Essex County, Massachusetts - Chapter 2, 1888 (part 1 of 3)

Ecclesiastical History By Key. Edmund B. Willson

This history lays no claim to completeness. It deals but slightly with the interior, the unorganized religious life of the first settlers of Salem, or of the later inhabitants of the place. It is little more than a historical sketch of the church-life of its people.

Nor is it for the most part history now written for the first time. The main facts relating to nearly every church in the town have been already collected and printed - those of earlier date than the present century by the very competent hand of Rev. Mr. Bentley, minister of the East Church ; those falling within the present century by Charles S. Osgood and Henry M. Batchelder, in their historical sketch of Salem, published in 1879, whose contents were manifestly verified with painstaking care so far as the authority for them could be had and the scope of that work permitted them to be included.

The settlement of New England, it is to be borne in mind, was an enterprise in the interest of religion. " Civilized New England," says Palfrey, "is the child of English Puritanism," To know the child, therefore, we should know something of its ancestry. Only briefest notices of the ante-migration period of English Puritanism, however, can find room here.

When it is said that the colonizing of New England was in the interest of religion, it is not meant that secular interests had no voice in the councils that directed it. Hopes of advantageous trade and prospects of opening new fishing-grounds were not wanting. Philanthropic plans for converting and civilizing the Indians mingled with schemes for reaping solid gains from exchanging English goods for land, peltry, fish, whatever products might turn to account in a commerce between the Old World and the New. The sleepless love of adventure, thirst for roving and change, sure to be dreaming its fascinating dream of voyage and exploration in every tenth young Englishman's brain, of course played its part. The never failing, restless, religious adventurer - source of constant danger to the peace of the new settlement - would also be ready to embark in the first ship that sailed. It remains true that a religious purpose was predominant and controlling in the Puritan company that settled Salem.

Up to the time of its leaving its English home for the West, the history of Puritanism is to be studied chiefly as the history of a national religious movement, of the rooting, spread and final prevailing of the ideas of the Reformation on English soil. It is our province to trace it more particularly after its landing in America, and more particularly still in the planting, growth and shaping of the institutions which it founded and fostered in this town. It lost nothing of its intensity of religious purpose when it left its native land. It became even a larger element in the life of the settlers of New England after their removal than it had been before, in that here they led a life of narrowed and simplified conditions. It had a more undivided supremacy. It had deeply colored and characterized their life and history before they came ; now it was the very life of their life. It imbedded itself in their social and domestic customs, and took control of their political aims and plans.

Lines of minor divergence naturally came to be drawn among the English reformers themselves, and that a good while before they sailed for these shores, as they found they were not agreed as to the extent to which church reform should go, or what were the methods most hopeful for effecting it. Some counseled separation from the established church as the only way to realize a pure worship, with entire freedom of mind and conscience, seeing no other sure way to obtain relief from the despotism of the Church of Rome, whose spirit was still present and ruling, and whose methods still lingered in the Church of Episcopal England. Those who took this view were the Separatists, Brownists, Independents of their time, avowed advocates of democracy in church government, for which Robert Brown of Norwich was a strenuous contestant, and in which he led a considerable following. Others regarding the national church as a true church still, even in its degeneracy, and having an invincible antipathy to the least semblance of schism, firmly resisted the secession movement, and sought rather to purify the church of its formalism by the leaven of a more sincere and fervent piety. These were the Puritans.

From the former class came the Plymouth colonists, - by the way of Holland, where they tarried a few years, and contemplated for a time making a permanent religious home under the tolerant laws, the Protestant leanings and the comparatively hospitable public sentiment of that country.

The Puritans continued for a while their experiment of staying in the national church and there working out its reformation. They never formally abandoned it. But practically they did. They confessed to themselves after a time that they were not succeeding. Reluctantly they became more and more accustomed to turn their eyes to the sea and to think of the shores beyond. English trading companies were sending their ventures meanwhile to the wild and little-known bays and rivers of Virginia and their ships were ranging the whole long Eastern coast of the new continent. They might try their experiment there, they thought, under a less close and jealous scrutiny, and possibly pursue there, unmolested by savage neighbors, as they could not at home, unmolested by priests and prelates, the better religious life they craved.

The reports that came from Plymouth were, to be sure, of hunger, cold, sickness, death and of returning malcontents, but also of an undaunted faith, a peaceful following of their own way in religion, and a fixed purpose to stay on the part of the conductors and earliest members of that community. A schismatic the Puritan would never be, but a non-conformist he could be. But at length non-conformity came to be no longer permitted in England. He looked now, then,oftener toward the sea, and thought more of a home and a church in the wilderness.

John White, of the English Dorchester, " a famous Puritan divine," perhaps not thinking of a possible Puritan church at all, but only of a plantation combined with a fishing and trading-post, - John White, of whatever thinking, interested himself, at any rate, to induce some faithful men among the number of those who made voyages from his town for the purpose of fishing in these neighboring waters and bar- tering along these neighboring American coasts, and who were often for months together detained about these parts, to make a station at Cape Ann, " where the mariners might have a home when not at sea, where supplies might be provided for them by farming and hunting, and where they might be brought under religious influences."

In 1623 a plant was made, with this view, under Thomas Gardner as overseer. For some cause it failed. Two years later Mr. Roger Conant, who had left the Plymouth colony from disaffection, and had come up the coast as far as Nantasket, being reported to the Dorchester associates as a " religious, sober and prudent gentleman," was invited by them to come to Cape Ann and to take charge of the plantation there. Though this confidence in the newlyinstalled director was not misplaced, the plantation still languished, and a year or two after, those engaged in it sold what remained of their vessels and supplies, disbanded, and, as a company, quit their joint proceedings. But a few, of better stuff than the rest, and of more staying qualities of character, remained behind, and kept charge of the last importation of cattle. Mr. White was not one to accept defeat. He kept up communication with Conant, who meantime had removed to Nahumkeike, as a preferable seat for the general purposes of colonization, and pleaded with him not to be discouraged nor to desist from the undertaking to which he had set his hand. If Conant and three others whom he named would engage to stay at Naumkeag, he promised to obtain a patent for them and send them recruits, with provisions and goods suitable for trade with the Indians. The drooping spirits of the settlers were with some difficulty roused again, the faith of the English merchants was reinforced by the energetic representations of the Dorchester patron, so that they became willing to risk a portion of their wealth in another attempt. Not only Dorchester fishermen, but London merchants and gentlemen and others, were brought to put some capital at stake here. And it fell out that John Endicott, " a man well known to divers persons of good note,'' "manifested much willingness" to accept the leadership of the new effort proposed, and came in the summer of 1628, at the head of a not large party, to take the management, which, after some objection from those already on the ground, was finally yielded to him, and the name of Salem, which has since come to honor, commemorates, it is said, the pacification of the dispute between the newcomers and the old, which for a while threatened to wreck the project.

So Salem began in 1628. With its beginning began its worship. Probably under some tree, or if a shelter had been reared before the first Sabbath day came round, under its roof, it might be the roof of Conant's house, or of some original " planter's house " at first designed for common use. Their worship followed the prayer-book of the English Church, in part, it is likely, but they easily loosened themselves from its ritual, and their worship became informal and spontaneous - exposition, free prayer, mutual exhortations, - largely modifying the traditional forms of their Old World church-life, all parts recognizing the peculiarity of their situation as they supplicated for patience, faith and constancy in the way of duty and self-sacrifice.

Let us pause for a moment to observe this type of man who stands for the Salem founder. His portrait has often been drawn, but it differs pretty widely in the hands of different delineators. The differences, however, will turn out to be mainly in the strength of the lines and the depth of the coloring. Under them all the same man is easily recognized. He is of firm make, and his figure, face and spirit always hold their place and are to be identified at a glance. It is thus that the author of the " History of New England during the Stuart Dynasty," ^ has sketched his features. " The Puritan was a Scripturist - a Scripturist with all his heart, if, as yet with imperfect intelligence. . . . He cherished the scheme of looking to the word of God as his sole and universal directory. The Puritan searched the Bible, not only for principles and rules, but for mandates - and when he could find none of these, for analogies - to guide him in precise arrangements of public administration and in the minutest points of individual conduct. . . . His objections to the government of the church by bishops were founded, not so much on any bad working of that polity, as on the defect of authority for it in the New Testament ; and he preferred hia plain hierarchy of pastors, teachers, elders and deacons, not primarily because it tended more to edification, but because Paul had specified their offices by name. . . . The opposing party in the State was associated in his mind with the Philistine and Amorite foes of the ancient chosen people, and he read the doom of the King and his wanton courtiers in the Psalm which put the ' high praises of God ' in the mouth of God's people 'and a two-edged sword in their hand, to bind their King with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron.' . . . He would have witchcraft. Sabbath-breaking and filial disobedience weighed in the judicial scales of a Hebrew Sanhedrim. His forms of speech were influenced by this fond reverence for the Bible. , . . He named his children after the Christian graces, still oftener after the worthies of Palestine, or, with yet more singularity, after some significant clause of holy writ.

