is simply this: The Puritans established a government in America such as natural justice warranted, and such as the statutes and common law of England did not warrant; and that was done by men who still acknowledged the duty of a limited allegiance to the parent state. The Episcopalians had declared themselves the enemies of the party, and waged against it a war of extermination. Puritanism excluded them from its asylum. Roger Williams, the apostle of "soul liberty," weakened the cause of civil independence by impairing its unity; and he was expelled, even though Massachusetts always bore good testimony to his spotless virtues. Wheelwright and his friends, in their zeal for strict Calvinism, forgot their duty as citizens, and they also were exiled. The Anabaptist, who could not be relied upon as an ally, was guarded as a foe. The Quakers denounced the worship of New England as an abomination and its government as treason, and therefore they were excluded on pain of death."
Elsewhere (Vol. I. p. 454) Mr. Bancroft writes,—"Some of the Quakers were extravagant and foolish. They cried out from the windows at the magistrates and ministers that passed by, and mocked the civil and religious institutions of the country. They riotously interrupted public worship; and women, forgetting the decorum of their sex and claiming a divine origin for their absurd caprices, smeared their faces and even went naked through the streets." It was for these gross violations of public order and decency and the rights of other people, and not for their religious opinions, that they suffered.
The historian further says: "The effects of Puritanism display its true character still more distinctly. . . . Puritanism was a life-giving spirit; activity, thrift, intelligence followed in its train; and as for courage, a coward and a Puritan never went together.'
Again, the same pen writes,—"Of all contemporary sects the
