In 1583, Whitgift was in power, and there was no further pretence of toleration. The forbearing disposition of Puritanism was also wearing out. Those who wished only to reform the Church of England, not to raise a new sect, could no longer restrain the more ardent of their number; and "separatists" began to talk and act defiantly. What if two men were hung for distributing Brown's "Tract on the Liberty of Prophesying"? "Independents" were fast rising above the fear of death. The spirits who dared dissent were becoming very numerous: twenty thousand soon appeared at the conventicles; and nothing but utter extermination would put an end to this revolt from the usurpations of a State religion.

The weak, perfidious James would finally undertake to do this. At first, the Puritans were misled by his bland and flattering airs, his protestations of faith in the purity of their principles and lives; and began to trust him: but it was a false confidence. He was too imbecile and licentious to be honest. "The conference at Hampton Court," granted to the nonconformists with a show of fairness, brought out his true character. Foiled in his reliance upon argument, he soon dispensed with it, and substituted despotic authority in its place. "I will have none of that liberty as to ceremonies, said he: "I will have one doctrine, one discipline, one religion in substance and in ceremony. Never speak more to that point how far you are bound to obey." "I will make them. conform, or I will harry them out of the land; or else, worse, only hang them: that's all." "If any would not be quiet, and show their obedience, they were worthy to be hanged."

Archbishop Whitgift was "the power behind the throne," and he was pleased. He had said before the conference, "I have not been greatly quiet in mind, the vipers are so many;" but the king's idea of "hanging" was wonderfully satisfactory. "Your Majesty speaks by the special assistance of God's Spirit," said he. Bishop Bancroft, on his knees, ex

claimed that his heart melted for joy" because God had given England such a king, as, since Christ's time, has not been."

But how grievously mistaken were these representatives of persecuting, blasphemous bigotry! As though the thrust of a sword could kill a thought, or the axe of an executioner could slaughter a principle!

The struggles of "dissent" from ceremonial worship established by law had at length reached the result thus admirably summed up by Mr. Hildreth: "As the other traditions of the Church fell more and more into contempt, the entire reverence of the people was concentrated upon the Bible, recently made accessible in an English version, and read with eagerness, not as a mere form of words to be solemnly and ceremoniously gone through with, but as an inspired revelation, as indisputable authority in science, politics, morals, and life. It began, indeed, to be judged necessary by the more ardent and sincere, that all existing institutions in Church and State, all social relations, and the habits of everyday life, should be reconstructed, and made to conform to this divine model. Those who entertained these sentiments increased to a considerable party, composed chiefly, indeed, of the humble classes, yeomen, traders, and mechanics, but including also clergymen, merchants, landed proprietors, and even some of the nobility. They were derided, by those not inclined to go with them, as Puritans [an honorable evidence of their elevated standard of purity in heart and life]: but the austerity of their lives and doctrines, and their confident claim to internal assurance of a second birth and special election as the children of God, made a powerful impression on the multitude; while the high schemes they entertained for the reconstruction of society brought them into sympathy with all that was great and heroic in the nation." *

In 1604, parliament showed an astonishing increase of Puritan strength. The advocates of freedom in religion were a majority in the commons; and the boldness with which

* Hildreth, i. 153, 154.

they defended their views showed that ruthless oppression had failed, and the contest must go on. "The interests of human freedom were at issue on the contest."

THE PURITANS BECOME PILGRIMS IN SEARCH OF LIBERTY.

The light of the Reformation would now, as ever hereafter, be the guide of freedom. Luther had said, "The gospel is every man's right, and it is not to be endured that any one should be kept therefrom. But the evangel is an open doctrine it is bound to no place, and moves along freely under heaven, like the star which ran in the sky to show the wizards from the East where Christ was born. Do not dispute with the prince for place. Let the community choose their own pastor, and support him out of their own estates. If the prince will not suffer this, let the pastor flee into another land, and let those go with him who will, as Christ teaches.'"

