Cambridge City (part 6 of 15)

But another ecclesiastic drove him from his pleasant Yorkshire refuge, and he went to Northumberland, where he thought he might preach in peace, " being far from any bishops " ; but again he was silenced. Thus driven from pillar to post it was but nat-iral that the thought of removing to New England should come to him. His reasons are on record in his "little booke." He saw no call to any other place in Old England. The Lord seemed to have departed from England when Mr. Hooker and Mr. Cotton were gone, and the hearts of most of the godly were set and bent that way. He was convinced of the intolerable evils in the Anglican Church. " I saw no reason to spend my time privately when I might possibly exercise my talent publikely in New England. My dear wife did much long to see me settled there in peace and so put me on to it." He sailed with his wife and child in the year 1 634; They encountered a great storm and with difficulty got back again to the English shore. Then his baby died, and the stricken father dared not be present at the burial, lest he should be arrested. He wondered if he was resisting the will of God and feared that he might have gone too far in separating from the " Assemblies in England." He spent the winter in Norfolk, with his expenses defrayed by Roger Harlakenden. He could not preach in public, but he was busy with his pen. In the spring he went up to London, where he evaded the officers for a time, and in August he sailed once more for America, with his wife and a second son, his brother Samuel Shepard, his friend Roger Harlakenden, and other comrades. Their ship Defence was "very rotten and unfit for such a voyage," and again there were fears that they might be forced to put back. But through many storms they were carried safely, and on the 3d of October, 1635, they reached Boston harbor, and received a loving welcome from many friends. On the second day after their arrival, Shepard and his family came over to the Newtowne where he found Hooker and Stone, whom he had known in England, making their preparations to remove to the Connecticut. The new-comers were received into the families of Hooker's company and in many cases made arrangements to buy the houses of those who were to depart. A new church was organized with Shepard as its minister, and for twelve years he "exercised his gifts" in a way which both enlarged his own reputation and served the infant Commonwealth. He was in a position in which his influence was widely felt. There were strong men in his congregation who were leaders in Church and State and through whom his teachings reached far beyond the walls of his humble meetinghouse. He was a studious man, who prepared his sermons with infinite care and who left behind him books which show his learning, the acuteness of his reason, the fervor of his imagination, the depth of his sincerity. He was an active missionary and worked in fellowship with John Eliot for the welfare of the Indians. He could not preach in the Indian tongue, but he wrote the tracts which Eliot translated for the use of the Indian converts. He made his short life long by fidelity and indefatigable industry. He died in 1649 at the early age of 44, leaving behind him a reputation for saintliness unsurpassed by anyone in the annals of New England. Grace and mercy, faith and conscience, met in him and gave power to his words.

"We discover, then, in these Puritan founders of Cambridge the elements of power which have always profoundly afEected the life of humanity. All the great human forces become the servants of the men who carry in themselves the passion for righteousness, the love of freedom, and a confidence in unseen and eternal realities. The qualities of these three men, efficiency, foresight, steadfastness and saintliness, uncompromising righteousness and the sense of communion with and commission from God, are the permanent foundations of the Puritan Commonwealth. If such men come at the turning of the tide they stand forever as cardinal figures of history, and whether their personal genius be great or small, they leave an undying influence upon the story of their race.

The Church

WE can understand the early history of Massachusetts onty when we remember that the great aim which the settlers proposed to themselves was to found "a civil and ecclesiastical government modelled, constructed and administered on the Bible as the common source of all divine knowledge and authority." In such a system the religious organization was not an accident or an appendage. It was the fundamental institution, and the "meeting-house" was the central necessity of a Massachusetts town.

We have no complete description of the first meeting-house in Cambridge, but it stood in the middle of the village, on the southwestern corner of what are now Dunster and Mt. Auburn Streets. In comparison with the mud walls and thatched roof of the Boston meeting-house, the hewn frame of the Newtowne house, with roof of slate or boards, though probably less picturesque, no doubt looked to our ancestors much more complete and dignified. The interior was as simple and unecclesiastical as the exterior. There was no altar, no choir, nothing even that in olden countries would be called a pulpit ; only a desk, with seats before it for deacons and elders, and rows of benches beyond, for men on the one side, and for women on the other. Indeed, it was not primarily a church at all. It was a meeting-house: a place, that is, where the people of the town gathered for all common purposes, on week-days to arrange their secular afifairs, on the seventh to worship God. In the Plymouth Colony, the meeting-house (built more than ten years before) was also a fort, the roof being a flat platform, with six little cannon mounted on it; the worshippers, on Sunday, assembling by beat of drum, and marching together to their meeting place.

On Monday morning, February 11, 163(), this meeting-house was the scene of the gathering of the new church which was to take the place of Hooker's congregation soon to depart for Connecticut. "There was," said Dr. Newell, in his Anniversary discourse two hundred and ten years later, "a Sabbath-like quiet and gravity in the looks and movements of the people. There were signs of preparation for some special solemnity. The signal for a public gathering was heard; and, as the inhabitants issued from their dwellings and passed with sedate step through the streets, others of less familiar countenance, who had spent the Sabbath with them that they might be here in season, or who had just arrived from the neighbourhood, were seen mingling with them as they went. Gathering from all quarters came the fathers of the infant church and commonwealth of Massachusetts, to sanction by their presence the solemn act which was about to be performed. From Boston, from Charlestown, from Roxbury, from Dorchester, from Watertown, and the towns which were within convenient travelling distance, the ' messengers ' of the invited churches, and others, drawn hither by curiosity and religious interest, were seen wending their way, as the)' then best could, over new-wrought roads, or across the open fields and over the ice-bridged rivers and streams, to the humble Puritan sanctuary. In the midst of the newly-risen dwellings which had sprung up as by magic under the diligent hands of the Christian adventurers who first planted the town, on the rising ground jttst above the marshes, and in the principal street, leading down to the river, - which bore, as its still bears, the name of their king, - stood the House of Prayer. A plain, roughlj'-finished edifice it was but as precious in the sight of God as the marble and gilded cathedral.

"The little church was' soon filled to overflowing. The day, perhaps, was one of the mild and bright daj-s which February often mingles with its snows and storms; and even if it were not, our hardy sires who had left their pleasant homes in Old England for the

' stem and rockbound coast ' of the New, who had deliberately exchanged their dear native soil for the uncertainties and discomforts of a colony in a heathen and savage land, who had traversed the wide, weltering sea for the privilege of worshipping God in purity and freedom, - men who made their religion the sun and centre of their being, - were not to be daunted by a little cold or a little damp in the preformance of its duties; and though our modem safeguards against snow and wet were imknown to their pilgrim feet, though neither stove nor furnace - those innovations of modern church-comfort - softened the chilly air, or dissolved the curling breaths that rose thickly upward in the sanctuary, they never thought of complaining, much less of staying at home. . . . "And first among the forms which stand out on the historic picture, as it presents itself to the eye of a Massachusetts memory, is that of John Winthrop, now in the meridian of life, the father of our commonwealth, the first governor of the colony, and always among its ruling and guiding spirits, - 'the Nehemiah,' as Mather calls him, ' of our American Jerusalem,' - the able, discreet, faithful, noblespirited, open-handed servant of the rising state, for which he freely spent his time, his property, and his strength, - a man of many and great virtues, both in public and in private life, and whose errors were the errors of his age, - of well-balanced mind, sound judgment, great courtesy and self command, - prudent in counsel, energetic in action, mild and considerate in the exercise of authority, so as even to be charged by his more rigid associates with over-lenity, patient of personal injuries, and overcoming evil with good, firm and intrepid in his adherence to right, meek and magnanimous in his acknowledgment of wrong, and pursuing through the little and great trials of his lot the even tenor of his way, - frugal, abstinent, laborious, self-denying, wisely and manfully accommodating himself to his new situation, avoiding in himself and discouraging in others all show and expensiveness in dress and style of living, foregoing for example's sake many of the elegancies and comforts to which he had been accustomed, but at the same time dispensing promptly and bountifully to the wants of the needy, and impoverishing himself in the public service, - the true gentleman, the kind-hearted and benevolent neighbour, the loving husband and father, the humble and devout Christian.

"Next we discern the sterner countenance of Thomas Dudley, another of the trusty and devoted servants of the colony, whose name is so often associated with Winthrop's; the first deputy-governor, and afterwards from time to time governor, the principal founder of our town, and the zealous champion of its interests, whose house stood close by the church, - and his heart, too; - a man of great integrity and independence, of strict honor and truth in his dealings, hardy in body and in mind, able in business, well qualified in most respects for public office, which he retained till his death, but at the same time of an irritable temperament and strong passions, somewhat close, it was thought, in money matters, with a soldier's roughness of speech, severe and unbending in the administration of the laws, and zealously intolerant in his religious sentiments.

"John Haynes, too, is there; that 'heavenly man,' as Roger Williams calls him, the governor for the present year, another of the early settlers of Cambridge under the ministry of Hooker, and afterwards with him one of the fathers of Connecticut, where he enjoyed an unbounded and uninterrupted esteem and popularity at the head of affairs in that colony ; his wealth, as well as his wisdom and uprightness, giving him an influence which he continued to possess and to deserve through life.