"The Puritan was a strict moralist. He might be ridiculed for being over-scrupulous, but never reproached for laxity. Most wisely, by precept, influence and example - unwisely by too severe law, when he obtained the power - he endeavored to repress prevailing vice and organize a Christian people. His error was not that of interfering without reason, or too soon. When he insisted on a hearing, villainous men and shameless women, whose abominations were a foul offense in the sight of God and of all who reverence God, were flaunting in the royal dressing-rooms. The foundations of public honor and prosperity were sapped.

" In politics, the Puritan was the Liberal of his day. If he construed his duties to God in the spirit of a narrow interpretation, that punctilious sense of religious responsibility impelled him to limit the assumption of human government. In no stress, in no delirium of politics, could a Puritan have been brought to teach that, for either public or private conduct, there is some law of man above the law of God.''

The Puritan came to New England, as before stated, as a non-conformist, not as a separatist, with not less definite conceptions of what he did not want in church forms and institutions than of what he did want. The ideal of the true church, which he had derived from the Scriptures, was of a brotherhood - a church of equals. The elder, the bishop, was but a minister. In him was no official superiority or authority, but such as he had been invested with by his brethren. To be rid altogether of the false claims and assumptions of authority which the English, as well as the Romish hierarchy asserted, and sought to enforce, was what the Puritan saw clearly as his right ; it was one of the promised advantages dearest to his heart, to be gained by his removal to some distant and obscure retreat, that there he would be less subject to jealous observation and easy interference, than under the immediate eye of the Lords Spiritual of England. Seeing his way so far, plainly, he set about modeling his church order accordingly, when he arrived in his new home. The church brotherhood was sufficient unto itself. The local group of Christian people acquainted with one another, and assembling together, were competent to proceed with their worship in their own preferred way and to maintain their Christian fellowship on such grounds and conditions as seemed to them Scriptural and fitting, always under a common acknowledged responsibility to their consciences and their God. This was practically " separatism," or " independency," but as yet they did not call it by that name.

This state of things was favorable to the growth of a free and natural church life, such as would develop spontaneously under the existing conditions. There was no preconceived form to which all intellectual conclusions, spiritual aspirations and prophetic visions must mold their expression. Precedents sat loosely upon them. They asked themselves what they wanted, and what best satisfied their religious hunger and need, with the consciousness of a liberty of choice to which they had not been accustomed. So they felt their way along tentatively into the adoption of a church life such as suited their case as they found it then and there existing, regarding it at the same tioie as subject to modification as they should find it thereafter to require. If they made mistakes, they were free to repair them. They did make mistakes. They could not help it. They were made up in their individuality of the old traditions and the new longings. They put their free principles on trial, and when they ran against some rock of rare and exceptional individualism like Roger Williams, or some apprehended social outcome of the largest liberality, like the familism or antinomianism, as they regarded it, of Ann Hutchinson, they felt a strain upon their before unquestioned postulates, and studied out the problem as they best could, to arrive sooner or later at some practical conclusion as to the next step necessary to be taken. They made their church polity, as has been happily said, as they went along. The churches of New England had this opportunity to grow up without an excess of swathing prescriptions, and profited by it as a child in an out-door life, and with not too much sheltering, dictation and repression of its activity, often derives strength from its freedom.

This little Puritan colony was yet a child - in the principles and art of constructing society, framing government and learning how to live together in a self-controlling community, how to draw the line between what might be safely conceded to individual choice and what must be enacted for the general good; it was a child, it thought as a child, it understood as a child, in this new learning. In finding out how to use its newly-acquired liberty without abusing it, it could not leap to the highest wisdom at a bound. It must sometimes stumble and fall. If it rose again and went on to better things, taught by experience to avoid its earlier mistakes, its experiment was to be accounted a success. Man's idealism and his hard, practical wisdom for daily use in every-day life never walk together with even feet. The one hastens, the other lags ; the one sees forward, the other is halfblind, and only trusts in experience looking backward. Each corrects the other with much confidence that, both as to speed and direction, it is entitled to govern. It was as inevitable as it was human that the Puritan should sometimes push on with a daring that, to his old associates, seemed rashness, and sometimes manifest what posterity, with the teachings and experience of centuries behind it, to assure and reassure its judgment, loftily pronounces timidity and inexcusable inconsistency. A sufferer for his own dissent, how could he be so inconsistent as to turn and excommunicate, exile and crush out the dissenter from his own creed and church order ? It was simply because it fell to him to pass upon the questions that came to him for judgment two and a-half centuries ago, and not now. Where to draw the line between the liberty that is permissible and safe and the license that is reckless of consequences and destructive and must be checked - this is the question that is always up, with the individual and with society, lasting on from age to age, but with applications new and difficult perpetually arising in practice. It is as much our predicament as it was that of Endicott and Winthrop, of Cotton and Higginson and Williams centuries back. Have we not to decide to-day whether men who, for aught we know, are as honest and sincere as we are, shall be allowed openly and enthusiastically to teach any crowd it can gather, in the streets of any city, that the laws that they live under are oppressive, were enacted in the interest of the strong and rich and overbearing, and may be cast off, and the very foundations of society upturned and overthrown without scruple, whenever the power can be obtained for the purpose? Add to this, that a problem more delicate and difficult still was before the Puritan mind, viz., how to steer clear of offense to the jealous and watchful home government, and at the same time preserve the liberties they had come here to enjoy, and were fully determined to maintain, and the hard conditions under which this Puritan child community was taking its tutelage may be the better appreciated, and a too free criticism of the inhabitants of New England in the first half of the seventeenth century will be likely to be postponed.

Another condition in the circumstances under which the first settlers of New England organized their church system must not be overlooked, for it had a constant influence in giving a cast to the thought as well as a shape to the covenants, the discipline, the teachings and the whole institutional life of the people. This was the fact that the same community was regarded as both a church and a state. It was working out a double problem. Half consciously and half unconsciously, its citizens were striving, in the dual capacity of citizens and Christian disciples, to' realize at once, and in one, an ideal commonwealth and a true church. So, half consciously and half unconsciously, each of them, the church and the commonwealth, was tending to usurp at any time the functions of the other, and for a considerable period these New England communities were in the process of finding out whether or not the one could stand for the other; if not, how far the union was possible, and the identification could be made to hold. Though to the mind of the Puritan the problem inclined always to state itself in the form of the question, whether, in the last result, the church, as representing more nearly the divine government, must not of right absorb to itself, as the higher and as sole heir of both, all inferior authorities, and take the ordering of human society in all its interests and relations under its own direction, and whether thus the ancient dream of a theocratic rule was not to come to realization in the earth, and that here, first, upon these American shores. The spell of this great hope was upon him alike when he set up tribunals for the trial and punishment of offenders against the peace of society, and when he fixed upon the true order of proceeding in church affairs. Qualifications for citizenship and for church membership constantly threatened with him to run into each other, get mixed and to become one and the same thing.

And in the civil and the spiritual sphere alike he was free to enter on experiments which should test the practicability of his long-cherished theories. He made laws, and instituted courts, and prescribed magistracies, and called into being agencies of government, a step at a time, as exigencies arose and as new conditions pushed him to decisions, which he had been willing to leave till some necessity drove him to judgment and action.

