III. THE NEW ENGLAND CLERGY: THOMAS HOOKER, THOMAS SHEPARD, JOHN COTTON, NATHANIEL WARD, ROGER WILLIAMS, JOHN ELIOT, THE MATHERS.

Theology in New England.

Among a people constituted in temper like the Puritans, a people with whom religion was life and whose life even on its temporal side was closely identified with religion, it was natural that religious ideas should find constant expression in literature. This we have seen to be true in the historical narratives of Bradford and Winthrop. The Puritan writers are always impressed with the spiritual significance of their conquest in this new Canaan. Even the most casual accidents of pioneer experience are interpreted as filled with divine purpose. John Winthrop soberly records the fact that in his son's library of a thousand volumes, one, which contained the Greek Testament, the Psalms, and the Book of Common Prayer bound up together, was found injured by mice. Every leaf of the Common Prayer was eaten through; not a leaf of the other portions was touched, nor one of the other volumes injured. A marvelous providence this, clear enough in its indications. So Edward Johnson, not an educated man, but a farmer and a ship carpenter, who had been active in the founding of Woburn, in 1640, wrote his Wonder-Working Providence of Zion's Saviour in New England (1654). "For the Lord Christ intends to achieve greater matters by this little handful than the world is aware of."

The colonists are soldiers under the divine leader; they must not tolerate the existence among them of a single disbeliever; they must take up their arms and march manfully on till all opposers of Christ's kingly power be abolished. Thus spake Puritanism on the side of its austerity and fanaticism.

The Clergy.

There was in New England one class of men who by natural aptitude and by training were well fitted to be heard from on religious topics. These were the ministers. As the village church, or meeting-house, was the centre geographically, morally, and socially, of every New England community, so the minister was, usually, the dominating force among his townspeople, maintaining the high dignity of the sacred calling with a manner which commanded a deference amounting to awe. Not only was his authority recognized on the purely religious questions of daily life, not only was his voice reverently heard as he preached for hours from the high pulpit on Sunday, but the New England minister was the natural leader of his flock in every field. He gave counsel in town affairs, he directed the political policy of his people. In cases of disagreement, the minister was usually the mediator and the final court of appeal. The greater part of the New England ministry were educated men of noteworthy gifts. The majority were graduates of the English universities; many of them had been distinguished for their eloquence and piety before the religious persecution of Charles and his ministers had driven them forth to find religious liberty elsewhere.

Three strong thinkers and eloquent preachers are usually mentioned as conspicuous among these early colonial ministers: Thomas Hooker, Thomas Shepard, and John Cotton. All three were graduates of the same college at Cambridge; all were Puritan preachers in England until compelled to flee for their lives because of the hostility of Bishop Laud.

Thomas Hooker, 1586-1647.

Hooker had escaped into Holland, and in 1633 followed in the track of those who had crossed the ocean before him. He became the minister at Cambridge. Three years later he led a colony of one hundred families through the wilderness into the beautiful Connecticut valley and founded the town of Hartford (1636). Here until his death, in 1647, Hooker wrote and preached and moulded the life of his parish. His power in the pulpit is said to have been wonderful. Many of his sermons were published; he wrote numerous treatises on theological and spiritual themes. It is significant of the impression left by Hooker on his contemporaries that an English clergyman affirmed that "to praise the writings of Hooker would be to lay paint upon burnished marble, or add light unto the sun."

Thomas Shepard, 1605-49.

Rev. Thomas Shepard arrived in America in 1635, succeeding Hooker in Cambridge, where he preached until his death in 1649. Unlike the stalwart Hooker, whose physical strength and bodily energy matched his intellectual stature, Shepard was an invalid. He was, however, a profound scholar, and a "soul-melting preacher." His writings are not voluminous, but they exercised a strong influence even after his death. His diction is imaginative and forceful, with the rugged force of Puritan vigor.

"God heweth thee by sermons, sicknesses, losses and crosses, sudden death, mercies and miseries, yet nothing makes thee better.