"Not far from him, in the seats allotted to the most honored of the assembly, I see one, lately arrived from England, whom the veering popular favor is about to place - though but for a single term - in the chief magistracy occupied successively by Winthrop, Dudley and Haynes, men of more than twice his age ; - a young man of twenty-four, of noble birth and more noble spirit, of rich genius and accomplishments, of persuasive eloquence, in after life at least, as Hume testifies, of consummate abiUty and address, remarkable even in that age so famed for its active talents, - of patrician family, but of republican and Puritan principles, - a most pure and devout Christian, a far-sighted and profound thinker, an ardent lover and consistent defender of civil and religious liberty in its widest extent, a zealous seeker and champion of truth, one of the earliest expounders, not to say discoverers, of the fundamental principles of a constitutional republic, - whose high and eventful career, commencing amid controversy and tempest in the New World, and passing through scenes of intense and varied excitement in the Old, is to terminate in a martyr's calm and heroic death upon the scaffold, - a death worth more to mankind than a thousand common lives, - a death which made all England's heart thrill, which drew admiration even from his enemies, and forced from one of the bystanders, a zealous loyalist, the applauding and expressive exclamation, 'He dies like a prince!' I see him in the midst of the magistrates and elders, with that composed thoughtfulness of aspect, and grave majesty of demeanor, which gave to his blooming manhood the weight and authority of age; - his reserve and quietness of manner, like the snows over a still volcano, covering from a stranger's eye the intense enthusiasm and energy which glowed in the deep soul beneath; - his peculiar and striking countenance having that in it which at once commanded attention, and, as Clarendon says of it, 'made men think there was something in him extraordinary,' as there indeed was. We do well to remember the name, the character and the fortunes of Sir Henry Vane. . . .

"Near him is his chosen preacher and friend, John Cotton; the ecclesiastical patriarch of the Massachusetts colony, silenced by Laud for the unpardonable sin of Puritanism and neglecting to kneel at the sacrament, but now rejoicing in his banishment from country and home as the opening, in Providence, of an enlarged sphere of active usefulness and influence in which his learning and popular talents, his piety and zeal, the weight of his character, and the mildness of his spirit, placed him at the head of the clergy.

"By his side sits his colleague in the ministry, John Wilson, the first pastor of the Boston church, of which Cotton was the teacher, - of whom it was said by the celebrated Dr. Ames, 'that if he might have his option of the best condition this side of heaven, it would be that of teacher in a congregational church of which Mr. Wilson was pastor'; and of whose preaching our own Shepard, when he first heard him, exclaimed: 'Methinks I hear an apostle when I hear this man. . . .'

"Among his brethren who appear in the scene as it rises before us out of the mist of time, we may discern James and Symmes, of Charlestown, and Phillips, of Watertown, the fellowpassenger of Winthrop in the Arbella, of whom the governor writes, at his death, as 'a godly man, specially gifted, and very peaceful in his place, much lamented of his own people and others.' And in another seat is the future pastor of Concord, one of the strictest of the Puritans, Peter Bulkley, a gentleman by birth and education, a scholar of no mean attainments, with a well-furnished library (of which he gave a considerable part to the College in this place) and a large estate, of which he made most bountiful and judicious use in the advancement of private and public good.

"Another glance shows us Richard Mather, of Dorchester, an eminent divine and controversialist, and the progenitor of the many distinguished ministers of that name. His neighbour, the pastor of Roxbury, that zealous opponent of the new lights of his time, Thomas Weld, now chiefly remembered as the author of " The Rise, Reign and Ruin of the Antinomians," has accompanied him on the way, and has taken his place among the delegates of the invited churches. And there, too, is his beloved colleague, the self-sacrificing and tenderhearted Eliot; the apostle to the Indians, and their devoted and unflinching friend, the first and most efficient Protestant missionary to these wild men of the soil, who, a few years after this, with the aid of Gookin, one of the distinguished inhabitants of this place, commenced his labors among the savages, and made his first conversions at Nonantum, then lying within the limits of Cambridge. His efforts and sacrifices were rewarded, indeed, with but a temporary and inadequate success; but his loving and saintly spirit enjoyed its reward, as it still toiled on in patience and hope.

' ' Hugh Peters, too (a name not to be forgotten) , who, with Vane and others, had arrived in New England the preceding autumn, and was now in Boston or the neighbourhood (for he was not settled at Salem till December, 103(1), was in all probability at the gathering of our Cambridge church. He, too, was one of the remarkable men of a remarkable period; and afterwards became a conspicuous actor in the revolutionary scenes in England. He was the chaplain and counsellor of Cromwell; distinguished by a quaint and homely, but original, vigorous, Latimer-like eloquence, "j which made him one of the most popular and effective preachers of his time; an ardent, resolute, active and enterprising man, lion-hearted and trumpettongued, entering with characteristic enthusiasm and energy into the political as well as religious controversies of the day, ready to fight or pray, as his services might be wanted, and finally, like Vane, dying upon the scaffold, and, like Vane, meeting his fate with an unshaken fortitude and heroism. While he was in this country, his ministry at Salem, and his spirited public services of various kinds, made him a rich blessing to the town and the state in which he lived. Of quick mind and versatile talents, ready to act upon all occasions and in all matters, temporal as well as spiritual, the influence of his counsels and wise suggestions, of his labors and successful example, left a deep and enduring impression upon the character of his Salem flock.

"But time would fail me to speak fully of the honored and useful men, both among the laity and the clergy, who, we have good reason to believe, stood sponsors at the christening of our ancient church. I can only mention the names of such men as Richard Bellingham, and Simon Bradstreet, one of the first settlers of Cambridge, both of them afterwards chosen several times to the chief magistracy, in Massachusetts, - William Coddington, a wealthy Boston merchant, of high character, a friend and supporter of Mrs. Hutchinson, and afterwards among the founders of Rhode Island, and its governor at his death, - William Pynchon, the father of Roxbury, and then of Springfield, - Increase Nowell, of Charlestown, for many years secretary of the colony, - who, with others of less note, filled the seats of the sanctuary.

"In front of all were the pastor and the teacher of the first flock here gathered, Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone, who were soon to be the spiritual fathers of another colony at Hartford. Hooker was also one of the admired and renowned preachers of his time, and became to Connecticut what Cotton was to Massachusetts, its ecclesiastical patriarch and oracle - 'the light of the western churches.'

" 'His colleague. Stone,' as his contemporary, Morton, testifies, 'was another star of the first magnitude in New England,' - 'a learned, solid and judicious divine,' celebrated not only for his ability as a disputant, but for his wit, pleasantry and good humor."

In front of the pulpit facing the congregation, sat Thomas Shepard, and with him the deacons of the newly-organized church. Governor Winthrop's journal records the proceedings as follows: "This day, there met a great assembly, where the proceeding was as followeth: Mr. Shepherd and two others (who were after to be chosen to office), sate together in the elder's seat. Then the elder of them began with prayer. After this Mr. Shepherd prayed with deep confession of sin, &c., and exercised out of Eph. v., - that he might make it to himself a holy, &c.; and also opened the cause of their meeting, &c. Then the elder desired to know of the churches assembled, what number were needful to make a church, and how they ought to proceed in this action. Whereupon, some of the ancient ministers, conferring shortly together, gave answer: That the Scripture did not set down any certain rule for the number. Three (they thought) were too few, because of Matt. XVIII an appeal was allowed from three; but that seven might be a fit number. And, for their proceeding, they advised, that such as were to join should make confession of their faith, and declare what work of grace the Lord had wrought in them; which accordingly they did, Mr. Shepherd first, then four others, then the elder, and one who was to be deacon (who had also prayed) , and another member. Then the covenant was read, and they all gave a solemn assent to it. Then the elder desired of the churches that, if they did approve them to be a church, they would give them the right hand of fellowship. Whereupon, Mr. Cotton (upon short speech with some others near him) , in the name of their churches, gave his hand to the elder with a short speech of their assent, and desired the peace of the Lord Jesus to be with them. Then Mr. Shepherd made an exhortation to the rest of his body, about the nature of their covenant, and to stand firm to it, and commended them to the Lord in a most heavenly prayer. Then the elder told the assembly, that they were intended to choose Mr. Shepherd for their pastor (by the name of the brother who had exercised), and desired the churches, that, if they had anything to except against him, they would impart it to them before the day of ordination. Then he gave the church thanks for their assistance, and so left them to the Lord."

It was indeed a long way which these people had come from the stately ritual of the English prayer book to these simple and unpremeditated rites. The contrast between the elaborate ceremony of an Anglican induction into priestly orders and this plain, self-reliant procedure was as great as that between the lofty tower and splendid nave of St. Botolph's Church in the Lincolnshire Boston, of which John Cotton had been the rector, and the frame meeting-house in which he now gave "the fellowship of the churches" to the newly organized society.