As a fact going to show in strong relief the predominance of religious motive and purpose in the settlement of New England, the very leading part taken by the ministers in the administration of public affairs is to be noted. For a considerable period they were but little less conspicuous as counselors and founders in the establishment of civil government and in its conduct, than in constituting churches, settling what should be done in ecclesiastical matters and directing both worship and religious instruction. And these ministers of the earlier times of New England possessed high qualifications for the duties they were called to perform. Belonging to that class of persons whose original force of character and independence of thought and action had caused their exclusion from church dignities and chances of preferment in the Church of England, they had had the best training which the universities of Cambridge and Oxford afforded. " By the practice in the colony," it has been said, "the General Court, from time to time, propounded questions to the ministers or elders which they answered in writing. The proceeding was similar to that under a provision of the Constitution requiring the justices of the Supreme Judicial Court to give to either branch of the Legislature, or the Governor and Council, upon request, opinions upon important questions of law and upon solemn occasions. The opinions given by the ministers, which have been preserved, are very able, and will, in logic and sound reasoning, bear a not unfavorable comparison with opinions of justices given under the provision of our Constitution."^

Rev. Edward E. Hale, D.D., whose large information respecting early American history justly gives great weight to his statements, while discrediting the common notion that the early ministers of Massachusetts exercised the controlling or leading influence in affairs of civil government which history and tradition have ascribed to them, nevertheless says this of them : " There can be little doubt that John Cotton, minister of the First Church [in Boston], had very great authority here, while he lived, of a social or political character. There can be no doubt, humanly speaking, but that Boston is Boston, because he came and lived here, be it observed, because Winthrop and Dudley wanted him to, and begged him to. . . . And probably few affairs of importance were decided in which Cotton did not take part, and in which his advice was not respected." It is difficult to see upon what grounds Cotton is thus assigned a weight of influence wholly exceptional, so that it could be said that " no trace of any such power appeared afterward," If " there were countless instances," as Dr. Hale says there were, " when the ministers met with the court, advised with them and were consulted as any other intelligent gentlemen might be consulted," we read between these lines that many ministers were found to be "intelligent gentlemen," whom the court deemed it important to consult. Official respect purely, and authority as ecclesiastics it is not claimed that they received. Quite otherwise. In the first church organized in Massachusetts - that in Salem - those who had been ministers in the English Church were first " reduced to the ranks " among the Salem brethren, and then by those brethren raised or set apart to the position of ministers. " There were present, at the time, and on the spot," says Upham, "at least four persons who had borne the ministerial office in distinguished positions, men of talent, learning and reputation, and eminent in worth as well as station." ^ If they had great influence afterward, it was because by their solid intelligence and their consistent Christian carriage they entitled themselves to a leading influence. " The leaders led as they always will," says Dr. Hale,words emphatically applicableto men likeHigginson, Williams and Peters, as well as to Cotton. "The clergy," says Palfrey, in a resume of the state of the Massachusetts colony in 1634, " now thirteen or fourteen in number, constituted in some sort a separate estate of special dignity. Though they were excluded from secular office, the relation of their functions to the spirit and aim of the community which had been founded, as well as their personal weight of ability and character, gave great authority to their advice. Nearly all were graduates of Oxford or Cambridge, and had held livings in the Established Church of England. Several had been eminent among their fellows for all professional endowments."

The theology of the Salem colonists, as of the settlers of New England generally, was Calvinistic. The formularies emanating from the Westminster Assembly of divines embody it with virtual accuracy. It was held with no half indifierence, no mental reservations ; not merely for substance of doctrine. Face to face, with a will to blink nothing of the terrible inferences involved, as before God, the sombre creed was confessed. And though, with Robinson, these confessors believed that more light would break forth from the word of God, they anticipated no such light as would soften the rigors of the divine government or lift the crushing doom of eternal pains from the non-elect - from the unbeliever and the impenitent who remained hardened to the hour of death. This was the Puritan's creed. His human feeling of com- passion and justice was too strong against it in many a genial hour, and in many a sympathetic temperament, and he took refuge, as often as occasion required, from unbearable thoughts of the fate of the wretched lost, and unbearable thoughts of God, in the comforting sentences of Scripture that reminded him that God would have mercy and not sacrifice.

The first church in New England was that at Plymouth. It landed a completed church. The next, the first gathered upon the soil, was that at Salem. Its beginning possesses a curious interest and throws invaluable light upon the principles and aims that guided the founders of the earlier colonial churches. At every point in the proceedings it may be seen that it was a natural and gradual growth, rather than an artificial construction, built upon precedents. It appears that seventeen days intervened between the first step taken in the business of organization and the final one. The 6th of August, 1629, has usually been assumed as the date of its institution. We should rather assign it to the 20th of July. On that day it exercised the highest functions of a corporate body, viz., held an election - voting in the choice of its most important officers, viz., those of pastor and teacher. True, it had no written constitution yet. Its covenant was not adopted till more than two weeks afterwards. So far as appears, it had not yet a list of enrolled members. "Every fit member wrote, in a note, his name whom the Lord moved him to think was fit for a pastor, and so likewise, whom they would have for teacher." But nothing indicates how it was determined who were to be deemed " fit members." Perhaps it was by general assent of the assembly, any ballot being received if no objection was made. Perhaps each one was put upon his own conscience to decide for himself whether he ought to participate in the vote. At least the result was accepted without question or dispute. The day had been appointed as a "solemn day of humiliation for the choice of a pastor and teacher." It was a public assembly, meeting in response to this appointment which took action. " The former part of the day being spent in praise and teaching, the latter part was spent about the election."

We are forbidden to suppose that this was a mere preliminary and informal selection, intended to be ratified later, by the fact that the church then and there proceeded to set apart the pastor and teacher-elect with solemn and formal ceremony of official investment. " So the most voice was for Mr. Skelton to be pastor and Mr. Higginson to be teacher ; and they accepting the choice, Mr. Higginson, with three or four more of the gravest members of the church, laid their hands on Mr. Skelton, using prayers therewith. This being done, then there was imposition of hands on Mr. Higginson." Here are all the circumstances indicative of a completed installation of these two chief officers of the church ; and this was on the 20th of July. When the church or assembly proceeded to its next action, which was the choice of elders and deacons, it did leave that business uncompleted, at that time, to be finished at a later day. After going so far as to designate the persons of its choice - perhaps by what we might call an informal ballot - it is quaintly added by Mr. Charles Gott, in his letter to Governor Bradford, that "they were only named, and laying on of hands deferred to see if it pleased God to send us more able men over." It is true that at the meeting which followed, August 6th, "appointed for another solemn day of humiliation for the full choice of elders and deacons, and ordaining them," not only were the elders and deacons chosen and set apart to their respective offices in a formal and solemn manner, but some ceremony of ordination took place also, in seeming repetition of that by which, on the 20th of July, the pastor and teacher had been ordained. In looking for the reasons for this we are left largely to conjecture. Whatever may have occurred in the consultations held by those interested between July 20th and August 6th, the election, which had taken place on the former day, must have been deemed valid, for it was left undisturbed, and no like form was gone through with again. But the church at Plymouth had been notified of the occasion, and representatives of that church had been invited and were expected to be present on August 6th. Their approval and assurance of fellowship were also expected to be given, and were valued, though especial care was taken that it should be understood beforehand that this proffered fellowship would be welcomed on the part of the Salem Church simply as an act of Christian courtesy and brotherly communion, and not as implying any ecclesiastical jurisdiction in one church over another. There had been correspondence previously between them of Plymouth and these of Salem in regard to the true principles and right method of church foundation and organization, in which there had appeared to be a general harmony of views and the utmost good feeling, though not entire concurrence in all points.

On the 6th of August a covenant was to be presented for adoption, and a more definite recognition and enrollment of the members of the church was to be made by signing and accepting the covenant. In the absence of any definite testimony going to show the motive for the renewal of the act of ordination - the laying on of hands - upon the pastor and teacherelect, we venture to think that it may have been partly that, upon review of the proceedings of July 20th, it was thought that the adoption and signing of the covenant would more properly have preceded the ordaining of the ministers; partly, perhaps, that the contemplated full constitution of the church designed to go into effect on the later day, together with the expected presence on that day of the Governor and others, messengers from the Plymouth Church, as guests of the Salem brethren, and appointed to bring greetings from the older sister church, made it seem to those who arranged the proceedings, fitting that the induction of the chosen ministers of the church into office should form a part of the observances of the time, as essential to their completeness. Governor Bradford and his associates from Plymouth, "coming by sea and hindered by cross-winds," did not arrive till late in the day; but though not present at the beginning, " they came into the assembly afterwards, and gave them the right hand of fellowship, wishing all prosperity, and a blessed success unto such good beginnings."