These words are great, and, in the main, wise, as the promptings of inspiration; and they predict the plans of Providence for the emancipation of conscience, and the extension of religious and civil freedom in the New World.

We have thus fully identified the spirit and the movement out of which the colonization of New England and the liberties of our country arose. We must now leave the great mass of the Puritans to struggle with the usurpations of prelacy and the divine right of kings; to battle their way up to the great Revolution; to reveal their high virtues amid. bloody persecutions and unjust inflictions of power, - intended only to be" a terror to evil-doers and a praise to them that do well," — until the head of the royal oppressor rolls in the dust; then to reveal their energy and their follies amid the prosperity of the Protectorate; and again to suffer under the reigns of profligacy and bigotry after the Restoration, sometimes stealing away alone to pray, and daring even death itself to meet in "conventicles," and listen to the gospel from the lips of men who would peril their lives for

"the liberty of prophesying;" then scattered abroad like the primitive saints after the stoning of Stephen, holding up the cross amid foreign people, and calling wandering strangers to the fountain of God's blessed word; and finally becoming a diffused element of freedom, a leaven of godliness amid the nations, and especially the English, to appear in power and glory after many days.

We must step back a few years to the later period of Elizabeth's reign, where, in the north of England, we shall find a small company, " a poor people," who "became enlightened by the word of God," "presently both scoffed and scorned by the profane multitude, and their ministers urged with the yoke of subscription;" led by suffering "to see that the beggarly ceremonies were monuments of idolatry," and that the lordly power of the prelates ought not to be submitted to. Many of them, "whose hearts the Lord had touched with heavenly zeal for his truth," resolved, "whatever it might cost them, to shake off the anti-Christian bondage, and, as the Lord's free people, to join themselves by a covenant into a church estate in fellowship of the gospel." "Of the same faith with Calvin, heedless of acts of parlia ment, they rejected the offices and callings, the courts and canons,' of bishops, and, renouncing all obedience to human authority in spiritual things, asserted for themselves an unlimited and never-ending right to make advances in truth, and 'walk in all the ways which God had made known or should make known to them.'"* John Robinson, “a man not easily to be paralleled," was the pastor of this despised and persecuted primitive flock.

Probably through the agency of William Brewster, their attention was directed to Holland, "where, they heard, was freedom of religion for all men." They loved their home; but they would leave it, and live anywhere, only so that they could have liberty to pray and prophesy according to the dictates of conscience.

*Bancroft, i. 299-301.

In 1608, after a costly failure the year before, the men had moved out to their ship; but the vigilance of the government, which made it a crime to flee from persecution, detected them. "A company of horsemen appeared in pursuit, and seized on the helpless women and children who had not yet adventured on the surf. Pitiful it was to see the heavy care of these poor women in distress: what weeping and crying on every side!" At last the magistrates, seeing no way to punish them for devotion to their husbands and fathers, "glad to be rid of them on any terms," suffered them to depart," though, in the mean time, they, poor souls! endured misery enough."

Robinson, Brewster, and their little church, were now on the water; and henceforth they were "pilgrims." They were shortly in Amsterdam, but had no assurance that this was their home. "They knew that they were PILGRIMS, and looked not much on those things, but lifted up their eyes to heaven, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits."

In 1609, they were in Leyden, when "they saw poverty coming on them like an armed man." However, "careful to keep their word, and painful and diligent in their callings," they soon reached "a comfortable condition, grew in the gifts and grace of the Spirit of God, and lived together in peace and love and holiness." 66 Never," the magistrates said, "did we have any suit or accusation against any of them." Noble testimony! Now the hope of prosperity dawned upon them. Many came there from different parts of England, so as they grew a great congregation." They seemed to approach near to "the primitive pattern of the first churches," "such was the humble zeal and fervent love of this people towards God and his ways, and their single-heartedness and sincere affection one towards another." *

But they were not to remain here. God would make use of the bitter hatred of James, reaching to the Continent, and of the shyness of their brother Puritans, and of poverty

* Bancroft, i. 303.