It is most interesting to see how this question of a new form of church government and worship worked itself out in New England. It was done with very little friction, by perfectly natural and unconscious steps. The natural thing to do was to turn directly to the Bible and to shape the new organization and form of worship by the apostolic models. Already in Holland, as some of their own number knew, this had been long practiced. Already in Plymouth it had taken root in New England soil. Almost without discussion or dispute they adopted entirely new methods of procedure, though in England they had barely tolerated their Separatist neighbors, yet in America they rapidly became Separatists themselves. Not a vestige of the supremacy of king or bishop remained when they reared their churches in the wilderness.

When the Massachusetts Company left England the leaders still acknowledged their allegiance to the Anglican Church. There are few more touching and persuasive documents of history than the farewell address of the exiles on the Arbella to the Church of England. It is entitled:

"The Humble Request of His Majestie's loyall Subjects, the Govemour and the Company late gone for New England; To the rest of their Brethren, in and of the Church of England. For the obtaining of their Prayers, and the removall of suspitions, and misconstructions of their Intentions." and in it we read that they did not leave the Church of England "as loathing that milk wherewith we were nourished there; but, blessing God for the parentage and education, as members of the same body, shall always rejoice in her good, and unfeignedl}^ grieve for any sorrow that shall ever betide her, and while we have breath, sincerely desire and endeavor the continuance and abundance of her welfare, with the enlargement of her bounds in the kingdom of Christ Jesus."

"If there be any," goes on the Humble Request, "who through want of clear intelligence of our course, or tenderness of affection towards us, cannot conceive so well of our way as we could desire, we would entreat such not to despise us, nor to desert us in their prayers and affections, but to consider rather that they are so much the more bound to express the bowels of their compassion towards us, remembering always that both nature and grace doth ever bind us to relieve and rescue, with our utmost and speediest power, such as are dear unto us, when we conceive them to be running uncomfortable hazards."

Nearly all the first ministers of the Massachusetts Colony were ordained clergymen of the Church of England. Thomas Shepard made his first open renunciation of Episcopacy in entering upon his Newtowne pastorate. John Cotton served for twenty years under the Bishop of Lincoln as vicar in St. Botolph's Church at Boston, and before leaving his flock "Conferred with the chief of the people and offered them to bear witness (still) to the truth he had preached and practised amongst them .... if they conceived it any confirmation of their faith and practice." Hooker's ministry in the Church of England was shorter; but when it was found that the Bishop of London threatened to suspend him, a petition was presented from forty-seven "conformable ministers" asking that he be retained. Nothing, however, could be more remote from the practice of the Church of England than the habits which these ministers adopted in America. The reaction was complete. There was no liturgy, no surplice, no stately ritual, no priestly offices. The minister became simply one of the congregation set apart by his fellowworshippers to study, preach and conduct the public worship. Whatsoever the poverty of their outward surroundings, however lacking in grace, in beauty, in esthetic appeal, these brave and uncompromising folk had at least won the freedom to conduct their secular and religious affairs after their own fashion. They had founded a Commonwealth and organized a church modelled and administered according to their interpretation of the Bible. In accordance with these principles they had built them a civil and religious temple, "Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone."

At first the New England churches acted as purely independent bodies. Then the common sense of loneliness and of danger drew them into close alliance. In all exigencies they learned more and more eagerly to seek each other's sympathy and counsel. The identification of church with state, whereby the members of the several churches found themselves constantly acting together in both the civil and the religious affairs of all the communities, accustomed them to concerted action. And so it happened that, in spite of occasional protests from individual towns, jealous of their rights, there grew up by mutual consent a certain affiliation of the churches, and mutual concern in each other's welfare, which, however familiar to us today, was then something new in the world.

This is not the place to trace the development of this new polity. It is interesting for us, however, to remember that the first announcement to the world of this new order of religious government, and, indeed, the first recognition on the part of the churches themselves of the fact that they had committed themselves to a common polity, was directly associated with the church in Cambridge and its first pastor. The hour comes when every new movement, just becoming conscious of its own identity and its own purpose, takes to itself a name of its own. That moment came, as we shall see later, when the synod of Cambridge, assembling again in the little meeting-house on Dunster Street, declared that the New England churches were not Independent, but Congregational.

"So sprung up," said one of Shepard's sticcessors, "a new Christian order, - an order in which the individual churches, while preserving their individuality and claiming each congregation as the source of all ecclesiastical power, yet consented to invest the assembled churches with certain authority over the several parts. It had been evolved, as we have seen, out of the practical exigencies of the situation. It had no justification in any previous traditions of church policy. It was very illogical, and showed in the statements and arguings of its own platform an uneasy consciousness that it was striving to combine things inherently incompatible. The churches were independent, yet they were not; each parish claimed the absolute right of controlling its own affairs, yet delegated part of its authority to councils or synods. With every new generation and at every new juncture down to the present day, Congregationalism has been forced to state its principles anew, and decide afresh just how much authority resides in the council and how much in the congregation. With the unity and aggressive power of an established church it has certainly never shown itself able to compete.

"Yet, logical or illogical, it was, as we have seen, very spontaneous, and it has proved itself singularly adapted to its work. In the new life of the Western Continent during those early centuries, if not throughout the nation's entire life, it was exactly what was needed. What it lost, as compared with Episcopacy or Presbyterianism, in sheer working power, it gained in elasticity and freedom. It has proved strong enough to hold together its scattered forces through the simple sentiment of brotherhood; it has proved supple and free enough to adapt itself to the growth of democratic institutions and the spread of new religious thought."

UPON the main gate of Harvard College is written today an inscription taken from one of the eariiest chronicles, entitled "New England's First Fruits," and published in 1643.

"After God had carried us safe to New England and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship and settled the Civil Government, one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our present ministers shall lie in dust."

It was on the 28th day of October, 1636, Sir Harry Vane being the Governor, that the General Court of the colony passed the memorable vote: "The Court agrees to give £400 towards a school or college - whereof £200 shall be paid the next year and £200 when the work is finished." This is the significant act that marks the distinction between the Puritan colony and all pioneer settlements based on material foundations. For a like spirit under like circumstances history will be searched in vain.

"This act," said James Russell Lowell, "is second in real import to none that has happened in the Western hemisphere. The material growth of the colonies would have brought about their political separation from the mother country' in the fulness of time, but the founding of the first college here saved New England from becoming a mere geographical expression. It did more, it insured our intellectual independence of the Old World. That independence has been long in coming, but the chief names of those who have hastened its coming are written on the roll of Harvard College."

On November 15th, 1637, the General Court took the next step by voting that "the CoUedg is ordered to bee at Newetowne," a place, as Winthrop wrote, "most pleasant and accomodate" and "then under the orthodox and soul-flourishing ministry of Mr. Thomas Shepherd." Newtowne was then renamed Cambridge and twelve of the leading citizens of the Colony were commissioned to see that the votes establishing the College were carried out.

This Committee consisted of six magistrates and six ministers. The magistrates were John Winthrop, who was again Governor; Thomas Dudley, the Deputy-Governor; Richard Bellingham, who was Governor a few years afterwards ; John Humphrey of Lynn, one of the original adventurers and an assistant; Roger Harlakenden of Cambridge, Shepard's friend and protector; and Israel Stoughton of Dorchester, who was an assistant for eight years and the father of the future Governor Stoughton. The six ministers were John Cotton and John Wilson of the Boston Church, Thomas Shepard of Cambridge, Thomas Weld of Roxbury, Hugh Peters, then settled at Salem, and John Davenport, who had just arrived in Boston, and who went on within a few months to the planting of New Haven. We do well to remember these men. Humphrey and Peters tarried but a short time in New England, the brave young Harlakenden died before the College got started, and though Davenport returned to Boston in his old age, his fame is chiefly association with New Haven. The other eight bore names that have ever since been closely and honorably associated with Harvard College. All of the eight sent their own sons to the College and the descendants of these men have been enrolled among its scholars, teachers and administrators ever since. The names of Weld and Stoughton are borne by two of the buildings in the College Yard. There are more than forty Welds and Wilsons in the list of Harvard graduates, more than a score of Cottons and Winthrops and almost as many Dudleys and Shepards.

The College

school was a more appropriate description than College, and Eaton was never known by any other title than schoolmaster. His stay was short. He was soon accused of the " cruell and barbaros beating of Mr. Nathaniel Briscoe and for other neglecting and misusing of his scholars," and accordingly on September 29, 1639, he was dismissed and later fined and obliged to pay Mr. Briscoe, who was his assistant teacher, £30, in satisfaction of the wrong done him. Governor Winthrop in his History of New England told the story at great length, and evidently the affair created no little commotion in the community. Later Eaton went to Virginia, whence he returned to England, and at the Restoration conformed to the Church of England and had a living at Biddeford until he died in a prison where he was confined for debt.