To assist us in determining - if that is possible - what was the form of the covenant adopted by the Salem Church in 1629, and to explain some of the controversies which have arisen over this question, it is necessary to present here certain facts in regard to the history of the records of this church.

No records made contemporaneously, or nearly so, with the events and facts which they record are now in existence of an earlier period than 1660, the time when the ministry of John Higginson began. John Higginson was the son of Francis, who was chosen the first teacher in the Salem Church July 20, 1629, and who drew up the covenant adopted August 6th of the same year. There was a book of records purporting to cover the period from 1629 to 1660 in existence when John Higginson was ordained, or at least from 1636 to 1660 ; when and how it began is obscure. It appears to have borne upon its pages some things which it seemed to the most considerate and exemplary members of the church not well to hand down to posterity. A committee was appointed accordingly "to review the church book and to report such things to the church as they conceive worthy of consideration." In their report the committee say that : " They conceived the book itself and paper of it being old, not well bound, and in some places having been wet and torn, and not legible, is not like to last long to be of use to posterity ; therefore they thought it best if it were kept in a place of safety by the Elders - by that means it will be of use so long as it will last. Only some few passages in it, which do reflect upon particular persons, or upon the whole church, without any church vote, and without the proof, they did mark in the book as thinking they should be struck out." At the same time, " some of the brethren propounded, which was readily consented to, that there might be liberty, to such as desired it, to see those passages mentioned in the former book for a month's time." This recommendation appears to have been satisfactory to the church, and to have been adopted and carried into effect. It accomplished all that was expected of it - perhaps more. Not only were the objectionable parts withdrawn from sight, but the book itself disappeared, and except some portions of it which were transcribed into the new book of records, begun by John Higginson in 1660, its contents are unknown. It has been assumed that all that was important in it would be likely to be preserved, and to be contained in the record of the second Hig- ginson. Very likely. We shall probably never know. Some will never cease to regret that they cannot know. If not important in any other sense, some will always think that even the expunged records are important to the completeness of history, and wish that it had been permitted them also to judge for themselves the wisdom of suppressing them. It would be interesting, no doubt, to see what picture the stormy time of Roger Williams' ministry left of itself on the old recordbook. At least, as to the faithfulness and accuracy of the copy of those portions, purporting to be transcribed from the first book into the second, as far as they go, there should be no valid ground of doubt. But just here a new question, and an important one, precipitates itself upon us as to this very point - namely, the accuracy of the copy. The old book, the first book of records, appears to have been begun no earlier than 1636, with the beginning of the ministry of Rev, Hugh Peters;^ consequently its record of events at the organization of the church, in 1629, was not strictly contemporaneous with the events. When we read there the covenant of 1629, as renewed in 1636, what confidence may we rightly have that the renewed covenant was the same that Francis Higginson wrote, and the church in Salem adopted August 6, 1629? Was it the same in substance only, or likewise in form? Over this question a spirited controversy has arisen within the last fifty years.

John Higginson, minister of the church from 1660 to 1708, and son of the framer of the covenant, himself, as a youth of thirteen, having joined the church in 1629, solemnly renewing this covenant with the church in 1660, records it as having been already "renewed" by the church in 1636, and he is our authority for saying that it is the covenant adopted in 1629, as he indorses it as such, the record in the margin running thus: "6 of 6th month, 1629, this covenant was publicly Signed and Declared, as may appear from page 85, in this book." To this, as renewed in 1660, is prefixed a preamble adopted with it in 1636, which states the fact and shows the motive of the renewal at tha t time, 1636, and an additional article is appended to it at the end, which was adopted with it at the renewal, in 1660, as applicable to the relation of the church to the Quakers at that time, the fact and the motive of the addendum being likewise plainly stated. Mr. Higginson's intention seems clearly and unmistakably to have been to present the covenant of 1629 in its original and unaltered form, and to distinguish from it carefully the prefix and suflax above referred to as no part of it. We introduce it here as it stood, unquestioned, for more than two hundred years. And to make evident the parts added in 1636 and in 1660, it is given as it stands in the record of Mr. John Higginson in 1660, -

1 He wrote his own name Peter. It has been the modern nsage to it Peters. Dr. Palfrey, in his "History of New England," writes it Peler.

first aimes in entring into Chtirch fellowship : Doe therefore solemnly in the presence of the Eternall God, both for our own comforts, and those which shall or maye be joyned unto vs, renewe that Church Covenant ice find this Church bound wnto at theire first beginning, viz : That

We covenant with the Lord, and one with an other ; and doe bynd our selves in the prewnce of God, to walke togetlier in all his waies, according as he is pleased to reveale himself unto us in his Blessed word of truth. And doe more explicitely in the name and feare of God, profess and protest to walke as followeth, through the power and grace of our Lord Jesus.

2 Wee give our selves to the Lord Jesus Christ and the word of his grace, fore the teaching, ruleing and sanctifyeing of us in matters of worship, and Conversation, resolveing to cleave to him alone for life and glorie ; and oppose all contrarie wayes, cannons and constitutions of men in liis worship.

3 Wee promise to walke with our brethren and sisters in tliis Congregation with all watchfullnes and tendernes, avoyding all jelousies, suspitions, backbyteings, censurings, provoakings, secrete risings of spirite against them ; but in all offences to follow the rule of the Lord Jesus, and to beare and forbeare, give and forgive, as he hath taught us.

4 In piiblick or in private, we will willingly doe nothing to the ofence of the Church but will be willing to take advise for our selves and oura, asocasion shall be presented.

5 Wee will not in the Congregation be forward eyther to shew oure oune gifts or parts in speaking or scrupling, or there discover the faylingof oiire brethren or sisters butt atend an orderly cale there unto ; knowing how much the Lord maybe dishonoured, and his Gospell, in the profession of it, sleighted, by our distempers, and weaknesses in publyck.

0 We bynd our selves to studdy the advancement of the Gospell in all truth and peace, both in regard of those that are within, or without, noe way sleighting our sister Churches, but using theire Counsell as need shalbe : nor laying a stumbling block before any, noe, not the Indians, whose good we desire to promote, and soe to converse, as we may avoyd the verrye appearance of evill.

7 Wee hearbye promise to carrye our selves in all lawful] obedience, to those that are over us, in Church or Commonweale, knowing how well pleasing it will be to the Lord, that they should have incouragement in theire places, by our not grieveing theyre spirites through our Irregularities.

8 Wee resolve to approve our selves to the Lord, in our perticular calings, shunning ydlenessas the bane of any state, nor will wee deale hardly, or oppressingly with any, wherein we are the Lord's stewards :

9 alsoe promysing to our best abilitie to teach our children and servants the knowledg of God and his will, that they may serve him also ; and all this, not by any strength of our owue, but by the Lord Christ ; whose bloud we desire may sprinckle this our Covenant made in his name.

This Covenant was renewed by the Church on a sollemne day of Humiliation 6 of I monelh 1600. When also considering the poicer of Temptation amongst us by reason of ye Quakers doctrine to the leavening of some in the place where we are and endangering of others, doe see cause to remember the Admonition of our Saviour Christ to his disciples Math. 16.

Take heed and beware of ye leaven of the doctrine of the Pharisees and doe judge so farre as we understand it yl ye Quakers doctrine i» as bad or worse than that of ye Pharisees ; Therefore we doe Covenant by the help of Jesus Christ to take heed and beware of the leaven of the doctrine of the Quakers.

that the covenant, as renewed in 1636, was, with a near approach to verbal accuracy, the same that was adopted in 1629. In connection with a " discourse delivered on the First Centennial Anniversary of the Tabernacle Church," in 1835, by Rev. Samuel M. Worcester, pastor of that church, and published, the author places the covenant of 1636 - the foregoing covenant of these pages - in an appendix, with the following passage taken from its first paragraph in quotation marks, namely : " That we covenant with the Lord, and one with another, and do bind ourselves, in the presence of God, to walk together in all his ways, according as he is pleased to reveal himself unto us in his blessed word of truth : " and follows the quotation with this explanatory observation, " I have seen fit to throw into the form of a quotation that part of the Preamble of the foregoing Covenant, which I suspect was, in substance at least, The Covenant ' which the church was bound unto at their first beginning.'' " [The italics are ours ] This conclusion, though couched at first in the form of a suspicion, was fortified with sundry reasons to support it, and affirmed later in more confident terms : " The conclusion is to my mind irresistible from the internal evidence alone, that the covenant printed in the Magnalia of Mather [that of 1636 as given above], and often cited as the covenant of the First Church at its beginning, could not have been the first Covenant of that church."

