The Beginnings of New England E-Book

John Fiske

• Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

In "The Beginnings of New England," John Fiske offers a comprehensive narrative of the early colonial period, chronicling the foundation and development of New England from the late 16th century through the early 18th century. Fiske's literary style combines engaging storytelling with meticulous historical detail, reflecting the intellectual currents of the late 19th century. He employs a thematic approach that emphasizes the interplay between Puritan ideals and the socio-political landscape, shedding light on the motivations behind the Massachusetts Bay Colony'Äôs establishment amid the broader context of European unrest and religious upheaval. John Fiske, an eminent American historian and philosopher, draws from his extensive education at Harvard and his fervent interest in American culture and history. His background in philosophy and his engagements with transcendentalist thinkers, combined with a profound respect for historical accuracy, inform his perspective in this work. Fiske'Äôs commitment to understanding American identity and the role of its early settlers highlights his belief in the significance of impassioned civic character in shaping a nation. I highly recommend "The Beginnings of New England" to readers interested in the complex tapestry of early American history. Fiske'Äôs clear and articulate prose not only makes this work accessible but also illuminating for anyone eager to comprehend the cultural and ideological foundations that continue to influence American society today.

Leseprobe

John Fiske

The Beginnings of New England

Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty

Published by Good Press, 2022

[email protected]

EAN 4057664586742

Table of Contents

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK.

PREFACE.

DETAILED CONTENTS CONTENTS.

THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND.

CHAPTER I. — THE ROMAN IDEA AND THE ENGLISH IDEA.

CHAPTER II. — THE PURITAN EXODUS.

CHAPTER III. — THE PLANTING OF NEW ENGLAND.

CHAPTER IV. — THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERACY.

CHAPTER V. — KING PHILIP'S WAR.

CHAPTER VI. — THE TYRANNY OF ANDROS.

]

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK.

Table of Contents

PREFACE.

Table of Contents

This book contains the substance of the lectures originally given at the Washington University, St. Louis, in May, 1887, in the course of my annual visit to that institution as University Professor of American History. The lectures were repeated in the following month of June at Portland, Oregon, and since then either the whole course, or one or more of the lectures, have been given in Boston, Newton, Milton, Chelsea, New Bedford, Lowell, Worcester, Springfield, and Pittsfield, Mass.; Farmington, Middletown, and Stamford, Conn.; New York, Brooklyn, and Tarrytown, N.Y.; Philadelphia and Ogontz, Pa.; Wilmington, Del.; Chicago, 111.; San Francisco and Oakland, Cal.

In this sketch of the circumstances which attended the settlement of New England, I have purposely omitted many details which in a formal history of that period would need to be included. It has been my aim to give the outline of such a narrative as to indicate the principles at work in the history of New England down to the Revolution of 1689. When I was writing the lectures I had just been reading, with much interest, the work of my former pupil, Mr. Brooks Adams, entitled "The Emancipation of Massachusetts."

With the specific conclusions set forth in that book I found myself often agreeing, but it seemed to me that the general aspect of the case would be considerably modified and perhaps somewhat more adequately presented by enlarging the field of view. In forming historical judgments a great deal depends upon our perspective. Out of the very imperfect human nature which is so slowly and painfully casting off the original sin of its inheritance from primeval savagery, it is scarcely possible in any age to get a result which will look quite satisfactory to the men of a riper and more enlightened age. Fortunately we can learn something from the stumblings of our forefathers, and a good many things seem quite clear to us to-day which two centuries ago were only beginning to be dimly discerned by a few of the keenest and boldest spirits. The faults of the Puritan theocracy, which found its most complete development in Massachusetts, are so glaring that it is idle to seek to palliate them or to explain them away. But if we would really understand what was going on in the Puritan world of the seventeenth century, and how a better state of things has grown out of it, we must endeavour to distinguish and define the elements of wholesome strength in that theocracy no less than its elements of crudity and weakness.

The first chapter, on "The Roman Idea and the English Idea," contains a somewhat more developed statement of the points briefly indicated in the thirteenth section (pp. 85-95) of "The Destiny of Man." As all of the present book, except the first chapter, was written here under the shadow of the Washington University, I take pleasure in dating it from this charming and hospitable city where I have passed some of the most delightful hours of my life.

St. Louis, April 15, 1889.