Meanwhile, the Committee had gone forward with the erection of a building to house the scholars. It was a slow and difficult task, for all the timber had to be hewn by hand, and the shingles split with a saw. It stood at what is now the southern extremity of the College Yard, and, indeed, probably projected into what is now Massachusetts Avenue, opposite Holyoke House. It fronted to the south toward Massachusetts Avenue, then called Braintree Street. At the western end of the ground floor was a hall and a kitchen, and the same wing contained "the buttery and a study for the Senior Fellows." The eastern end of this floor was divided into chambers, within which were partitioned off small rooms called studies, each about six feet square. Each student had one of these studies allotted to him, but the chambers were shared in common. On the floor above was a good-sized room for a library, and more chambers and studies. There were but two chimneys, and evidently most of the chambers were entirely without heat. In the accounts of the Committee the bill of glazing is so small that it is obvious that very little glass was available. Probably oiled paper served as a substitute. Lime was very difficult to obtain, and the interior, like the interior of the little Meeting House, was daubed with clay as a substitute for plaster. There is some reason to suppose that certain chambers and studies were finished according to the wishes or the means of the students who first occupied them. Hence, while some were calked with clay, others were apparently ceiled with cedar and one or two were apparently lathed and plastered. There are charges for both clapboards and shingles in the accounts. It is, therefore, probable that the exterior walls were clapboarded and the roof shingled. It was, obviously, a primitive structure, yet the author of " New England's First Fruits," said of it, - "the edifice is very fair and comely within and without, having in it a spacious hall where they will meet at commons, lectures and exercises, and a large library with some books in it, the gifts of divers of our friends. Their chambers and studies also fitted for and possessed by the students and all other rooms and offices necessary and convenient with all needful offices thereto belonging." Johnson, in his book called "Wonder-working Providence," later stated that the College was "a fair building, thought by some to be too gorgeous for a wilderness and yet too mean in others' apprehension for a College." There was at the top of the building a turret or cupola, for we have record of the fact that a bell given to the College was placed in the turret. No provision was made for lighting the place, and there early appear in the records charges against students for the "public candle." It is evident also that most of the students used the hall or dining-room as a living-room. There a fire was m.aintained at the expense of the students and there by the Hght of the "public candle" they must have studied during the winter evenings.

Rules and regulations hedged in the students at every turn. They were not permitted to use the English language, except in the public exercises where it was particularly prescribed. Their conversation was presumably in Latin. They were not allowed to buy, sell, or exchange anything to the value of a six pence without the permission of their parents or tutor. They were not allowed to attend public meetings of any sort, and many were the misdemeanors which were punishable either by fine or by whipping. In the early days there was so little money in the colony that the wampum of the Indians was made by law a legal tender for debts. Under these circumstances the College steward received in payment for tuition such articles as the homes of the students could furnish. Accounts were liquidated with livestock, grain, groceries, and solids and fluids of various descriptions. The building of the house and the opening of the school strained to the uttermost the limited resources of the colony. Indeed the enterprise could hardly have been carried to success at all had it not been for the memorable gift of a young Puritan minister, a graduate of Emmanuel, who was another of the dauntless Puritan saints who "took New England on their way to Heaven."

"As we were thinking and consulting," wrote John Winthrop, " how to affect this great work, it pleased God to stir up the heart of one Mr. John Harvard, a godly gentleman and a lover of learning, then living among us, to bequeath the one-half of his estate, in all about £700, toward the erection of the College, and all his library." It was this gift which really made the enterprise possible, and it was in acknowledgment of it that the General Court voted, in 1638, "that the College at Cambridge be called Harvard College.

There is no more interesting story of genealogical research and discovery than that which describes the successful effort of Mr. Henry F. Waters, in 1885, to trace the history of John Harvard. By patient industry and skill, Mr. Waters was enabled to reconstruct the genealogy which had been completely obliterated by the flight of time. John Harvard had become almost a mythical figure, but now we know more about him than we do of most of the early settlers of New England. His family story runs back to a fine old Elizabethean house, still standing in the High Street at Stratford-on-Avon, and now restored and known as the Harvard House. This house was built in 1596 by Thomas and Alice Rogers of Stratford, and therein they reared a thriving family. Thomas Rogers was the leading citizen of the little Warwickshire town, an alderman, and later baliff or maj-or. By trade he was a marketman, or provision dealer in a general way, and he evidently prospered in their world's goods. Near by lived one John Shakespeare, who also had sons and daughters in goodly number and who was also an alderman. The children of these two houses were close neighbors. They went together to the famous grammar school and they went to the same church. The children were paired, William Shakespeare with Charles Rogers, Richard Shakespeare with Richard Rogers, Edmund Shakespeare with Edward Rogers. Their fathers were trustees of the grammar school and the children played together on the village green. One of the Rogers children was named Katherine, and in April, 1605, this Katherine Rogers, going out from the timbered house on the High Street to Holy Trinity Church, was married to Robert Harvard, a young market-man living in the Borrough of Southwark in London. It has been suggested that Robert Harvard and Katherine Rogers were brought together by no less a person than William Shakespeare, for Shakespeare had left Stratford and gone to London, and was living in Southwark. He had known the Rogers children intimately, and it is not unlikely that in London he met Robert Harvard. A more probable suggestion is that as Thomas Rogers, the father, was in the same business as Robert Harvard, the two young people came together on the occasion of some business visit of the young provision dealer to Stratford. At any rate, they set up their home in Southwark, and there John Harvard was bom in November, 1607. Their house was in the shadow of St. Saviour's Church, which is now Southwark Cathedral. The Bankside Theatre where Shakespeare plaj^ed was not far away, and it is a fair guess that Shakespeare sometimes rocked John Harvard's cradle or took the child on his knee to tell him stories. When the boy was eighteen years old the black plague descended upon London, and his father, two brothers and two sisters died of it within five weeks. Katherine Harvard was left a widow with her two boys John and Thomas. She married for a second time John Elletson, a well-to-do cooper in London and took steps at once to send her boy John to Emmanuel College at Cambridge, where he entered in 1627, being recorded on the books of the College as coming from "Middlesex," which indicates that the Elletsons had moved from Southwark into London. It is interesting to remember that the English Cambridge was the center of the Puritan movement, and that it was there, during John Harvard's time, that Winthrop and Dudley and Sir Richard Saltonstall, and the other leaders of the Massachusetts Colony, met and arranged for their enterprise. It is interesting too to recall that John Milton and John Harvard were at the University together. Both were youths of London Puritan famihes, living not far apart, of nearly the same station in life, and of about equal means. It is a safe guess that the two young men were friends.

Harvard spent nearly eight years at Cambridge. He took his Bachelor's Degree in 1632, and his Master's Degree in 1635. The next year he married the sister of one of his college mates, a girl named Ann Sadler. While he had been at college his step-father had died and his mother had again married, this time to an old friend of the family, Richard Yearwood, a Puritan member of Parliament and a comrade with Hampden, Pym and Sir John Eliot. In 1637 John Harvard's mother died and shortly afterwards his brother Thomas, so that all the modest wealth of the family came to John, and at the same time the ties that bound him to the motherland were mostly broken. It is no surprise, therefore, that we discover that in the year 1637 he sold his real estate in Southwark, including the Queen's Head Inn, which is still standing, to a ship captain, presumably as passage money for himself, his wife, and his belongings, to New England. In the fall of 1637 we find him admitted a freeman in Charlestown in Massachusetts and later he joined the church in that place and was apparently associated as a colleague with the minister, Zachariah Symmes. He bought considerable land, some of it in Charlestown, some of it across the Mystic river, and some of it " adjoining the Newtowne line" and he evidently built a house which stood until it was destroyed when Charlestown was burned at the Battle of Bunker Hill. There is no certain record of his ever visiting the place with which his name is forever associated, yet we know that within a few weeks of his arrival a Synod was held at Newtowne and it is altogether probable that he attended that meeting, coming over from Charlestown either on foot or on horseback. His whole life in New England extended over only a little more than a year, for he died of consumption on the 14th day of September, 163S. His widow married the Rev. Thomas Allen, whose name appears in the records of the College as having paid over the timely legacy to the Committee. The bequest of John Harvard amounted to not quite four hundred pounds. The books which he also bequeathed give us some insight into the reading of a Puritan "lover of learning" He had brought with him across the sea more than two hundred and sixty volumes, among them not only Chrysostom and Calvin, Duns Scotus, and Luther, but Homer and Plutarch, Terence and Horace, Chapman's Homer, Bacon's Essays and Advancement of Learning, and Camden's Remains. Was ever gift so multiplied as the bequest of this obscure young scholar? By this act of public-spirited and well-directed munificence, this youth of thirtyone made for himself an imperishable name and enrolled himself among the foremost benefactors of the American Commonwealth.