"Death cometh hissing... like a fiery dragon with the sting of vengeance in the mouth of it. Then shall God surrender up thy forsaken soul into the hands of devils, who being thy jailers, must keep thee till the great day of account; so that as they friends are scrambling for thy goods, and worms for thy body, so devils shall scramble for thy soul."

John Cotton, 1585-1652.

On the same ship which brought Thomas Hooker to America came John Cotton, most noted of these three men. For nearly twenty years, he had served the parish of St. Botolph's in Boston in Lincolnshire, and was known far and wide for his aggressive spirituality. In 1633, he discovered that he was no longer safe in his native land. The principal colony on Massachusetts Bay had longed for him. In compliment to him, its members adopted the name of Boston; and John Cotton became the foremost minister in New England, -- "a most universal scholar, a living system of the liberal arts, and a walking library," as his grandson, Cotton Mather, described him. John Cotton wrote many theological treatises, and engaged in bitter controversies. He was a laborious student. Near him as he studied stood a sand-glass which would run four hours. This glass, thrice turned, was the measure of his day's work. This he called "a scholar's day." His writings lack the picturesque imagery of Hooker and Shepard. His style is lifeless now, but he carried prodigious weight among his contemporaries and was the foremost champion in the theological battles of his age.

The Simple Cobler.

Among the more noteworthy publications of these scholastic writers was a singular book which appeared in London in 1647. Its author was Nathaniel Ward, a Cambridge graduate and retired minister, who lived at what is now the town of Ipswich in eastern Massachusetts. His work is quaintly addressed under the title of The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America. Upon the title-page, in accordance with seventeenth-century custom, the author explains his purpose at considerable length: as --

"willing to help mend his native country, lamentably tattered both in the upper-leather and sole, with all the honest stitches he can take; and as willing never to be paid for his work by old English wonted pay. It is his trade to patch all the year long gratis. Therefore I pray gentlemen keep your purses. By Theodore de la Guard."

This picturesque book, full of pungent wit, directs its satire at what its author deemed the follies and perversions of his day. The allegory of the Cobbler is not maintained much beyond the title-page. Himself a refugee from religious persecution, he expresses the usual Puritan intolerance of all independent opinion:

"That state that will give liberty of conscience in matters of religion must give liberty of conscience and conversation in their moral laws, or else the fiddle will be out of tune, and some of the strings crack."

Roger Williams, 1606-83.

Nathaniel Ward's Simple Cobler voices with characteristic fervor the utterance of Puritan bigotry; but there was in the colony one powerful champion of religious tolerance who constitutes one of its most attractive figures. This was Roger Williams, an independent among the independents. Born in Wales, a university man and a clergyman in the Church of England, he had turned nonconformist, and appeared in Plymouth colony in the usual way. In 1633, two years after his arrival at Plymouth, Williams went to Salem to be the minister there; but his teachings were altogether too radical to suit his stern and narrow-minded Puritan brethren. He preached a real liberty of thought and worship -- even for Baptists and Quakers; taught that it was unrighteous to rob the Indian of his land, and to treat captives with cruelty; and maintained that the State's authority did not extend over the individual conscience or opinion. Roger Williams was one of those who proclaim the truth so far in advance of the conceptions held by those about them, that they seem to be living years before their proper time. He was banished from Massachusetts in 1636; and making friends with the Pequot Indians, he planted on Narragansett Bay the settlement of Providence. Williams revisited England several times, and was no inconspicuous figure there. He knew Milton and had the friendship of Cromwell. It was on one of these visits that he wrote his first important treatise on "Soul Liberty," -- The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for Cause of Conscience. This was published at London in 1644, the year in which Milton's Areopagitica, a plea for the freedom of the press, appeared. Williams's Bloody Tenet was the beginning of a famous literary battle between himself and that belligerent Puritan defender, John Cotton, who in 1647 published his reply in The Bloody Tenet washed and made white in the Blood of the Lamb. The final rejoinder came from Roger Williams in The Bloody Tenet yet more Bloody, by Mr. Cotton's Endeavor to wash it white in the Blood of the Lamb. And with this brief summary of the encounter between these two keen-minded, argument-loving minds, their blows delivered in what Williams called "sharp Scripture language," we may well afford to take our leave of Puritan controversy.