Again, in a discourse delivered at Plymouth December 22, 1848, and published the following year, Dr. Worcester reiterates the same opinion with greater emphasis, and qualified by no doubts : "What has been generally printed, for a hundred and fifty years, as the First Covenant of that church, and adopted August 6, 1629, is not that covenant. It was adopted as a special covenant in 1636 " is his confident decision, which he proceeded to support with the asserted facts and resulting reasonings which had brought his mind to this conviction. And yet, again in 1854, in discussion of the same subject before the Essex Institute, the same ground was firmly maintained by him. In the next year, 1855, two publications appeared, both issued by the Congregational Board of Publication, which gave their sanction to this later view of the first covenant. One was " The Ecclesiastical History of New England," etc., by Joseph B. Felt, Vol. I., and the other a new edition of Morton's " New England's Memorial," in the appendix to which the editor, or editors, indorse the same conclusion. Mr. Felt says, ^ that *' this covenant [of 1629] differs from the second, formed 1636, which has long been supposed to be the first, and from the hand of Higginson, when it was probably drawn up by Peters at the later date." He appears to have relied, as Dr. Worcester had done, mainly on internal evidence as his warrant for this belief.^

In the new edition of "Morton's New England's Memorial," Appendix A, under the heading "The Articles of Faith and Covenant of 1629," there is attributed to the editor of an earlier edition of the work, the learned Judge John Davis, an important oversight in not discovering that with the covenant of 1629 was adopted a separate confession of faith, and in misinterpreting history, in that he omitted to connect this confession of faith with the covenant of 1629 as a virtual part of the constitution of the church at its beginning.

The foregoing authorities, - Worcester, Felt and the editors of " Morton's Memorial," edition of 1855, witnessing to the strong probability, if not moral certainty of considerable and important differences between the covenant of 1629 and the renewed covenant of 1636 {if they be not reducible to one authority, viz. : the Rev. Dr. Worcester, followed by the others), lay especial stress upon the indications, or proofs, that the covenant of 1629 was adopted jointly with a creed, or confession of articles of belief. The covenant proper of 1629 they believe to have been materially shorter than that of 1636, but to have had this credal adjunct, which made the church constitution of 1629 to differ greatly from the renewed covenant of 1636 in being distinctly and emphatically doctrinal in its aspect.

An arraignment so weighty as this of what had passed for verified history for many generations, though sustained by a support so considerable, and by names of repute, was not likely to go long unchallenged. Nor did it. Taking only the time necessary to subject the evidence in the case to a rigid re-examination, the Hon. Daniel A. White, judge of probate of Essex County, and a leading member of the First Church for many years, replied to the published statements of Rev, Dr. Worcester, in which the traditions current for a couple of centuries as undisputed truth were set aside as we have seen with great assurance as founded in misconception - as sanctioning "an egregious and singular error." Point by point the champion of the long accredited opinion, - namely, that the covenant of 1636 was, with no material difference, the covenant of 1629, - stoutly contended for the trustworthiness of the ancient and long unquestioned opinion. The testimony of John Higginson was held to be explicit. His knowledge of the facts was not to be impeached. What Cotton Mather said of the first covenant was also to be accepted, he contended, with as much confidence as if it had been said by Higginson himself, for he, Higginson, wrote that, having " known the beginning and progress of these (New England) churches unto this day, and having read over much of this history (in the Magnalia), I cannot but in the love and fear of God bear witness to the truth of it." The first covenant is given by Mather as agreeing with that of 1636, only differing from it in lacking its preamble. The important testimony of Rev. John Fiske is also

1637, and was for some time an assistant of Rev. Mr. Peters. In Mr. Fiske's private book of records " we find recorded," says Judge White, " in the handwriting of Mr. Fiske, the First Covenant of the Salem Church, with the preamble to its renewal, . . . Mr. Fiske's record of the Covenant being essentially the same as that which we have taken from the Salem Church book " (that already presented in this writing)- supposes was adopted by the church in 1629, in connection with the first covenant, Mr. White believes - and believes he has proved - was of much later date, probably 1680, and was expressly declared not to be intended, even at that date, to be imposed aa a rigid test upon all candidates for admission to the church. He produces much evidence to show that the imposition of doctrinal tests as a uniform and indispensable condition of admission to church membership was expressly disavowed by the church at the beginning, and that for a long time at least it consistently adhered in practice to the position thus taken. Not denying that Mr. Francis Higginson was commissioned " to draw up a confession of faith and covenant in Scripture language," or that he did so, he finds all that these terms describe and define in the single instrument commonly known and spoken of as the first covenant; "covenant," or "confession of faith and Covenant," he finds it called, the terms being used interchangeably, and when designated as " the confession of faith and covenant," the pronoun referring to it is in the singular number, indicating but one instrument or writing. Morton, having lull knowledge of things from the beginning, writes, in his "New England's Memorial:" "The confession of faith and covenant fore-mentioned was acknowledged only as a direction, pointing unto that faith and covenant contained in the holy Scripture, and therefore no man was confined unto that form of words, but only to the substance, end and scope of the matter contained therein. . . . Some were admitted by expressing their consent to that written confession of faith and covenant ; others did answer to questions about the principles of religion that were publicly propounded to them ; some did present their confession in writing, which was read for them, and some that were able and willing, did make their confession in their own words and way. A due respect was also had unto the conversations of men, viz. : that they were without scandal." ^

1 "New England's Memorial," Davis' edition, pp. 146-147. See also a tract, without date (in Boston Athenseum Library. "B. 76: Sermons"), entitled " A Direction," etc. Referred to by both Dr. Worcester and Judge White as bearing upon this question.

sented as bearing upon the writer's main conclusion and fortifying it. Judge White comments also carefully upon the internal evidence in the alleged anachronisms contained in the covenant of 1636, much relied upon to prove that it could not have been the same as that of 1629. On this point he dissents from the judgment expressed by Dr. Worcester, Mr. Felt and the editors of "Morton's Memorial," edition of 1855, and at the same time equally forecloses, it may be here observed, by unconscious anticipations, so far as the weight of his name goes, a similar opinion from another source presently to be noticed, - an opinion not expressed till after Judge White's death, - by his former pastor. Rev. Charles W. Upham.

This opinion of Rev. Mr. Upham is remarkable, not only for the weight that justly attaches to any opinion of his upon matters to which he had given many years of study, and to which he brought a trained mind and habits of research, but still more for the reason that it is a direct reversal of an earlier opinion of his own on a point since strenuously controverted, without so much as an allusion on his part to any change of opinion, or to any judgment previously entertained and expressed, and now abandoned or modified ; remarkable, moreover, as being in direct opposition to the well-known and elaborately-maintained opinion of his able and candid parishioner, Judge White, with whom he had been in life-long associations of intimacy, and the worth of whose deliberate judgment he knew so well how to estimate, and yet to his dissent from whose judgment he makes no reference whatever that we have been able to discover. Mr. Upham's last conclusion, in regard to the identity of the covenant of 1629 with that renewed in 1636, is against it, and agrees with that of Dr. Worcester - that thore were two covenants ; that of 1629 very short, that of 1636 quite long. But on Dr. Worcester's more important position, that there were articles of belief required to be adopted as a confession of faith, distinct from the covenant, but in force in connection with it, in 1629, - against this opinion Mr. Upham expresses himself on all occasions distinctly and emphatically.