Besides the liberality of the General Court for the foundation of the College and the legacy of John Harvard, gifts and benefits from individuals were not wanting, but it was "willing poverty" rather than wealth which gave. Among the gifts of the early days we read that the Rev. W. Allen sent two cows. Cotton cloth worth nine shillings was given by Richard Dana, the ancestor of another Richard Dana, who, nearly two hundred 3'ears later, when a student at Harvard, went for two years before the mast, and on his return gave the world a deHghtful book. The Rev. Mr. Latham, of Lancaster County, England, sent five pounds. Sir Richard Saltonstall, a man of large means, gave generously and his descendants, for generation after generation, have shown their love for Harvard by a continued bounty. Theophilus Gale, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, "a learned and industrious divine, as appears by his "Court of the Gentiles," and his "Vanity of Pagan Philosophy," bequeathed his library to the College. From the New England towns and villages, and even from distant settlements, contributions flowed in. Little Scarborough, awa}' to the north in Maine, sent two pounds nine shillings and six pence, while from the far-distant South, the people of Eleutheria in the Bahamas, "out of their poverty," sent one hundred and twentyfour pounds. Smaller gifts came in, such as a pewter flagon worth ten shillings, a bell, a fruit-dish, a sugar-spoon, a silver tipped jug, one great salt, and one small trencher salt.

One event in connection with the founding of the College was of equal importance to the town and to the Colony. In a letter dated at Salem, October 10th, 1638, Hugh Peters wrote, "We have a printerer here and think to go to work with some special things." This was a hand press with which, in the summer of 1638, Jose Glover and his wife started from England. Glover died on the voyage, but with him had started Stephen D a y e, his wife and two children, and his stepson William Boardman, ancestor of four successive stewards of Harvard College. In January, 163 9, Stephen Daye brought the press to Cambridge and set it up there. The first "special thing" printed was the "Freeman's Oath," then an almanac made for New England by "Mr. William Peirce Mariner," the founder of the family which has produced the most distinguished of American mathematicians. These two were pamphlets, and the first little book printed in America was a metrical version of the Book of Psalms for use in the worship of the New England congregation. The press became "an appendage to Harvard College," and its establishment at Cambridge founded there a business for which the town has been and still is famous. The great estaljlishments of the Riverside Press, the University Press, and the Athenaeum Press still make Cambridge the center of printing in America, and send the characteristic Cambridge product all over the world.

The arrival and installation in 1640 of Henry Dunster to be the first President was an event of large s i g nific a n c e. Dunster was born at Bur}% in Lancashire, on November 26th, 1609, so he was only thirty-one when he became President. He took his Bachelor's Degree at Cambridge, England, in 1630, and his Master's Degree in 1634. He was thus a contemporary at the University with John Har\^ard and John Milton. After leaving the University he appears to have engaged in teaching, though Cotton Mather speaks of his having "exercised his ministry" in England. He came to New England in the summer of 1640, and almost immediately upon his arrival he was invited to take charge of the Kttle college which had barely escaped infanticide at the hands of Eaton. He was at first the sole teacher, and he also acted as Treasurer and General Manager. It appears that Dunster gave instruction not only in Greek and Latin, but also in Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac. At morning prayers his students were required to translate from the Hebrew scripture into Greek, and at evening prayers to retranslate the English text of the New Testament into Greek. As already noted Latin was the only language authorized on the college premises. Dunster also "exercised his gift" of preaching, both in Cambridge and in the neighboring churches, so that it is obvious that his varied qualities and resources were given plenty of exercise. He was untiring in industry and faithful to every duty. Though his salary was very small and irregularly paid, he gave to the college not only his learning and his skilled labor, but also practically all of his hmited estate, including one hundred acres of land in Shawsheen, which he had purchased on his arrival as an investment for the little fund he had brought with him. This liberality quickened that of his fellow citizens, but it was always the hardest kind of a struggle to maintain the institution. " I was and am willing," wrote Dunster to Winthrop in 164.3, "considering the profit of the country to descend to the lowest step. If there can be nothing comfortable allowed me, I will sit down appeased, desiring not more than what may supply me and mine with food and raiment to the furtherance of our labors for the good of the Church and the Commonwealth." It was Dunster, who thus joined with Harvard in laying the foundation, both educationally and materially, of the college.

"Nine bachelors commenced at Cambridge; they were young men of good hope and performed their acts so as gave good proof of their proficiency in the tongues and arts. The General Court had settled a government or superintendency over the College, viz., all the magistrates and elders over the six nearest churches and the president, or the greatest part of these. Most of them were now present at the first Commencement, and dined at the College with the scholars ordinary commons, which was done of purpose for the students' encouragement, and it gave good content to all."

A copy of the first Commencement programme, written in sonorous Latin, and dated September 26th, 1642, is still in existence. The titles of the theses in language, in rhetoric, in philosophy, justify Governor Winthrop's testimony to the proficiency of the young scholars. The names of the nine first graduates are significant not only of the loyalty of the leaders of the Colony, but also of the purpose for which their little College was founded. At the head of the list stands the name of Benjamin Woodbridge, the son of a prominent Puritan minister in England, who had already studied for several terms at Oxford. His brother. Rev. John Woodbridge, had come to Boston in 16.34, had married Mercy, daughter of Thomas Dudley, and was settled as minister at Andover, Mass. Benjamin Woodbridge returned to England and was minister at Newbury for nearly forty years; enjoying "a mighty reputation as a scholar, a preacher, and a Christian." Though silenced by the Act of Uniformity, in 1662, he evidently continued to preach until his death in 1684.

George Downing, whose name stands next, was a nephew of Governor Winthrop, the son of his sister Lucy. He came over with his parents in 1638 and the family settled at Salem under the ministry of Hugh Peters. Downing had a strange and romantic career. At first he was employed as a tutor at the College at a salary of £4 "to read to the junior pupils as the President shall see fit." Then he went to England by the way of the West Indies and next appears in the Parliamentary army, where he rose so fast that when not more than twentyfive years old he became a member of Cromwell's own staff and wrote the dispatch to Parliament announcing the victory at Worcester. He was Cromwell's agent sent to the Duke of Savoy to remonstrate against the persecution of the Waldenses in Piedmont, and was also a special ambassador to France. He became a member of Parliament and later minister to Holland. He changed sides at the Restora- tion and served Charles II as zealously as he had served the Commonwealth. His name appears often in Pepy's Diary, and he is described as "keen, bold, subtle, active and observant, but imperious and unscrupulous, actually preferring menace to persuasion, reckless of the means employed or the risks incurred in the pursuit of a proposed object." He was later Secretary of the Commissioners of the Treasury, and Downing Street, in London, where the Prime Minister lives, was named for him. He married Frances Howard, and so became allied with one of the noblest families of the English peerage. He died in 1648, leaving a reputation of a man of extraordinary' force but of doubtful character and merit.

John BuJMey, the third graduate, was the son of Rev. Peter Bulkley, who had come to New England in 1635 and was the first minister at Concord, Mass. Th< younger Bulkley served for a year or two with his classmate Downing as a tutor to the College and then he, too, went to England and settled in the ministry at Fordham in the county of Essex. He was ejected by the Act of Uniformit}- in 1662 and he died in London in 1689. This John Bulkley was one of the earliest benefactors of the College, for in 1635 he gave to the College a piece of land "situate and near adjoining to the College, and ordered the same to be for the use of the Fellows that should from time to time belong to and be resident at the said Society. The said Garden being commonly called and known by the name of the Fellows Orchard." This was a piece of ground lying to the east of the College building and stretching from what is now

The next name on the list of the Class of 1642 is that of William Hubbard, who later was settled in the ministry at Ipswich, Mass. He is remembered as the author of "A Narrative of the Trouble with the Indians," published in 1677, and of a "History of New England," finished in 1680. Hubbard kept up his connection with the College all his life, and we find him presiding at the Commencements of 1684 and of 1688. He is recorded as "the most eminent minister in the county of Essex, equal to any in the province for learning and candor and superior to all of his contemporaries - r- ^ as a writer."

The next is Samuel Bellingh a m , son of Richard Bellingham, a member of the Committee in charge of the College and the future Go\-crnor. This man also retumcd to England and later studied medicine at Leyden. He appears to have lived in or near London and ne\-er to ha\-c retmned to New England.

Then comes the name of John Wilson, the son of the Rev. John Wilson of the First Church in Boston. He became for a time an assistant to Rev. Richard Mather of Dorchester, and in Kiol was settled at Medfield, where he was minister for forty years, until his death in 1691.

Henry Saltonstall was the son of Sir Richard Saltonstall, one of the founders of the Colony. He returned to England and became a Fellow at Oxford.

graduates, Nathaniel Brewster, had an honorable career. He was a Puritan minister in England and later in Ireland, where he received the Degree of Bachelor of Theology from the University of Dublin. Ejected by the Act of Uniformity he returned to New Eng- 1 a n d and later settled as minister at Brookhaven, on Long Island, where his three sons lived. He continued his work there until his death in 1690 at the age of 70.

