strength, are, by reason of our long absence, many of us become gray-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 illy read the human heart; then indeed have I strangely mistaken the inspirations of religion." CHAPTER V. CHRISTIAN COLONIZATION OF THE VARIOUS COLONIES-THEIR VIEWS OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT-MASSACHUSETTS COLONY-FORMS ΟΡ LIBERTY-THEIR LOCAL SOUL OF THEIR CIVIL SYSTEMS CIVIL GOVERNMENT-CHRISTIANITY THE "THE discovery of America," said Webster, "its colonization by the nations of Europe, the history and progress of the colonies, from their establishment to the time when the principal of them threw off their allegiance to the respective states by which they had been planted, and founded governments of their own, constitutes one of the most interesting portions of the annals of man. The Reformation of Luther broke out, kindling up the minds of men afresh, leading to new habits of thought, and awakening in individuals energies before unknown even to themselves. The religious controversies of this period changed society as well as religion." All the colonies, educated under the genius of Christianity and indoctrinated into the knowledge of the principles of just civil governments, laid the basis of their civil systems on the Bible, and made its truths the corner-stone of all their institutions. The fundamental doctrine of the men who planted each colony was, that the legislation of the Bible. must be supreme and universal. They rejected as heretical the idea that civil governments could be rightly instituted, or wisely administered, without Christianity. Hence their institutions and their civilization began under the auspices of Heaven, and at once assumed the form of Christian order, and rose into Christian symmetry and completeness; their local democracies, in township, county, and colony, became the nurseries of freedom, and schools of science and art in civil government, and in which each independent colony was in process of preparation for working out the grand results of freedom, and the establishment of a Christian nation on the American continent. "Our fathers brought with them from England not merely a vague spirit of personal liberty, but certain ideas of the method of liberty in civil life. Taking the germ from certain Saxon institutions in England, they gave to it in the colonies a development which it had never had in the mother-country. The township in New England and the churches were the germs and prototypes of the sovereignty of states. It is De Tocqueville who says that the institutions of America are but the unfolding and larger application of the forms and principles of the townships of New England. New England townships are yet the purest, if not the only, specimens of absolute democracy in the world. The New England method was to reserve to the individual every right possible, consistently with the good of his neighbor; to retain in the town every particle of authority possible, consistently with the welfare of the state, and to yield to the Great and General Court, as the legislature was named, and to the executive, only such powers as were necessary for the welfare of the whole commonwealth. Thus the colonial governments were broad at the base. Authority was restricted to a few things at the top, but grew in breadth as it came near to the people. This was not an accident. It was the studious effort of sturdy and wise men to keep for the individual just as much personal liberty as was consistent with an equal liberty in all his fellows." "The settlement of New England," says Trumbull, "purely for the purposes of religion and the propagation of civil and religious liberty, is an event which has no parallel in the history of modern ages. The piety, self-denial, suffering, patience, perseverance, and magnanimity of the first settlers of the country are without a rival. The happy and extensive consequences of the settlements which they made, and of the sentiments which they were careful to propagate to their posterity, to the Church, and to the world, admit of no description. They are still increasing, spreading wider and wider, and appear more and more important." MASSACHUSETTS, As an independent colony, was the first and most memorable of the Puritan family. Its Christian history and bold enunciation and vindication of the pure doctrines of Christianity, and their incorporation into forms of civil government and social life, is one of the most remarkable and instructive chapters in the Christian history of the world. Charles II. reascended the throne of England in 1660, when the New England colonies had largely increased in population, prosperity, and political power. Grown strong in Christian faith, and in a fervent love for liberty, the people of Massachusetts enjoyed too much freedom for the despotic feelings and principles of the king. Hence, on the restoration of Charles II., they feared that their freedom would be abridged and their rights taken from them. The people of the commonwealth sent to the king a formal and a frank address. It was full of Christian sentiment and faith, and declared their purpose to submit to the government of the king in all things not conflicting with their duties to the King of kings. They prayed for the continuance of civil and religious liberties. "Your servants are true men, fearing God and the king. We could not live without the public worship of God; and that we, therefore, might enjoy divine worship, without human mixtures, we, not without