John Eliot, 1604-90.

The attitude of the Englishman toward the native inhabitants of America has long been marked with injustice and dishonor. The precarious situation of the colonists surrounded by fierce and savage tribes naturally produced occasion for the display of savage passions on the part of the white man as well as on that of the Indian. The horrors of war and massacre that redden the early annals of colonial history were, no doubt, due in part to the indiscretions and encroachments of the superior race. Some one has said of the Puritan pioneers that "first they fell upon their knees, and then they fell on the aborigines." As we have seen, Roger Williams declared boldly for a different policy; and his own methods with the savage peoples were well illustrated in the comparative peace and prosperity of his settlement in Rhode Island. Another peacemaker is discovered in the gentle personality of John Eliot, the "Apostle to the Indians," who came to Boston in 1631, and devoted his life to the conversion of these children of the forest, whom he regarded as descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. He studied their native tongue, preached to them, converted many, and organized his converts in little churches of their own. He wrote several books of minor importance; but he is to be remembered as a translator of the entire Bible into the Algonquin tongue. It was a tremendous task and a remarkable achievement. He published the New Testament in 1661 and the Old Testament in 1663. It was the first Bible in any language, printed in British America. This translation of the Scriptures into the vernacular of a people who had no written language, done largely by candle-light after days devoted to exacting work in his Roxbury parish, is a most remarkable monument to "Apostle" Eliot's laborious industry and his missionary zeal.

The Mathers: a distinguished Family.

The scholarly attainments of colonial Puritanism have been amply shown by this record of the New England ministry in the literature of the time. The history of a single family furnishes our most conspicuous and most curiously interesting illustration of scholastic eminence and its position in popular regard. Through three generations the Mathers -- in grandfather, son, and grandson -- appear as brilliant intellectual leaders of the Massachusetts clergy. Richard Mather, 1596-1669.

The first of the "dynasty," Richard Mather, an Oxford graduate, who arrived in Boston in 1635, was one of that conscientious Puritan brotherhood that of necessity sought a refuge and a field for spiritual conquest in the New World. He became the minister at Dorchester. "My brother Mather is a mighty man," Thomas Hooker said of him. Although he was a prolific writer, it is sufficient here to recall the fact that Richard Mather's name was the one appended to the preface of the old Bay Psalm Book.

Increase Mather, 1639-1723.

Four of Richard Mather's six sons became ministers; it was, however, through Increase Mather that the chief inheritance of scholarly gifts was transmitted. The father's eloquence was more than equaled by the son's; his Puritan zeal, his love of learning, his industry in the production of pamphlets and books, brought the name of Increase Mather into greater prominence than Richard Mather's vigorous quill had won. For fifty-nine years, he served as minister of the North Church in Boston. He added some ninety titles to the list of colonial publications -- the majority representing discourses prepared for his congregation. Perhaps the only one of his books sufficiently vitalized by human interest to be noted to-day is An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences (1684), in which the piety, pedantry, and superstition characteristic of the religious scholar in that age are curiously mingled. This collection of strange visitations and marvelous deliverances was designed for the pious entertainment and spiritual comfort of its readers. It is one of the most interesting of these early American classics; and, like so many of the works previously cited, affords a vivid glimpse into the Puritan mind. For sixteen years, Increase Mather served as President of Harvard College.

Cotton Mather, 1663-1728.

The clerical succession of this remarkable family was continued in the third generation by the most illustrious representative of the line.

"Under this stone lies Richard Mather
Who had a son greater than his father,
And eke a grandson greater than either."

