Puritans were the most free from credulity. . . . So many superstitions had been bundled up with every venerable institution of Europe, that ages have not dislodged them all. The Puritans at once emancipated themselves from a crowd of observances. Hardly a nation of Europe has as yet made its criminal law so humane as that of early New England. A crowd of offences was at one sweep brushed from the catalogue of capital crimes." So other standard historians.
It is a sin alike against the memory of the greatly good and against truth and Christian charity, to attempt to hide beneath a few mistakes the most exalted virtues.
NOTE B.
The Anglo-Saxon race have everywhere exhibited strong social affections, and among them have been found, to a greater extent than among those of any other race, examples of well-ordered, intelligent, and virtuous homes. But even in England the number of such homes in proportion to the entire population is small. They are not relatively numerous beyond the circle of the aristocracy of rank and wealth. But among the Anglo-Saxon population of our older States the proportion of such homes is large. You can hardly go into any respectable looking farm-house in Massachusetts or Connecticut without finding on the parlor table, along with the Bible, the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Addison, Johnson, Cowper, Wordsworth, and other eminent writers, and seeing many other indications of a degree of intellectual and social culture not extensively found among the common people of any other land.