It is to be remembered that Rev. Charles W. Upham, whom we now cite, was for twenty years pastor of the First Church (from 1824 to 1844), conversant with its records and with early Salem history, and the author of important historical discourses of commemoration, delineating with great fullness of detail the story of the early days of the Salem Church. Mr. Upham delivered a "Second Century Lecture of the First Church" m 1829 of a historical character, and gives in an appendix, as the "first covenant of the First Church," the covenant already given on a preceding page of this work, it being the same as that which was renewed in 1636, he holding - that is, at that time - to the long-established and settled opinion upon the question in hand. Mr. Upham remarks at ' the end of the covenant that "at a very early period this covenant was displaced by another. It was restored and renewed at the ordination of John Higginson in 1660. In the course of time it was again superseded, and for many years has not been used in the church." How much he may have meant by the expression, " at a very early period this covenant was displaced by another," we cannot tell. He does not specify as to the time or the extent of the displacement. He may have had in mind the preamble of 1636 ; if more than that, we cannot interpret his language, since no other changes are known to us previous to 1660.

On the 8th of December, 1867, Mr. Upham delivered an address at the re-dedication of the First Church building. Without intimating an abandonment of a former judgment, he incidentally shows that his judgmen,t upon the matter in question was quite different in 1867 from that he had expressed nearly forty years before, thus : " This renewed covenant of 1636 bears the impress of the style of thought and expression of Hugh Peters, whose name heads the list as from that date. ... In most of the clauses the language and forms of thought were, as plainly appears, suggested by circumstances that had disturbed the peace and harmony of the church during the stormy agitations and conflicts of Roger Williams' period, and are therefore of temporary and retrospective interest. The passages that have no such special reference, but express sentiments of universal and perpetual obligation, are inscribed on the opposite wall. It will be noticed that it begins by quoting from the covenant at the * first beginning ' of the church. From the aspect of the document in the church book, and its entire construction and import, it is highly probable that what is inscribed on that tablet in German text is all that wns taken from the first covenant. It is so complete in itself that the inference which the form of the document and the bearings of the contents seem to suggest, that it was the whole of that document, is almost unavoidable.^^

" We covenant with the Lord, and one with another, and do bind ourselves in the presence of God, to walk together in all his ways, according as He is pleased to reveal Himself unto us, in His blessed word of truth."

Perhaps no expression of our own opinion is called for, as to who is right in this controversy. If we have fairly placed the facts before the reader, and especially if we refer him to the authorities in which he may find the merits of the question exhaustively treated (as we propose to do at the end of this article), we shall put him in the way to form his own opinion for himself, if he cares to do so. We dismiss the interesting inquiry by simply calling attention, further, to the fact that those who have sought to invalidate the long-settled opinion that the covenant "renewed " in 1636 is the same that was adopted at the founding of the church in 1629, appear to rest their argument and conclusion mainly upon the internal evidence afforded by the document itself. In resting their case upon that, they give it, as it seems to us, its best support, the weight of the historical evidence alone being insufficient to sustain their position. Both Mr. Upham and Dr. Worcester think they find in the covenant, as renewed in 1636, traces of the church agitations, and of the special controversies intervening between 1629 and 1636. Mr. White does not, Mr. Upham, moreover, finds that " this renewed covenant of 1636 bears the impress of the style of thought and expression of Hugh Peters." Mr. White could not discover this .

It should be borne in mind that this kind of evidence, while it may be strong and convincing in some cases, is peculiarly liable to take a more marked or a slighter coloring, or even an opposite hue, according to the interpreter's direction of approach and resulting point of view. It needs a judicial impartiality, a very complete knowledge of the religious history of the time, and a keen and much practiced literary perception, to pass intelligently and convincingly upon such points. The difficulty is heightened by the circumstance that the very power of the recreative imagination, so necessary to reproduce vividly the life and thought of a past period, is itself often a snare and becomes an easy and frequent cause of the misconstruction of language. We follow with caution, and not without a measure of distrust, a line of argument which grounds important inferences upon what are at best only inferences from premises incapable of verification, therefore not compelling assent.

No fact comes out more conspicuously in the early history of the Salem Church than that it intended to guard well its own independence. It was conscious of a new departure. It trod its untried way with caution, but with a firm foot. It was determined to make sure of this, namely, that the unit of human authority in matters ecclesiastical should be the body of members congregating and covenanting together in church fellowship, in any one appointed place which should give it local habitation and name. Each such congregation was competent and commissioned to manage its own affairs. It need acknowledge no earthly superior. The Scriptures were its law-book. In them it would seek to find out the mind of Christ, the Head of the Church, in whom resided, for it, the ultimate sovereignty in spiritual things. It was glad to exchange assurances of mutual good-will and fellowship with the elder sister church at Plymouth. It had no intention of cutting itself off from Christian fraternal relations with the churches of the mother-country, and stood with an anticipating hand of welcome stretched forth in brotherly recognition to all the New-World congregations of Christian people which it foresaw planting themselves in a long succession by its side, and all around. But each church within its own borders constituted, under the Divine Head, a dominion of its own. It was in pursuance of this principle that the First Church in Salem had unmade the before-ordained ministers found within its own fold at the beginning, that it might make them ministers of its own creation and invest them with right and title to their office from itself.

In other ways, it availed of every opportunity that offered to reassert this principle. It looked with distrust upon a proposed affiliation of its ministers with the ministers of other churches in pastoral associations, fearing that these associations would come in time to claim some power of direction and control within the churches, or would invent some form of ecclesiastical bondage, into which the churches of the colony might be drawn unconsciously, to the loss of their complete self-government. It was not long after its foundation before it conceived its independence to be seriously threatened. Other churches which had sprung up around it, and such as had an honorable and weighty constituency, showed a disposition to meddle in its affairs by taking cognizance of teachings by the Salem ministers, which they regarded as not agreeing with the Scriptures, nor as being consistent with the peace and welfare of the community of new settlements in the colony. As often as there appeared to be occasion for it, this church reaffirmed, in clear and strenuous language, its purpose not to suffer its fellowship, - which it extended freely and gladly as a sympathetic, helpful, brotherly communion, to all churches and all Christians, - not to suffer it to become an entangling alliance, which might endanger its own freedom and autonomy. There was abundant justification for these precautions in the usurpation of ecclesiastical authority with which these Salem Christians had been lately only too familiar in England, and which warned them to keep a jealous guard against the forging of new fetters of spiritual domination and oppression this side the sea, under the guise of better symbols of church order and of Christian living.

The officers of the church as first organized in Salem were, besides the pastor and teacher, one or more ruling elders, deacons and deaconesses. Between pastor and teacher no distinction of precedence appears to have been observed. It is probable that in the performance of their respective duties it was found that the work of each naturally overlapped that of the other to a considerable extent, and that experience showed before long that it was better to combine the two offices in one, as was done.

The duties belonging to the office of the ruling elder were not very distinctly defined. He was an assistant to the pastor and teacher, but while under their general direction, he had an independent voice also as adviser and administrator in church affairs. The office came to Plymouth from Holland with the Pilgrim Church. That church found it in the Reformed Churches of the Continent and referred to the

French Reformed Churches as its own precedent for establishing it, though in the French Churches the ability to teach was not held to be a necessary qualification for a ruling elder, as it was in the Dutch- English and American Churches.^ For a hundred and fifty years, at least, ruling elders were chosen by some churches in Massachusetts as necessary to their complete organization, although Mr. Bentley says, " the office never existed but in name, and did not survive the first generation.'"^ Mr. Bentley regards the office as having been designed to represent the power of the church itself on the part of its general membership, the elder standing as a permanent watchman and makeweight against all assumptions of special authority on the part of the ministers. After his brusque and vigorous fashion he indicates how far short of answering its end was the device, by his brief and contemptuous notice of those who were elected to the place. " In the choice of an elder to rule the church, care was taken not to accept a civil officer, and Elder Houghton was appointed. He was a man of inoffensive ambition, and died in the next year after his appointment. Mr. Samuel Sharpe succeeded him, but he was frequently absent, and never possessed even the shadow of power. He died in 1658. The independence of Mr. Williams and the sovereignty of Mr. Peters rendered the office useless in their time, and it never obtained its influence. When Mr. John Higginson, the son of Francis, in 1660, returned to Salem and attempted to revive the form of government which his father had adopted, Mr. John Browne was elected elder, but we find no other services but of attending, for a short time, the private instructions of the pastor, who had secured all the power." We have said that the office did not cease to be known with the first generation, or for a century and a half after, and it is true that the men called to the office even in the later years of its existence were not all colorless and valueless ciphers. But the fear of ministerial usurpation had very much died away, and the ruling elder was, in time, without functions, and disappeared. Mr. Bentley's assertion that it soon came to stand for little more than a name seems to be borne out by the history of the churches of the Massachusetts Colony.