With the completion of the building, the settlement of the first President and the graduation of thr first class, the founding of the College may be said to have been Soi.i.n i:-' .Mommkni and in 1650 the Charter was granted under which the College is still administered. By this Charter the College was made a corporation, consisting of the President, five Fellows and a Treasurer, to be called by the name of the President and Fellows of Harvard College . This Charter created Henry Drmster. President ; vSamuel Mather, Samuel Danforth, Jonathan Mitchell, Comfort Starr, and Samuel Eaton, the five Fellows, and Henry Belknap, Treasurer. The Charter liears the signature of "Thomas Dudley, Governor." It must have given Governor Dudley proc A Mill; I DUE Common. found satisfaction to sign the paper which thus gave permanent distinction to the town which he had done so much to plant.

The Colony

THE year 1041 is the year in which the adoption of the Great Remonstrance showed that the Long Parliament of England -understood its duty and could do it. "If the vote had been lost," said Cromwell, " I would have sold all I had and never have seen England more." That meant that he would have emigrated to Massachusetts. He would have arrived just in time for the first Commencement of Harvard College, just as the General Court was striking the name of King Charles I out of the oath of allegiance, and just as four of the New England colonies were planning their confederation. He would have found Massachusetts a well ordered, selfcontrolled community of more than twenty thousand people, with all the necessary institutions of government, education and religion in operation. He would have found churches, schools and college, rudely housed indeed, but with all the essential elements of efficiency provided, a code of law adopted by the will of the people and resolutely administered, a representative system of government working smoothly and successfully, and a people practicing all the industries required for their separate maintenance. He would have found, in short, the completed foundations of what is now the most prosperous democracy in the world.

Here, on a clear field, unoccupied by any organized society, with no pre-existent institutions to cumber the ground, the experiment of planting and constructing a civil and ecclesiastical government was being successfully worked out. No external power had been suffered to interfere, and no Old World precedents allowed to claim authority. No noble proprietor, nor commercial corporation, dictated the procedure. The whole plan of action was formulated without suggestions or influence from any outside quarter, by the people on the spot. They were a chosen people, intelligent, thoughtful, brave and devout. They were well acquainted with the ancient "and feudal forms of government but they applied none of them here. Having a new country to dwell in, they resolved to establish nothing but what their own experience should prove to be necessary or desirable. In this respect the New England colonies differed from most of the other American plantations. General Oglethorpe planned the social and political system of Georgia, John Locke drafted a contrivance of government for the Carolinas, Lord Baltimore superintended Maryland, William Penn planted and ruled Pennsylvania, and other proprietors and patrons controlled their several settlements. But the founders of Massachusetts tried every step for themselves, they held fast only to what thej- themselves discovered to be appropriate and efficient. By the consent and initiation of the people all the essential features of a stable commonwealth were stamped into the fabric of society in the first twenty years of the ColonJ^

This is no insignificant fact in the history of liberty. One hundred and forty-six years before the Declaration of Independence of the United States, Massachusetts was an independent government and continued so for more than half a century. It was more independent in this colonial period than it ever has been since. After the abolition of the first charter in 1684, Massachusetts became a royal province. Its governors were appointed by the king and the royal assent was needed to give validity to its laws. Since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, Massachusetts has been in man}- respects and to a considerable extent subjects to the law adopted by Congress for the general welfare of the nation. During the first fifty-four years, however, the people of Massachusetts were as free to rule themselves as if they had lived on another planet. They chose all their own administrators, asked the approval of no authority for their laws, suffered no appeal to

The Colony

It is further significant that a more efficient government for the preservation of order and the promotion of the common welfare has never existed anywhere. Nothing can surpass the spirit, courage, ability and success with which the people of Massachusetts withstood and repelled all the demands or possible encroachments from the mother country. Local offences were rebuked and disorder suppressed b}' decisive measures. No rank nor station, no popular affection, no respect for particular persons, however eminent, could obstruct the course of an even-handed justice. The General Court in the exercise of its sovereignty treated all men alike, those of its own body as well as those without. The most distinguished men of the community were brought to the bar, when they offended, as promptly as the meanest. John Winthrop himself suffered the rebuke of his colleagues. Thomas Dudley was admonished. Sir Richard Saltonstall was fined. John Endicott was disqualified temporarily from holding office and committed for contempt of the court. The severities of the penal code adopted by the General Court have often been condemned by the historical writers of a more humane age, but it should be remembered that this code was far in advance of the habits of the most enlightened countries in the seventeenth century. More than one hundred years passed before England adopted a code so just and mild as the New England " Body of Liberties." If the Puritans based their penal laws upon the Old Testament, that was itself a standard far in advance of the common usage of their day. In fact they did not always follow the details of the Hebrew law. It was a gratification to them when they found confirmation of their principles in the Scriptures, and the}' often availed themselves of that support. Nevertheless, it is true that in their secular administration they sought, first, to put into practice the principles that can stand the test of all time. Rightly, as a well qualified critic has affirmed, "Our ancestors, instead of deducing all their laws from 'the Books of Moses, established, at the outset, a code of fundamental principles, which, taken as a whole, for wisdom, equity, adaptation to the wants of their community, and a liberality of sentiment superior to the age in which it was written, may fearlessly challenge comparison with any similar production, from Magna Charta itself to the latest Bill of Rights that has been put forth in Europe or America."

The geographical boundaries of the Colony and the frame-work of its government were outlined in the Charter granted to the Massachusetts Company by Charles the First. The liberal terms of this Charter plainly indicate that the King was not loath to have such turbulent subjects betake themselves across the Atlantic. He was quite ready to expedite their departure and to speed an enterprise which would take such sturdy opponents of his policies comfortably out of the way.

The Charter provided that the officers of the company should be a governor, a deputygovernor, and eighteen assistants, to be chosen annually. To the governor and assistants was given power and authority to choose "as many freemen as they shall think fit; to elect and constitute such officers as they shall deem requisite for the ordering, managing and despatching the affairs of the governor and company," and, in General Court assembled, " to make laws and ordinances for the good and welfare of the said Company and ordering of the said lands and plantation, and the people inhabiting and to inhabit the same, as to them from lime to time shall be thought meet; so that such laws and ordinances be not contrary or repugnant to the laws and statutes of this our realm of England," and further, "from time to time to make, ordain and establish all manner of wholesome and reasonable orders, laws, statutes and ordinances, directions and instructions, not contrary to the laws of this our realm of England, for the settling of the forms and ceremonies of government and magistracy there," and to name the officers they shall appoint, define their duties and prescribe the administering of oaths to them.

The Charter gave to the members of the Company the express and absolute right to admit new associates. The persons thus admitted became full partners and equal members of the Company and were called Freemen. Had the original members been actuated by selfish motives and retained their rights as a close corporation, the fortunes of the plantation and their own fame would have been brief and ignoble. They were, however, so generous and enlightened as to almost at once transfer their authority to the people of the Colony itself.

The steps by which the Massachusetts plantation became a self-governing and independent colony are very interesting to follow. They are closely associated with the historj' of Cambridge, for not only were Cambridge citizens among the foremost to promote the successive advances, but many of the important decisions were made upon Cambridge soil or had direct relation to Cambridge events.

The first session of the General Court for elections in the Colony was held at Boston, May IS, 1631. At this session, one hundred and sixteen persons took the oath and were admitted as Freemen. The further purpose of the Court to place all final power in the hands of the people themselves was indicated at the same meeting by a vote which gave authority to the Freemen to nominate candidates for assistants. It was ordered that "once in every 3'ear, at least, a General Court shall be holden, at which court it shall be lawful for the commons to propound any person or persons whom the}- shall desire to be chosen assistants, and if it be doubtful whether it be the greater part of the commons or not, it shall be put to the poll. The like course to be holden when the}^ the said commons, shall see cause for any defect or misbehavior, to remove any one or more of the assistants."

The next vital question about political matters was raised over an issue in which Cambridge was closely involved. As early as February, 1632, a warrant was sent out by the Court of Assistants to levy a tax of £()0 for the expense of building the stockade at Mewtowne. The minister and people of Watertown protested against the payment of their assessment and urged "that it was not safe to pay monies after that sort, for fear of bringing themselves and posterity into bondage." They insisted that the Court of Assistants had no right to levy taxes without authority from the people.

pointed out that no rights of the Freemen had been disregarded, that the Assistants could be elected only b}^ the Freemen, who had the right to remove them and elect others in their places, and that at every General Court the Freemen had the right to consider and propound anything regarding the government, and to declare their grievances freely. This explanation for the time satisfied the Watertown people, and they made a retraction of their plea, and were enjoined to read it in the assembly the next Lord's day.

Nevertheless, this question of the right of the Assistants to assess taxes upon the towns without the consent of the people, although temporarily disposed of, was a live issue and brought about the first significant alteration in the plan of government. At the session of the Court which was held in the succeeding May an order was passed, apparently by general consent, "that there should be two of every plantation appointed to confer with the Court about raising of a public stock," and the appointments were made at the session. The purpose of this order was to have a representation from the Freemen to advise with the Assistants in the la^'ing of taxes. It was a step towards the organization of two branches of the General Court.

In accordance with this vote two persons were appointed from Watertown, Roxbury, Boston, Saugus, Newtowne, Charlestown, Salem and Dorchester, the eight towns which had been organized.

