was a certain sort of luxury among the rich classes, it is true, but there was a deep gulf between them and those below them, while even the most favored of fortune did not enjoy a tithe of the conveniences that make life in our day so rich in opportunities, and social enjoyment so much less servile and more rational. The colonists lost much by their voluntary expatriation, but we get an erroneous appreciation of their privations when we compare their condition with our own. Even in the houses of many who were in good circumstances, there were no chimneys in the seventeenth century. Glass was in use for windows, but it was a luxury that all could not indulge in; and when our early settlers brought over oiled paper to be used instead, they probably did not think they were suffering on account of their removal to a new country. Roads were poor here, and most of the travel at first, was by bridle paths; but roads were wretched in England, also, and long after the settlement at Plymouth, it was dangerous to travel in the streets of London in a coach. Coaches themselves were luxuries in the time of Elizabeth, and they were lumbering and uneasy. There were no steel springs to them, and the straps that served our fathers instead, were new devices long after our early settlements had been made. Houses in England were not well carpeted; the rushes which in the time of Henry VIII. served to cover the floors and to hide the filth that was allowed to accumulate on them, had not entirely fallen into disuse. Queen Elizabeth was the first sovereign who is known to have owned a fork, and it is not certain that she used it on ordinary occasions. In 1608, a traveller returned from Italy, spoke of the use of forks in that country as one of the fashions that he intended to imitate. The conveniences for the housekeeper, in England, in the seventeenth century, were few and rude, and removal to America did not add very largely to the worry of woman's work. TOLERATION NOT UNDERSTOOD. 147 All the colonists professed to come to the New World to spread the Gospel. So said the Spaniard when he settled in the land of flowers. So the Frenchman declared as he carried his priests to Quebec, and sent them as pioneers through the valley of the great river. So said the English at Jamestown, at Plymouth, at Philadelphia, and so said the Huguenots in South Carolina, and the Dutch at New Amsterdam. Each colony had, however, its own character. The Spaniards sought wealth and adventure in Florida, and the French trader had the same ends in view. The phlegmatic Dutchman was a trader. He cared little to exert himself. He did not wish for strife. The Covenanters of Scotland, like the Huguenots of France, and the Quakers and Puritans of England, came for rest and the privilege of worshipping God after the dictates of their consciences. They were willing to endure hardness to obtain this privilege. The nature of toleration was not fully understood by any of the settlers, but there was a great difference in the treatment of religion in the different parts. The Plymouth colonists were Separatists. They had come out from the Church of England. The Boston colony was composed of Puritans members of the Church of England who were protesting against the practices and doctrines in it which they considered erro * Rev. Thomas Shepard, of Cambridge, wrote in the "Election Sermon" of 1672, that " 'tis Satan's policy to plead for an indefinite and boundless toleration," and Increase Mather, in 1681, argued that, having come to New England to find opportunity for the practice of their principles, the colonists who first came had a right to send any who interfered with them "to the place from whence they came." He forgot that the first Puritan settlers of Boston found the ground preoccupied by the Rev. William Blackstone, of the Church of England. neous, and they were generally of a higher social rank before emigration. There was little difference between these colonies regarding the treatment of those who did not agree with them. The settlers in New Hampshire were more liberal; in fact, they did not consider themselves founders of a religious community, but fishermen, and they willingly permitted the Rev. John Wheelwright, the brother, or brother-in-law, of Mrs. Hutchinson, to come among them, when she had been banished from Boston. The people of Connecticut, though eminently religious, and considering the Bible the only source of law, and permitting church-members only to enjoy the suffrage (like Massachusetts and Plymouth), did not wage war with equal force upon delinquents.* In Rhode Island there was actual freedom of conscience; Jews, Papists, Infidels, were all freely admitted and equally protected by the laws. New York was quite tolerant, but as late as 1700, Roman Catholic priests were forbidden to enter the colony, under penalty of hanging. Maryland was liberal, but not to infidels, nor those who denied the Trinity. The latter were threatened with death, while all who denied the Virgin, the Apostles or the Evangelists were condemned to fines, imprisonment, whipping and banishment. * The Connecticut colonists appear to have enjoyed more even and sunny happiness than those of any other part of the country. There was no persecuting spirit there, the minister of Hartford saying to Roger Williams, that in his opinion God had provided the Western World as a "refuge and receptacle for all sorts of consciences." Enacting, in 1683, that "no person professing faith in God by Jesus Christ, shall at any time be any ways disquieted or questioned for any difference of opinion." |