Deacons, but not deaconesses, are mentioned as officers chosen at the organization of the Salem Church. They received the contributions of the church and distributed them, and made provision for the table of communion, serving also in the dispensation of the bread and wine in the observance. Deaconesses, if not chosen at once by the church at Salem, were, according to custom, regularly selected in the churches of the earliest colonial period. As at Plymouth, so at Salem. They were widows by preference, of at least three-score years, without carefully prescribed duties

We have been more minute and explicit in specifying some of these forms of church-life and organization first adopted here, because this was the pioneer church. Offices, titles and usages now long familiar to every New England village were then new, or known only as existing in the English churches under other conditions, and where they had a different significance ; here, under an old name, went a new thing. New methods were on trial, and were carefully observed and studied, and sought to be adjusted to the circumstances of the time and people, and were not immediately and once for all fixed in an unalterable form.

Francis Higginson lived but a year after the founding of the church. On the 6th of August, 1630, just a year from the day when its organization was completed, a day in whose doings he bore the leading part, he closed his earthly labors. He was born in 1588, and was, therefore, a little more than forty years of age when he came to Salem. He was a graduate of the famous English University of Cambridge - of Emanuel College, according to Mr. Upham ; of Jesus, says Judge White; of St. John's, says F. S. Drake (American biography); and Mr. Savage (Geneal. Diet.), seemingly warranting and reconciling all these assignments, has it : " Bred at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he took his A.B., 1609, but was of St. John's when his A.M. was given, 1613, though Mather asserts he was of Emanuel." He was first settled in Leicester, England, where he had so high a reputation as a preacher that "the people flocked to hear him from the neighboring towns." Neal, historian of the Puritans, says, " he was a good scholar, of a sweet and affable behavior, and having a most charming voice, was one of the most acceptable and popular preachers of the country." Becoming a non-conformist he was ejected from his living and forbidden to preach in England. After this he resorted to teaching for a livelihood. He is characterized by Mr. Bentley as " grave in his deportment and pure in his morals. In his person he was slender, not tall ; not easily changed from his purposes, but not rash in declaring them. His influence in giving form and direction to the first church polity in America was second to none." Mr. Bentley, by a few strokes, pictures some of the results of Mr. Higginson's brief ministry in the social customs of the newly-gathered community at Salem, and shows in what spirit and along what lines of influence he wrought : " He lived to secure the foundation of his church, to deserve the esteem of the colony and provide himself a name among the worthies of New England. When he died, he left iu the colony the most sacred guards upon the public manners. Cards, dice, and all such amusements, had no share of favour. Family devotions were inculcated and established, and the most constant attendance on public worship. The ministers visited families to assist in their devotions. Constant care of the poor was required ; the Indians were not permitted to trade in private houses ; all the inhabitants were instructed to unite in the labours which promoted their common interest; and the greatest confidence was required in all who were appointed in civil trusts." (Pp. 244-245.)

Rev. Samuel Skelton, ordained the first pastor of the church, in association with Mr. Higginson as teacher, on the 20th of July, 1629, survived his colleague four years. He had been the minister of Governor Endicott, in England, and was held by him in especial affection and esteem, as one to whom he had reason to look up as his spiritual father. His name is less conspicuous in the early annals of the Massachusetts churches than that of Higginson. He seems to have been a modest and retiring man, and is described by a contemporary as '' of gracious speech, full of faith, and furnished by the Lord with gifts from above." He was content to yield precedence .to others, nor soured with jealousy when to them went the harvest of fame. " As he never acted alone," says Mr. Bentley, " he yielded to others all the praise of his best actions." The scant recognition accorded to him among those who led in church affairs in the earliest days is further explained by his biographer by the fact that " there was a want of friendship between the ministers of Boston and its neighborhood and the ministers of Salem. Everything which one party did was found fault with by the other." That he was a man of positive convictions and not lacking in courage would appear from his standing forward in defense of his colleague, Roger Williams, when the latter was assailed and in danger of being overborne by those who uttered the sentence of popular condemnation against him. Mr. Skelton was probably of about the same age as Mr. Higginson, having taken his first degree in 1611, two years later than Mr. Higginson. He was of Lincolnshire, educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge, and died August 2, 1634.

Francis Higginson had been dead six months, and Mr. Skelton was carrying on his ministry alone in the Salem Church, when Roger Williams arrived in Boston, early in February, 1631. Rev. John Wilson, minister of the First Church in Boston, was contemplating a visit to England, and Mr. Williams was invited to supply his place during his absence, but declined on the ground that the members of that church were " an unseparated people."

April 22d, following, he was invited to Salem as an assistant to Rev. Mr. Skelton. Having already promulgated some novel and unacceptable notions deemed subversive of the just authority of the magistrates, the Massachusetts Court interposed a remonstrance against the action of the Salem Church, and succeeded in preventing Mr. Williams' coming to Salem. He soon went to Plymouth, and even there, though the teachings of the separatists were more in favor in Plym(mth than in Boston, and his personal qualities gained him a large influence, his "singular opinions" were not welcome to all, and after serving a while as assistant to Rev. Ralph Smith, he applied himself to manual labors and to trade for a livelihood, devoting much time also to acquiring the language of the Indians, though meanwhile never losing sight of the then agitating questions of church government, and of individual responsibility in civil and ecclesiastical affairs.

In 1633 Mr. Williams obtained, not without some difficulty, a dismission from the church in Plymouth, and returned to Salem ; returned accompanied by several members of the Plymouth Church, who preferred to give up their home and church relations to severing the tie that bound them to their pastor. Arrived in Salem, he became an assistant to Mr. Skelton, though without formal ordination. And notwithstanding that he had come again under the censure of the Governor and Assistants of Massachusetts for offensive writings and publications, in some of which he had denied the validity of the title of the Massachusetts Company to its territory, in that they had not the assent of the natives of the soil, yet he was invited and ordained, upon the death of Mr. Skelton, in August, 1634, to succeed him in the pastoral charge of the church. In this office he continued till October 19, 1635, when the opposition which his vigorous assertion of his views had aroused culminated in a sentence pronounced by the General Court that he should depart out of the jurisdiction of Massachusetts within six weeks, on account of having " broached and divulged divers new and dangerous opinions against the authority of the magistrates, as also writ letters of defamation, both of the magistrates and churches." " The colonial records," says Arnold, the historian of Rhode Island, " fix the date November 3d." Consent was given afterwardsto the postponement of his removal till spring, upon condition of his refraining from promulgating his objectionable doctrines. It was withdrawn subsequently, upon the allegation that the conditions had been violated. Learning that he was to be sent at once to England, he anticipated the plans of his judges, escaping early in January to the South, through the wintry snows and storms, and finding a refuge on the banks of the Seekonk River, where he founded the State of Rhode Island.

The teachings of Mr. Williams which gave offense, to be fully understood, must be sought for and examined in the history of the time, at greater length than it is possible to consider them here. They dealt largely with definitions and distinctions bearing on the relations of the civil and spiritual authorities to each other, showing their respective limits, constantly raising questions of much nicety and difficulty, and yet questions immediately and vitally practical, as affecting issues at the moment pressing upon the people. The whole field of discussion being at the same time complicated with that larger problem which had exercised the minds of the colonists from the first, namely : the possibility of constructing a civil order on a Biblical foundation. The severity of the course pursued by the magistrates and ministers has been ascribed in part, and probably not unjustly, to a feeling in the churches of Boston and the neighborhood not friendly to the Salem Church, which church had shown, from the first, a commendable jealousy of interference by other churches, and a determination to maintain strictly its independence. It has been mentioned as a noteworthy fact that " in this court [for the trial of Mr. Williams], composed of magistrates and clergy, while some of the laymen opposed the decree [of exile], every minister, save one, approved it." '

If it be conceded " that there were faults on both sides, and that they were faults of the age rather than of the heart," it must be conceded, too, that this marked man was before his time in the discernment and announcement of some principles ecclesiasticopolitical, destined to stand the test of after-trial, since, in his transmitted ideas, as well as his character and bearing during those troublous days which he spent in Salem, he grows more illustrious under the light of experience, while the proceedings of those who drove him out from their company become more difficult of apology. Roger Williams has had the credit of being the promoter, if not the cause, of the act of Governor Endicott in cutting the cross from the English colors. It is not clear what part he had in it, if any. If any, he was not the man to disavow it ; if any, he but represented a feeling dominant in many a Puritan's breast at the time, who, perhaps, more prudent than he, would not have counseled it, though pleased to see it done. Such was Roger Williams. " Open, bold and ardently conscientious, as well as eloquent and highly gifted, it cannot be surprising that he should have disturbed the magistrates by divulging such opinions, while he charmed the people by his powerful preaching, and his amiable, generous and disinterested spirit."