The next advance in the political methods of the little Colony was the adoption of a representative system. It was ordered, "That four General Courts be kept ever}' year; that the whole body of the Freemen should be present only at the Court of Election of Magistrates, and that, at the other three, every town should send their deputies, who should assist in making laws and disposing lands." These deputies began to sit as a separate house in 1644 and the framework of the government was then complete.

The most distinctive decision and the one which has not stood the test of time and experience, was the attempt to limit the franchise to church members, in the effort to secure a scrupulously moral and intelligent electorate.

As early as 1631 the General Court passed the following order: "To the end that the body of the commons may be preserved of honest and good men, it was likewise ordered and agreed that for time to come no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but such as are members of the churches within the limits of the same."

This vote has often been derided or used to illustrate the fundamental narrowness of the Massachusetts men. Whatever we may think of its wisdom and expediency todaj' it was absolutely in accord with the clearly defined purposes of the Company.

The excellent and revered John White, of the English Dorchester, the original promoter of the Massachusetts Colony, in his "Planters' Plea," written in 1680, had well defined the necessary limitations of the enlistment for the enterprise. "The persons chosen out for this employment," he wrote, "ought to be willing, constant, industrious, obedient, frugal, lovers of the common good, or, at least, such as may be easily wrought to this temper; considering that works of this nature try the undertakers with man)' difficulties, and easily discourage minds of base and weak temper." With equal force and frankness, he described the persons who were not suitable:

"Men nourished up in idleness, unconstant and affecting novelties, unwilling, stubborn, inclined to faction, covetous, luxurious, prodigal and generally men habituated to any gross evil, are no fit members of a colony."

There has always been a widespread misunderstanding of the motives and purposes of the founders of Massachusetts. It is not uncommonly supposed that they carhe hither, to use the words of the most distinguished historian of New England, "to place a colony which should be a refuge for civil and religious freedom." Such a purpose, however, finds no expression in the words of the planters of Massachusetts themselves. Indeed, it may be justly said that they never achieved or desired any knowledge of what religious freedom, as we understand it, means. It is altogether probable that if it had been defined to them they would have rejected it with abhorrence. What they really sought is best set forth in the little treatise which John Winthrop wrote in the cabin of the Arbella in the course of the voyage. There we read that "the work we have in hand" is "to seek out a place of cohabitation and consortship under a due form of government both civil and ecclesiastical." It is a mistake to flatter the founders of Massachusetts by ascribing to them purposes which to us today seem peculiarly worthy and highminded, but which they never cherished. They do not need such defense or vindication. On the other hand it is an equal error to censure them upon the assumption that they came to America fleeing from religious persecution and then in turn became persecutors themselves. Both critics and defenders fail in justice because they assume a purpose which never existed. Not a single sentence can be quoted from any of their writings which justifies the contention that they sought or desired religious freedom for all men. It was entirely in accord with their ftmdamental motives that they restricted the rights of citizenship to those who accepted their religious covenants; that they punished the intruders whose ways and opinions offended them, and that they banished the people who raised strife or dissent.

It should also be remembered that the charter of the Company gave to the General Court "full and absolute power and authority to correct, punish, pardon and rule," all the people within the bounds of their jurisdiction, and that they had further power to repel and resist all interlopers or persons who were not in sympathy with their habits of thought and life. No power short of this would have secured the enlistment of the kind of people who made up the Massachusetts Company. They required the right of self-administration, the right of admitting those whom they pleased to be their associates, and the power to expel all who might threaten or annoy them in the progress of their great experiment of establishing "a due form of government both civil and ecclesiastical." Their enterprise was no haphazard adventure. It was undertaken with serious earnestness, with resolute purpose, and upon a far-seeing and comprehensive plan which was steadfastly adhered to through good report and ill. Through much toil and suffering they established a "body politic," all of whose usages and institutions were adapted

Two serious misgivings only were known to them, - that they themselves by fault or infirmity might fail of fidelity to their ideal, or that it should be brought into peril through the waywardness of those who by love of novelty or hope of gain might creep in among them. Against the first danger they sought security under their solemn religious covenants and by continuous exhortation to patience, courage and devotion to the standards of thought and conduct which they discovered in the Bible. Against the second peril they protected themselves by exercising their authority to thwart and drive out from amongst them those who were unsympathetic or of less earnest purpose than themselves. They gladly welcomed newcomers who were of spirit and purpose like their own, but they were keen and rigid in their scrtitinj- of those whose sincerity or whose moral character or whose adhesion to Puritan principles were doubtful. They especially distrusted the people who believed themselves favored with private and personal revelations in matters of theology. The}^ were beset by all sorts of crude and whimsical fanatics, men and women, who had come to the new world expecting to find an unsettled state of afTairs in which they would have free range for their eccentricities. These persons were, as a rule, blameless in character and they would probably pass unnoticed in the atmosphere and the thronging population of Massachusetts today. In the early days, however, they were a source of grave concern and the General Court disposed of them in a manner which, if it was severe and high-handed, was at the same time perfectly legal and actuated by a complete assurance that justice and right were alike being served. The magistrates did not feel themselves bound to give any reasons for warning off or expelling factious people save that they deemed them "unmeet to inhabit here." They insisted on their charter right to judge and act for themselves.

The first conspicuous subject of what is denounced as the intolerance of the Massachusetts Puritans was Roger Williams. Williams came to Massachusetts in the first year of the Colony, an ardent, restless, self-willed young prophet of "soul-liberty." He was not a member of the Company and never became a Freeman. He was a rigid Separatist and John Quincy Adams characterized him accurately when he said of him that he was "a conscientiously contentious man." The opinions and the public speech of Williams in the days of his youthful zeal and self-confidence were an affront to the most cherished Puritan principles. Though a man of uncommon ability and sincere piety he was belligerent, aggressive and obstinate. At one time, indeed, he htimbly confessed that he was in error and submitted to the judgment of the Court. That is, however, the only instance known to us in all his life of his yielding his own judgment, and in that instance he soon repented of his penitence and engaged again in acrimonious dispute. Finally, in 1635, by the judgment of the Court sitting at Cambridge he was required to "depart from the jurisdiction" and went on his way to the settlement of Providence. It is well to remember that as he grew older he mellowed. He was taught patience by having to deal in his own colony with just such rankling opponents as he had himself been in Massachusetts. He grew also to appreciate the personal kindnesses which he received from his former comrades, even those who in the exercise of their authority had had to deal with him as a dangerous and mischievous offender. Williams never felt any malice toward those who had "enlarged" him and he wrote in the terms of deepest respect for "that ever-honored Governor, Mr. Winthrop," who, he said, "advised him for many high and heavenly and public ends," to steer his course to Narragansett Bay.

The next occasion of discord had still more intimate connection with Cambridge, for the courts and synods that decided the case were held on the common or in the Cambridge meeting-house. Anne Hutchinson, with her husband, William Hutchinson, "a gentleman of good estate and reputation" had reached Boston in September, 1G34. They had been followers of John Cotton in the Lincolnshire Boston and wished to continue to enjoy his preaching. The first mention of Mrs. Hutchinson in John Winthrop's journal bears the date October 21, Kiod. He there describes her as

"a member of the church of Boston, a woman of ready wit and bold spirit," who was promulgating certain dangerous heresies. Her brotherin-law, a minister named Wheelwright, was her supporter, and it appeared that the Governor, young Henry Vane, at least two of the assistants and the majority of the Boston church shared her opinions. What those opinions were it is a little difficult to ascertain, or at least it is difficult in these days to understand why the declaration of them could have caused such a tumult. Apparently Mrs. Hutchinson maintained that good conduct was not a satisfactory evidence of piety, and the best evidence of spiritual attainment was the inner assurance. In the theological language her heresy consisted in insisting that "the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person," and that "no sanctification can help to evidence to us our justification." In October, 1636, it was proposed that Mr. Wheelwright be invited to serve the Boston Church as its teacher to the practical exclusion of Mr. Wilson who had been prompt to disavow Mrs. Hutchinson's heresies, while his colleague, Mr. Cotton, was understood to be somewhat sympathetic with them. The tact of Winthrop secured a call for Mr. Wheelwright to the charge of a new church at Mount Wollaston, but the controversy went on and the excitement increased. The matter got into politics and at the General Court in March, 1636-37, contentions ran so high, that, although it had been so recently declared that " Boston is the fittest place for publique meetings of any place in the Bay," it was determined that the Court of Elections should not be held there. It was thereupon held in Newtowne, soon to be Cambridge, where, after scenes of tumult, Winthrop was again chosen Governor and Dudley Deputy-governor, while Vane, after a single year's service, was not even included among the Assistants. It was during this election that the first "Stump Speech" was made in this part of the world and by no less a person than the Rev. John Wilson. Mr. Wilson having " got up on the bough of a tree," made a speech which was said to have turned the scale against the " Antinomians," as Mrs. Hutchinson's party was called.

most critical occasion. The fate of the Colony hung in the balance. Judge Sewall wrote years afterwards, " My father has told me many a time that he and others went on foot, forty miles from Newbury to Cambridge, on purpose to be made freemen and help to strengthen Governor Winthrop's party." Two months after his defeat young Vane embarked for England and never returned to America. It should, however, be remembered to his credit, that in spite of his mortification, he afterwards, when he held important positions in Parliament and the government, was ever a wise and steadfast friend of New England.