tears, departed from our country, kindred, and fathers' houses. To enjoy our liberty, and to walk according to the faith and order of the gospel, was the cause of our transporting ourselves, our wives, our little ones, and our substance, choosing the pure Christian worship, with a good conscience, in this remote wilderness, rather than the pleasures of England with submission to the impositions of the hierarchy, to which we could not yield without an evil con science." These professions of good faith and loyalty failed to secure the favor of Charles II. He demanded a surrender of their charter, and with it their independence as a free Christian commonwealth. The remonstrances against these usurpations are suggestive memorials of their Christian faith and firmness, and a vindication of the axiom that "resistance to tyrants is obedi ence to God." In their address to Charles II., 1664, they declare that they were "resolved to act for the glory of God, and for the felicities of his people;" and that, "having now above thirty years enjoyed the privilege of government within themselves, as their undoubted right in the sight of God and man, to be governed by rulers of our own choosing, and laws of cur own, is the fundamental privilege of our charter." This contest was a time of trial and of danger to their civil liberties, and they said their hope was in God alone. A day of fasting and humiliation was appointed, and the people prostrated themselves in humiliation and prayer before God, and implored his interposition. The civil court, when convened for the administration of business, spent a portion of each day in prayer,-six elders praying, and a minister preaching a sermon. "We must," said they, "as well consider God's displeasure as the king's, the interests of ourselves and of God's things, as his majesty's prerogative; for our liberties are of concernment, and to be regarded as to preservation." "Religion," says Bancroft, "had been the motive of settlement; religion was now its counsellor. The fervors of the most ardent devotion were kindled; a more than usually solemn form of religious observance was adopted; a synod of all the churches in Massachusetts was convened to inquire into the causes of the dangers to New England liberty, and the mode of removing the evils." "Submission," said they, “would be an offence against the majesty of Heaven. Blind obedience to the pleasure of the king cannot be without great sin, and incurring the high displeasure of the King of kings. Submission would be contrary unto that which has been the unanimous advice of the ministers, given after a solemn day of prayer. The ministers of God in New England have more of the spirit of John the Baptist in them, than now, when a storm hath overtaken them, to be reeds shaken with the wind. The priests were to be the first that set their foot in the water, and there to stand till the danger be past. Of all men, they should be an example to the Lord's people, of faith, courage, and constancy. "The civil liberties of New England are part of the inheritance of their fathers; and shall we give that inheritance away? Is it objected that we shall be exposed to great suffering? Better suffer than sin. It is better to trust the God of our fathers than to put confidence in princes. If we suffer because we dare not comply with the wills of men, against the will of God, we suffer in a good cause, and shall be accounted martyrs in the next generation and at the great day." These were the noble utterances of Christian men and legislators, and display the nature of the principles which governed them in times of trial. They stood firm to their Christian faith and civil rights, and demonstrated the inseparable union between Christianity and civil liberty. These principles, maintained with such Christian heroism, were reproduced in the scenes of the Revolution, and contributed to the creation of a new and independent empire. This Christian commonwealth declared that those "who should go about to subvert and destroy the Christian faith and religion by broaching and maintaining damnable heresies, as denying the immortality of the soul or the resurrection of the body, or denying that Christ gave himself a ransom for our sins, or shall deny the morality of the 4th Commandment, or shall deny the ordinance of the civil magistrate, shall be banished." "Were a council," said Wise, in 1669, "called of all the learned heads of the whole universe, could they dictate better laws and advise better measures for the acquirement of learning, the increase of virtue and good religion, than are in the royal province of Massachusetts? If we take a survey of the whole land, we shall find religion placed in the body politic as the soul in the body natural. That is, the whole soul is in the whole body while it is in every part." CONNECTICUT Unfolds, in its Christian colonization and civil institutions, the benign and beautiful fruits of the Christian religion. The aim of the crown and of the colonists in planting Connecticut was to establish and extend the reign of the Christian religion. For this purpose, the General Assembly of the Colony were instructed to govern the people "so as their good life and orderly conversation may win and invite the natives of the country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind, and the Christian faith; which, in our royal intentions and the adventurer's free possession, is the only and principal end of this plantation." The first organization of civil society and government was |