Mr. Williams was born in Wales in 1599, resided in London during his youth, was elected a scholar of Sutton's Hospital (now the Charter House), July 5, 1621, admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge, Feb. 8, 1623, graduated B. A. January, 1627, took orders in the Church of England, obtained a benefice in Lincolnshire, became a non-conformist, or " Separatist," and embarked at Bristol, Dec. 11, 1630, for New England. He died at Providence, R. I., in April, 1683.='

2 Porter C. Bliss, in Johnson's Cyclopaedia. - Since this notice of Roger Williams was prepared, intimations have come to ns that new light may be expected to be let in soon, upon the origin and early days of this striking figure in the history of primitive New England. The new matter found claims to be not only additional to the old and hitherto, accepted story, but corrective also. For example: It is said that "the Roger Williams who was a foundation scholar at the Charter House in

The infant church, already served by three ministers in half a dozen years, found its fourth in one born to lead, Rev. Hugh Peters, who, after filling the pastoral office for five busy and fruitful years, in which he governed and shaped with the decision of a master, was summoned away from this humbler field of labor to a broader theatre and a more famous career, in which his life assumed historical importance, and set him among the conspicuous actors of his age, ending tragically at the executioner's block. Mr. Peters was born at Fowey, in Cornwall, in 1599, the same year as Roger Williams, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, taking the degree of A. M. in 1622. Appointed to a London lectureship while still very young, he drew a large following by his forcible and eloquent preaching. In 1629, it having become not only uncomfortable but dangerous for such as he, a Puritan and a popular preacher, to stay in England, he withdrew to Holland and became the pastor of a church at Rotterdam, whence he came to New England, Oct. 6, 1635. He was invited to take charge of the church in Salem after the departure of Mr. Williams, and was settled Dec. 21, 1636. He was an able minister and something more, a clear-sighted administrator in civil-political and politico-economical affairs. Without neglecting his duties as pastor, which he discharged with rare energy and faithfulness, he set himself diligently to improving all the social regulations and habits of the place, on which the welfare of the new community depended. In the controversies, which he inherited from Mr. Williams, he showed no sympathy with the adherents of the latter, nor toleration for the opinions which had brought on him the condemnation of the ministers and the General Court. He spent little time over the comprehensive principles and enlightened distinctions laid down by his predecessor as to the relative authorities of the secular and ecclesiastical governments, and the rights of the individual soul under each, while he plunged with assiduous zeal into studies which he deemed of a more immediate and pressing importance. He gave his attention to projecting measurfs for promoting the business prosperity, the orderly living, the growth in population of the town; he devised measures for the better execution of the laws, for the preservation of peace and the establishment of beneficial industries.

Respecting no man, says Mr. Bentley, has the public opinion been more divided than respecting Mr. Hngh Peters. This division of opinion he ascribes to the part he took in the commonwealth of England and in the death of King Charles, though intimating that "unkind reports" had been connected also with

1621, and who was sent to the University in July, 1624, being a good scholar, was not the Roger WilllaniB of Rhode Island." So much, Rev. George E. Ellis, D.D., president of the Massachusetts Historical Society, is reported - in the Boston Daily Advertiser of March 11, 1887 - to consider proven by the investigatiuns of the librarian of Brown University, Mr. Reuben A. Guild.

the early part of his life, which reports, however, either never reached New England or were unheeded there. The Rev. Charles W. Upham, in his Second Century lecture, has vindicated his fame with a generous and warm enthusiasm. But there is no difference of opinion as to the great benefits which his life and labors in Salem, from 1636 to 1641, conferred upon its people and its forming social habits and institutions. He objected to the devotion of so much time as had been given to the numerous weekly and occasional lectures, to the neglect of the daily Industrie.^, which he fostered as being nearest in the line of evident and pressing duties. His church greatly increased, showing that there had been no lack of faithful tillage therein. New and valued citizens were attracted to the place. He interested himself in reforming the police system, encouraged commerce, caused new arts and employments to be introduced, a water-mill was erected, a glass-house, salt works, the planting of hemp was advised, and a regular market was set up. He formed a plan of carrying on fishery, and of coasting and foreign voyages. Amid all his activities, it is repeated, " he did not forget his church." In Synod and Salem pulpit alike, he made his power constantly and beneficently felt. Clear-headed and wise, he was a check upon the invasion of superstition, and in the excitement caused by Mrs. Ann Hutchinson's doctrine and influence, kept his church in the main free from its disturbing effects, and went, Mr. Bentley thinks, full far in the opposite direction of repression. The Massachusetts Colony, having occasion to find suitable persons to represent their interests in England with reference to the laws of excise and trade, it was not strange that Mr. Peters should be selected to be one for this commission. His qualifications for it were evident. His people resisted his acceptance of the appointment and remonstrated against it ; they could not spare him. But they were overborne by the urgency with which the claim for his services was pressed, and finally a reluctant assent was yielded, and on the 3d of August, 1641, he left with his colleagues for England. There he became involved in the revolution which brought Cromwell to supreme power. Peters was his counselor and favored friend, and when the restoration gave back power to Cromwell's enemies, the lives of all his friends were held forfeited. Hugh Peters was a selected victim, and as such was beheaded in the Tower Oct. 16, 1660.

Mr. Peters was assisted in his pulpit duties between 1637 and 1640 by Rev. John Fiske, who taught a school in Salem about that time. Mr. Fiske was settled afterwards over a church in Wenham and still later in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. It was he - before alluded to in these pages - who copied from the earliest record-book of the church the covenant contained therein, with some other minutes, which have lately come to light, and have furnished important evidence as to the form of the first covenant.

The Eev. Edward Norris was settled as a colleague with Mr. Peters March 18, 1640. Mr. Bentley says his was the first ordination which was performed with great public ceremonies in Salem. He had come from England the year before, and joined the church here in December of that year ; had been a teacher and minister in Gloucestershire ; was distinguished for learning, was of a tolerant spirit, and had a large and well-balanced mind. He was a man to wield a wide and strong influence, and that for good. He fell upon troubled times, inheriting in his turn the unsettled controversies of his predecessor's ministry. A Mrs. Oliver, a follower of Mrs. Ann Hutchinson, had claimed, in the time of public service, the right of communion, without a covenant, and was sent to prison for disturbing the congregation, though soon set at liberty. During Mr. Norris' ministry she again openly asserted the same right, and was publicly disgraced.

The Anabaptists were busy. Mr. Endicott set his face against them as disturbers of the peace of the church and of the community ; a few were subjected to punishment, some confined to the town, or laid under other humiliating and annoying prohibitions. Mr. Norris took no active part in these proceedings, and seems rather to have endeavored to quiet and repress the public excitement than to promote it, and succeeded in keeping the town in comparative tranquillity during his life. He died December 23, 1659, in time to escape the full force of the still greater distraction caused by the Quakers who had appeared in Salem in 1657. His abilities, attainments and high character were recognized throughout the colony. He wrote upon affairs of public interest temperately, yet forcibly. He assisted in constructing the system of ecclesiastical discipline " substantially contained in the Cambridge Platform," and yet he refused to substitute in his own church the platform of 1648, which he had helped to shape, for the one already in use, resolutely insisting on the maintenance of his church's independence. At the same time, with a rare consistency, he successfully restrained his own church from meddling in the controversies and the management of other churches.