NOTES:

DETAILED CONTENTS CONTENTS.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I. THE ROMAN IDEA AND THE ENGLISH IDEA. When did the Roman Empire come to an end? ... 1-3 Meaning of Odovakar's work ... 3 The Holy Roman Empire ... 4, 5 Gradual shifting of primacy from the men who spoke Latin, and their descendants, to the men who speak English ... 6-8 Political history is the history of nation-making ... 8, 9 The ORIENTAL method of nation-making; conquest without incorporation ... 9 Illustrations from eastern despotisms ... 10 And from the Moors in Spain ... 11 The ROMAN method of nation-making; conquest with incorporation, but without representation ... 12 Its slow development ... 13 Vices in the Roman system. ... 14 Its fundamental defect ... 15 It knew nothing of political power delegated by the people to representatives ... 16 And therefore the expansion of its dominion ended in a centralized Despotism ... 16 Which entailed the danger that human life might come to stagnate in Europe, as it had done in Asia ... 17 The danger was warded off by the Germanic invasions, which, however, threatened to undo the work which the Empire had done in organizing European society ... 17 But such disintegration was prevented by the sway which the Roman Church had come to exercise over the European mind ... 18 The wonderful thirteenth century ... 19 The ENGLISH method of nation-making; incorporation with representation ... 20 Pacific tendencies of federalism ... 21 Failure of Greek attempts at federation ... 22 Fallacy of the notion that republics must be small ... 23 "It is not the business of a government to support its people, but of the people to support their government" ... 24 Teutonic March-meetings and representative assemblies ... 25 Peculiarity of the Teutonic conquest of Britain ... 26, 27 Survival and development of the Teutonic representative assembly in England ... 28 Primitive Teutonic institutions less modified in England than in Germany ... 29 Some effects of the Norman conquest of England ... 30 The Barons' War and the first House of Commons ... 31 Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty ... 32 Conflict between Roman Idea and English Idea begins to become clearly visible in the thirteenth century ... 33 Decline of mediaeval Empire and Church with the growth of modern nationalities ... 34 Overthrow of feudalism, and increasing power of the crown ... 35 Formidable strength of the Roman Idea ... 36 Had it not been for the Puritans, political liberty would probably have disappeared from the world ... 37 Beginnings of Protestantism in the thirteenth century ... 38 The Cathari, or Puritans of the Eastern Empire ... 39 The Albigenses ... 40 Effects of persecution; its feebleness in England ... 41 Wyclif and the Lollards ... 42 Political character of Henry VIII.'s revolt against Rome ... 43 The yeoman Hugh Latimer ... 44 The moment of Cromwell's triumph was the most critical moment in history ... 45 Contrast with France; fate of the Huguenots ... 46, 47 Victory of the English Idea ... 48 Significance of the Puritan Exodus ... 49 CHAPTER II. THE PURITAN EXODUS. Influence of Puritanism upon modern Europe ... 50, 51 Work of the Lollards ... 52 They made the Bible the first truly popular literature in England ... 53, 54 The English version of the Bible ... 54, 55 Secret of Henry VIII.'s swift success in his revolt against Rome ... 56 Effects of the persecution under Mary ... 57 Calvin's theology in its political bearings ... 58, 59 Elizabeth's policy and its effects ... 60, 61 Puritan sea-rovers ... 61 Geographical distribution of Puritanism in England; it was strongest in the eastern counties ... 62 Preponderance of East Anglia in the Puritan exodus ... 63 Familiar features of East Anglia to the visitor from New England ... 64 Puritanism was not intentionally allied with liberalism ... 65 Robert Brown and the Separatists ... 66 Persecution of the Separatists ... 67 Recantation of Brown; it was reserved for William Brewster to take the lead in the Puritan exodus ... 68 James Stuart, and his encounter with Andrew Melville ... 69 What James intended to do when he became King of England ... 70 His view of the political situation, as declared in the conference at Hampton Court ... 71 The congregation of Separatists at Scrooby ... 72 The flight to Holland, and settlement at Leyden in 1609 ... 73 Systematic legal toleration in Holland ... 74 Why the Pilgrims did not stay there; they wished to keep up their distinct organization and found a state ... 74 And to do this they must cross the ocean, because European territory was all preoccupied ... 75 The London and Plymouth companies ... 75 First explorations of the New England coast; Bartholomew Gosnold (1602), and George Weymouth (1605) ... 76 The Popham colony (1607) ... 77 Captain John Smith gives to New England its name (1614) ... 78 The Pilgrims at Leyden decide to make a settlement near the Delaware river ... 79 How King James regarded the enterprise ... 80 Voyage of the Mayflower; she goes astray and takes the Pilgrims to Cape Cod bay ... 81 Founding of the Plymouth colony (1620) ... 82, 83 Why the Indians did not molest the settlers ... 84, 85 The chief interest of this beginning of the Puritan exodus lies not so much in what it achieved as in what it suggested ... 86, 87 CHAPTER III. THE PLANTING OF NEW ENGLAND. Sir Ferdinando Gorges and the Council for New England ... 88, 89 Wessagusset and Merrymount ... 90, 91 The Dorchester adventurers ... 92 John White wishes to raise a bulwark against the Kingdom of Antichrist ... 93 And John Endicott undertakes the work of building it ... 