Thus ran a quasi-epitaph composed after the death of Cotton Mather with intent to honor his achievements. Nor was this paternal relationship the only source of hereditary influence. The famous John Cotton, contemporary of Hooker and Shepard, was his grandfather on his mother's side; it was in memory of that stalwart champion that Cotton Mather received his baptismal name. All the accumulated piety and learning of his distinguished ancestry seemed to reside in this extraordinary man. His intellectuality was abnormal. He has been not inappropriately termed "the literary behemoth of New England." He had read Homer at ten years of age, and at eleven was admitted to Harvard College. He took his first degree at fifteen; at seventeen he began to preach, and soon afterward became associate with his father in the pastorate of the North Church in Boston, a connection which lasted for forty years. In his religious life, he became abnormal also; at times he lay for hours on the floor of his study in spiritual agony. He fortified himself for the conflict with error by fasts and vigils. His speech was full of pious ejaculations. When he saw a tall man he prayed, "Lord, give that man high attainments in Christianity; let him fear God above many." And each trivial act was the source of some devout meditation. Unhappily, Cotton Mather is most often remembered as a leader in the pitiful persecution of the unfortunate people accused of witchcraft at Salem in the last decade of the century. His Memorable Providence Relating to Witchcrafts (1691) and Wonders of the Invisible World (1693) contain curious records and much interesting matter relative to satanic possession; ideas which were firmly believed at that time, not only in New England, but very generally throughout Europe also.

His Industry.

The most remarkable thing about Cotton Mather's literary career is the number of his writings; four hundred or more titles are included in the catalogue of his works. Many of these are fantastic treatises, grotesquely named, representing the vagaries of Puritan thought; many are sermons delivered on special occasions; three or four are interesting little books.

One, familiarly known under the title Essays to do Good, was cordially praised by Benjamin Franklin, who declared to the son of the writer that as a youth he had derived great benefit and inspiration from the book. But the great work, the magnum opus of Cotton Mather's prolific industry, was the famous Magnalia Christi Americana, or Ecclesiastical History of New England, from its First Planting in the Year 1620, unto the Year of our Lord, 1698.

The Magnalia Christi Americana.

Something over a thousand pages of closely printed matter is included in the seven parts or volumes of this monumental work. The planting of New England and its growth, the lives of its governors and its famous divines, a history of Harvard College, the organization of the churches, "a faithful record of many wonderful Providences," and an "account of the Wars of the Lord -- being an history of the manifold afflictions and disturbances of the churches in New England" -- such is the scope of the Magnalia Christi Americana, or The Great Acts of Christ in America.

It begins like an epic:--

"I write the Wonders of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION, flying from the depravations of Europe to the American Strand and, assisted by the Holy Author of that Religion, I do, with all conscience of Truth, required therein by Him, who is the Truth itself, report the wonderful displays of this infinite Power, Wisdom, Goodness, and Faithfulness, wherewith His Divine Providence hath irradiated an Indian Wilderness."

The style is pedantic and artificial, but the spirit of the writer is perfectly sincere. Now and then the narrative grows simple and strong. There is a frequent use of Old Testament phraseology which indicates a clear perception of its poetical value. Such, for example, is the account of Hannah Dustin's thrilling experiences among the Indians, at Haverhill, in 1697. This is the story of the woman's daring escape from captivity:--

"She heartened the nurse and the youth to assist her in this enterprise; and all furnishing themselves with hatchets for the purpose, they struck such home blows upon the heads of their sleeping oppressors that e'er they could any of them struggle into any effectual resistance, at the feet of these poor prisoners, they bow'd, they fell, they lay down; at their feet they bowed, they fell; where they bowed, there they fell down dead."

Significance of the Work.

The Magnalia, completed in December, 1697, was published at London in 1702. It stands fitly enough as the last important literary effort of seventeenth-century colonial Puritanism. Already there were indications of a change in the current of New England religious life. The old extreme Puritan doctrines were in a decline; and Mather's huge volume was a final utterance in defense of the fathers' faith. Not only had there come a change in the form of thought; in the style of literary expression, the change was as notable. English writers no longer followed the models of the later Elizabethan essayists; their fantastic phraseology had been displaced by the direct and forceful diction of Bunyan and Dryden; the easy, natural style of Addison, Steele, and Swift was giving a new charm to English prose. Cotton Mather lived throughout the first quarter of the eighteenth century; but in all essential respects, in personality and in utterance, he belongs wholly to the seventeenth. The consummate product of the old Puritan theology, he stands as the last important representative of the type in American literature.