"That malice never was his aim;

He lashed the vice, but spared the name."

Though Mr. Wilson was in England when Roger Williams was banished, he yet approved the sentence as necessary and wholesome. In the expulsion of Mrs. Hutchinson, he fully concurred, as also in the exclusion of the Quakers at a later period. As he and his associates have been more universally and bitterly condemned for these measures than for any other of their actions, we will here, once for all, look to see what may be offered in their defence. We shall vindicate them as far as they may, and ought to be vindicated.

It is one evident mark of the progress of the human mind, and of the advancement of society in the knowledge of human rights, that religious bigotry and intolerance have come to be held in general reprobation. To be charged with such fault is now regarded as one of the darkest accusations which can be brought against the living or the dead.

There be many who, for selfish purposes, are ever ringing and resounding this odious charge against our pilgrim fathers. The most studious efforts are made to depict them as "the chief of sinners" in this respect, as a race of "graceless bigots," and remorseless persecutors. In our

days, their enemies have mostly had the telling of the story. The haters of their memory and their sentiments have risen up, and ransacked every garret, and raked into every old cellar, to find matter wherewith to asperse their characters. These literary scavengers have plunged into forgotten reservoirs of slander, and have come out reeking with the antiquated filth, and have steeped themselves in obsolete infamy, in the vain hope of being able to pour lasting obloquy on the reputation of our holy and venerated dead. Musty pamphlets have been recalled from just oblivion. There has been a general resurrection of old publications, some of which died of their own inborn venom, and others dropped dead-born from the presses which gave birth to these abortive slanders. These writings were chiefly penned by bitter foes, and most of the authors of them were smarting under rightful punishment inflicted by the Puritans. From these sources have been culled every railing accusation, every calumnious fabrication, every disingenuous, wrested and falsified statement of things, which can be made to bear hard upon the memory of men of whom, in truth, the world was not worthy. All these assertions, which, in the time when they were first made, our fathers either refuted in full, or deemed too

absurd and contemptible for refutation, are now eagerly retailed by our modern venders of antipuritanical slander, as if every word must be unquestionable truth. The partisan statements of maddened opposers are recited over and over again, without the least apparent misgiving as to their total inaccuracy and want of candor. Whatever can be picked up that makes against the pilgrims, is given out again as true of course, without farther inquiry.

This mode of procedure has gone on so long, that even many who cherish the names of our fathers with deep and affectionate respect, are not uninfluenced by these one-sided and wrongsided declarations. Such persons will begin with almost angrily denouncing them as persecutors, and for a while are "outrageously virtuous " in their condemnation of such infringement of the rights of conscience. Having thus pacified with this high-seasoned sop, the irritated public sentiment of the day, they take another step. They suggest that our fathers went with the current of their times, were no worse than their contemporaries, and that if we had lived in "those times of ignorance" on the subject of toleration, we have no reason to think that we should have acted any better than they. Presently we are told, that our fathers acted accord

ing to the light they had; and though its dimness misled them, they were conscientious and sincere in the steps they took. At last it is pretty plainly hinted, that unhappy circumstances constrained them to pursue the course they did; and that, taking every thing into view, it is not easy to see how they could have done any differently without exposing themselves and their cause to destruction. Such is substantially the way in which the subject is disposed of by Rev. Charles Emerson, and other later writers. They begin by viewing the subject according to the ideas of the present age, and speak the language of violent reprobation. But the longer and closer they examine it, the cooler does their indignation become, till they reach their natural temperature.

"The calmer grown for so much anger spent,

As is the case with rash and passionate men."

Such critics are often heard to say;

Surely there have never been better or more useful men than our ancestors; but alas, the best of men have their faults! it is a pity that they were so uncharitable and intolerant." And yet our forefathers, who abounded in every kind of good sense, did not regard themselves as justly obnoxious to this condemnation. It ought

to be considered, that there is another side to the story, which may wear a very different aspect when the whole truth shall come out. That our fathers sometimes erred, we shall frankly acknowledge: for it is the lot of poor humanity to present some weak spots in her strongest specimens, some blots on her fairest copies. But in their case, it will be found that a fair and equitable distribution of the blame will take off the greater part of what has been heaped upon them; and put it back where it properly belongs, even on the shoulders of those whom they are said to have persecuted. It is a matter of high satisfaction, that the character of the pilgrims still stands so elevated in the minds of their descendants. Throughout New England, with the exception of a few degenerate renegades, their memory is held in the greatest veneration. As you leave New England, the farther South or West you go, the less will you find of this filial regard for the first settlers of the soil. And when you come to those countries first subjugated and colonized by other nations, you will find the people even abhorring the memory of their sires. Thus in 1823, the patriot mob in Mexico, in their detestation of the old Spaniards, "prepared to break open the tomb which held the ashes of Cortes," VOL. II. 7