LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
NEW ENGLAND AND FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE.
[TO THE EDITOR OE THE " SpEcTATO$1 Malleson confuses the issue. The statement in the Spectator of July 4tb, which I ventured to challenge, was made d propos of Mr. Bayard laying the first stone of the John Robinson Memorial Church, and his saying that the "small body of humble people" nurtured under Robinson's ministry .carried with them to a new world "the seed of Christian liberty." Surely the writer could refer only to the colony which was founded by these humble people. It is therefore gratuitous to suggest, as Mr. Malleson does, that he (the -writer) had in his mind " others of the New England colonies, such as Massachusetts, founded at Salem only nine years later by Presbyterians." I did not say that none of the Puritans of New England were open to the charge of intolerance. On the contrary, if Mr. Malleeon will do me the honour of consulting my recently published book, -"Puritanism in the Old World and in the New" (James Clarke and Co.), especially the chapter on " the growth of intolerance in New England," he will find that I have by no means overlooked " the gross persecution of Roger Williams," of "the briliant Mrs. Hutchinson," or "the terrible Quaker persecution in 1656." He will find there the question dis- cussed, " Was Roger Williams persecuted on account of his religions opinions P " and the conclusion reached that Williams was persecuted, not on account of his religions opinions, but for political reasons, because he identified him- self with projects which were (rightly or wrongly) believed to be revolutionary, sabveraive of the very existence of the rising Commonwealth.
Mr. Malleson seems to think that unless it can be shown that the Fathers of New Plymouth were so far emancipated from the spirit of the age in which they lived as to have shred the last vestige of intolerance they have no claim to be re- garded as the pioneers of religious liberty. He " wonders why Williams and poor Mrs. Hutchinson, and, later, the 'Quakers, did not flee to such a haven of refuge" as Ply- mouth. Did Plymouth, he asks, offer any opposition or pro- test against the persecution of the Quakers P Well, it is proverbially difficult to prove a negative ; but such evidence as we are able to discover goes to show that in that age of in- tolerance the Fathers and their descendants were honourably distinguished for their aversion to what one of their number called "the anti-Christian and persecuting spirit." Ex um • disce °nines : Isaac Robinson, son of the John Robinson to whose memory Mr. Bayard and the company at Gains- borough met to do honour the other day, was deposed from 'his position as Governor of the colony and disfranchised because he would have no part in the iniquitous measures against the Quakers. Certainly Plymouth did not vie with Rhode Island and Providence in being what Roger Williams made it, "a harbourage for all sorts of consciences." The sanctity of the Sabbath, e.g., was hedged round with some prickly observances ; but these were mildness and flagitious laxity compared with what Churchmen had to endure in Virginia, where abstention from public worship was—if thrice repeated—punishable by death. We do not claim for these Plymouth Puritans that they carried their love of liberty to the point of disallowing all interference with the liberty of others, but we do say that they made an honest attempt to do this according to their light, and wherein they failed, they failed only because they were born a century too soon.—I am,
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