Meanwhile, the political issues disposed of, the theological questions were debated by a synod or conference that sat for three weeks at Cambridge. Mrs. Hutchinson was interrogated and defended her opinions with remarkable ability and skill, but she was finally excommunicated and forced to leave the Colony. Wheelwright was banished. Six years afterwards he sotight pardon for "the vehement and censorious spirit which he had shown," and his sentence was recalled. The victorjof those who believed in preserving inviolate the orthodoxy of the colonists was complete.

The proceedings of the courts and synods in this case are not commended or approved by the more liberal judgment of later generations but it is certain that the Massachusetts rulers had no conception that the methods which they emploj'ed and which are now justly seen to have been harsh and arbitrary were in the least blameworth)^ Their acts are candidly entered upon the records and never apologized for. It is not necessary now to palliate the severities or even to assent to the wisdom or expediency of the measures employed. It is not necessary to vindicate the Puritans or to approve of their theories or to endorse all their acts, but justice requires us to look not only at the actions but also at the motives of those who, in the exercise of their rightful authority, did what they believed to be their duty.

In 1638 the colony was called on to confront a peremptory demand from the Lords Commissioners in England for the surrender of the charter, coupled with the threat of sending over a General Governor from England. But, happily, diplomatic delays were interposed and the direct issue was "avoided and protracted" by the discreet management of Governor Winthrop, until the King and his ministers became too much engrossed with their own condition at home to think more about their colonies. The charter was saved for another half century.

The year 1641 was rendered memorable by the adoption of a code of laws, a hundred in number, and known as " the Body of Liberties." It had been prepared by Nathaniel Ward, pastor of the Ipswich Church, who had been bred to the law in his youth. This code is purely a Puritan product but its spirit is nevertheless curiously modem. The law of England at that time enumerated some thirty crimes and misdemeanors that were punishable by death. The New England law reduced this number to twelve. The spirit of the code is disclosed in the opening paragraph where we read, "No man's life shall be taken away; no man's honor or good name shall be stained; no man's person shall be arrested, restrained, punished, dismembered, nor in any ways damaged; no man shall be deprived of his wife or children; no man's goods or estate shall be taken away nor in any way endangered under cover of law, unless it be by virtue or equity of some expressed law of the country warranting the same, established by the General Court and squarely published, or, in case of a defect of the law in any particular case, by the word of God."

This code was very carefully debated and altered by the General Court, then sent into all the towns for consideration, revised and amended by the General Court, and then adopted.

As the Body of Liberties set forth the civic and legal principles of the Massachusetts people, so the "Cambridge Platform" set forth the principles of church organization. The first synod or general counsel of the churches was held at Cambridge in connection with the antinomian controversy. This assembly was called by the General Court and the traveling expenses of the ministers and delegates who came from a distance were paid from the colonial treasury. The synod began at Cambridge, on August 30, 1G37, and was held in the meeting-house. It was composed of "all the teaching elders through the country and some new come out of England not called to any place here." There were about twenty-five ministers thus gathered and with them sat the Massachusetts magistrates who took part in the debates but not in the voting. There were also a number of deputies from the lay members of the churches who both spoke and voted. The synod was thus distinctly representative of the churches and it emphasized the growing sense of community and responsibility. The result of this synod was to uphold the action of the Court in the case of Mrs. Hutchinson and her friends. It was in session for nearly a month and the results were so satisfactory that Governor Winthrop proposed that such synods should be annually held, but this suggestion was disapproved.

A second convention was held at Cambridge in September, 1643, with John Cotton and Thomas Hooker for its moderators, and this gathering approved Winthrop's suggestion and urged that a new General Council be called to give to the churches "one uniform order of discipline." It took some time to carry out this decision, but on May 15, 1646, the General Court invited the churches of the four federated colonies to send their ministers and delegates to meet at Cambridge on the first of September "there to discuss, dispute and clear up, by the word of God, such questions of church government and discipline as they shall think needful and meet." It was this synod which adopted the Cambridge Platform as an ecclesiastical constitution in seventeen chapters. The draft of this celebrated document was made by the Rev. Richard Mather of Dorchester, and it was furnished with a preface by John Cotton. The Platform was duly published and after some time approved by the General Court, and it continued the recognized standard of theology and government in the New England churches throughout the colonial period.

A still greater event of 1641, and one of the most significant events in the early history of the country, was the final formation of that New England Confederation or Union, by written articles of agreement, which is the original example and pattern of whatever unions or confederations have since been pro- posed or established on the American continent. This agreement was adopted by the four Colonies, - Massachusetts and Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven, - the four which were afterwards consolidated into two. It was formed by those who were "desirous of union and studious of peace," and it embodied principles, and recognized rights, and established precedents which have entered largely into the composition of all articles of confederation or instruments of union. It had been proposed as early as 16.37, and Governor Winthrop had labored unceasingly to accomplish it for six years. He was recognized as its principal promoter by Thomas Hooker in a remarkable letter, thanking him for the

"speciall prudence" with which he had labored "to settled a foundation of safety and prosperity in succeeding ages," and for laying, with his faithful assistants, "the first stone of the foundation of this combynation of peace." The little congress of commissioners was held and organized in Boston on the 7th (17th) of September, 1643, and Winthrop was elected the first president. The same day of the same month, nearly a hundred and fifty years later, was to mark the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, in which it is not difficult to discern some provisions which may have owed their origin to the Articles of the New England Confederation.

THE characteristic feature of New England from the beginning was the fact that its inhabitants dwelt together in towns. This peculiarity was fruitful in its political and social consequences. It differentiated the social structure of the New England colonies from their neighbors to the south, where, as in Virginia, the large land owners lived apart from one another on considerable estates. One obvious cause of this difference was the character of the soil and its products, but another and more potent reason was the ecclesiastical system of the New England people. The town was an organization for united worship as well as for the conduct of secular affairs. The inhabitants placed their houses as near as possible to the meeting-house. To the meeting-house all the people went twice on Sunday, and it was the center of the whole community life. In addition to their houselots, most of the people, as we have seen in the account of the settling of Cambridge, secured grants of wood lots and pasture lands and a considerable section of each town was set aside for commons. Each town was a little commonwealth, having its officers chosen by popular vote and its own deliberative assembly, where public measures of local interest were discussed and determined. In these village parliaments the democratic idea in its original form was realized. The executive authorities of each town were the constable, the selectmen or townsmen, the town clerk and various minor officers.

The boundaries of the original Newtowne were very limited. Its territory was, however, soon enlarged by a large grant of land south of the river, and at the General Court held in March, 1630, it was agreed that the bounds of the town should extend eight miles into the country northward from the meetinghouse, thus including half of the present town of Lexington. In 1641, 1642 and 1644, the town received additional grants, consisting mainly of the territory then called Shawshin. which carried the northern boundary nearly to the Merrimac. At this period of its greatest size the town thus extended in a curiously irregular line, more than thirty miles in length, from a point several miles to the south of the Charles, almost to the Merrimac, and included the greater part, if not the whole, of Brighton, Newton, Cambridge, Arlington, Lexington, Bedford, Billerica and portions of Belmont and Winchester. It should be remembered that the land near Mount Auburn at this time belonged to Watertown, and that where East Cambridge and Cambridgeport now are, was then an uninhabited region of marsh, meadow and tangled forest growth. On May 29, 1655, with the consent of Cambridge, the Shawshin grant became the township of Billerica. On August 27, 1679, Cambridge Village, as it was called, was organized as a separate town, which later received the name of Newton, and on March 20, 1713, "Cambridge Farms" was set off and organized as Lexington. Little Cambridge and Menotomy (Brighton and Arlington) remained a part of the town for nearly another century.

The records of the town and of the selectmen of Cambridge from 1630 to 1703 have been carefully collected and printed, and graphically illustrate the diligence of the local administrators. The chief business in the early years was the allotment of land to the inhabitants, and as the land was taken up the records abound in votes about the care of the sheep and cattle, the cutting of timber on the common, the adjustment of disputes about boundaries, the surveying of lots and farms, and the ordering of the highways. The great events of the village history find due mention, the building of the new meeting-house in 1649, and of the parsonage in 1669, the successive settlement of the ministers of the town, and the building of the "Great Bridge," in 1660- 1664. This latter undertaking was no small enterprise. A causeway had to be constructed across the marsh at the foot of what is now Boylston Street, and a bridge built which would stand the crush of the ice as it moved and down the river with the tides. The cost of the undertaking fell heavily on the settlement, but citizens of neighboring towns helped with private subscriptions, and the General Court later required the other towns of Middlesex County that used the bridge as much as Cambridge to contribute to the cost of maintenance.