New England, does not seem to be sustained, in its literal and obvious sense; though, of course, it will not be denied that their conduct in this respect involved them in much virtual inconsistency. Before leaving their native country they never pretended, they never thought, that they were

contending and suffering for religious liberty, as that word is now understood by philosophical reasoners, or even for an unlimited toleration. Passages do occasionally occur in their writings, which breathe a free spirit; but they never intended them to be understood to the full extent of advocating entire religious liberty, and most of them would probably have been offended and shocked by such a proposal almost as much as a Gardiner, or a Laud. The only inconsistency fairly proved on our ancestors, is, the common one of adopting great and leading principles, long before many of their legitimate consequences were known or even suspected, and therefore without being true to these principles in all their applications. Practically speaking, the only liberty for which our fathers contended, or understood themselves to be contending, was the liberty of worshipping God according to their own interpretation of the gospel; and this liberty they had purchased at too dear a price to allow it to be endangered by the fanaticism of the Quakers, or the insidious encroachments of Episcopacy. These remarks go no farther than to relieve them in some degree from the imputation of inconsistency; but if they were not inconsistent, it only shows that on this subject their principles and their conduct were equally bad.

"The truth of history compels us to admit, that from the first settlement down to the charter of William and Mary in 1692, in proportion as they gathered internal power, they were less and less disposed to share it with any other Christian sect. That charter contained an express provision, that there should be "a liberty of conscience allowed in the worship of God, to all Christians, except Papists." Objectionable as this clause would have been under other circumstances, the recent attempts of James the Second, to introduce Popery, and the dread which they entertained of being themselves the subjects of political, as well as religious persecution, reconciled them to it, and they hailed it almost as another magna charta of liberty. So true it is, that accident or interest frequently forces men to the adoption of correct principles, when a sense of justice has totally failed to effect it. In the intermediate period, the Quakers and Anabaptists, and in short all other Dissenters from their creed, had been unrelentingly persecuted by fine, imprisonment, banishment, and sometimes even by death itself. Episcopalians, too, fell under their special displeasure; and notwithstanding every effort of the Crown, by threats and remonstrance, they studiously excluded them from every office, and even from the right of suffrage. No person but a freeman was permitted to vote in any public affairs, or to hold any office; and no person could become a freeman but by being a member of their own church, and recommended by their own clergy. In truth the clergy possessed a power and influence in the state, as great as ever was exercised under any church establishment whatsoever. There was not, until after the repeal of the first charter in 1676, a single Episcopal society in the whole colony; and even the celebration of Christmas was punished as a public offence. In this exclusive policy our ancestors obstinately persevered, against every remonstrance at home and abroad. When Sir Richard Saltonstall wrote to them his admirable letter, which pleads with such a catholic enthusiasm for toleration, the harsh and brief