94 Conflicting grants sow seeds of trouble; the Gorges and Mason claims ... 94, 95 Endicott's arrival in New England, and the founding of Salem ... 95 The Company of Massachusetts Bay; Francis Higginson takes a powerful reinforcement to Salem ... 96 The development of John White's enterprise into the Company of Massachusetts Bay coincided with the first four years of the reign of Charles I ... 97 Extraordinary scene in the House of Commons (June 5, 1628) ... 98, 99 The King turns Parliament out of doors (March 2, 1629) ... 100 Desperate nature of the crisis ... 100, 101 The meeting at Cambridge (Aug. 26, 1629), and decision to transfer the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company, and the government established under it, to New England ... 102 Leaders of the great migration; John Winthrop ... 102 And Thomas Dudley ... 103 Founding of Massachusetts; the schemes of Gorges overwhelmed ... 104 Beginnings of American constitutional history; the question as to self-government raised at Watertown ... 105 Representative system established ... 106 Bicameral assembly; story of the stray pig ... 107 Ecclesiastical polity; the triumph of Separatism ... 108 Restriction of the suffrage to members of the Puritan congregational churches ... 109 Founding of Harvard College ... 110 Threefold danger to the New England settlers in 1636:— 1. From the King, who prepares to attack the charter, but is foiled by dissensions at home ... 111-113 2. From religious dissensions; Roger Williams ... 114-116 Henry Vane and Anne Hutchinson ... 116-119 Beginnings of New Hampshire and Rhode Island ... 119-120 3. From the Indians; the Pequot supremacy ... 121 First movements into the Connecticut valley, and disputes with the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam ... 122, 123 Restriction of the suffrage leads to disaffection in Massachusetts; profoundly interesting opinions of Winthrop and Hooker ... 123, 124 Connecticut pioneers and their hardships ... 125 Thomas Hooker, and the founding of Connecticut ... 120 The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (Jan 14, 1639); the first written constitution that created a government ... 127 Relations of Connecticut to the genesis of the Federal Union ... 128 Origin of the Pequot War; Sassacus tries to unite the Indian tribes in a crusade against the English ... 129, 130 The schemes of Sassacus are foiled by Roger Williams ... 130 The Pequots take the war path alone ... 131 And are exterminated ... 132-134 John Davenport, and the founding of New Haven ... 135 New Haven legislation, and legend of the "Blue Laws" ... 136 With the meeting of the Long Parliament, in 1640, the Puritan exodus comes to its end ... 137 What might have been ... 138, 391 CHAPTER IV. — THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERACY. The Puritan exodus was purely and exclusively English ... 140 And the settlers were all thrifty and prosperous; chiefly country squires and yeomanry of the best and sturdiest type ... 141, 142 In all history there has been no other instance of colonization so exclusively effected by picked and chosen men ... 143 What, then, was the principle of selection? The migration was not intended to promote what we call religious liberty ... 144, 145 Theocratic ideal of the Puritans ... 146 The impulse which sought to realize itself in the Puritan ideal was an ethical impulse ... 147 In interpreting Scripture, the Puritan appealed to his Reason ... 148, 149 Value of such perpetual theological discussion as was carried on in early New England ... 150, 151 Comparison with the history of Scotland ... 152 Bearing of these considerations upon the history of the New England confederacy ... 153 The existence of so many colonies (Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Haven, Rhode Island, the Piscataqua towns, etc.) was due to differences of opinion on questions in which men's religious ideas were involved ... 154 And this multiplication of colonies led to a notable and significant attempt at confederation ... 155 Turbulence of dissent in Rhode Island ... 156 The Earl of Warwick, and his Board of Commissioners ... 157 Constitution of the Confederacy ... 158 It was only a league, not a federal union ... 159 Its formation involved a tacit assumption of sovereignty ... 160 The fall of Charles I. brought up, for a moment, the question as to the supremacy of Parliament over the colonies ... 161 Some interesting questions ... 162 Genesis of the persecuting spirit ... 163 Samuel Gorton and his opinions ... 163-165 He flees to Aquedneck and is banished thence ... 166 Providence protests against him ... 167 He flees to Shawomet, where he buys land of the Indians ... 168 Miantonomo and Uncas ... 169, 170 Death of Miantonomo ... 171 Edward Johnson leads an expedition against Shawomet ... 172 Trial and sentence of the heretics ... 173 Winthrop declares himself in a prophetic opinion ... 174 The Presbyterian cabal ... 175-177 The Cambridge Platform; deaths of Winthrop and Cotton ... 177 Views of Winthrop and Cotton as to toleration in matters of Religion ... 178 After their death, the leadership in Massachusetts was in the hands of Endicott and Norton ... 179 The Quakers; their opinions and behavior ... 179-181 Violent manifestations of dissent ... 182 Anne Austin and Mary Fisher; how they were received in Boston ... 183 The confederated colonies seek to expel the Quakers; noble attitude of Rhode Island ... 184 Roger Williams appeals to his friend, Oliver Cromwell ... 185 The "heavenly speech" of Sir Harry Vane ... 185 Laws passed against the Quakers ... 186 How the death penalty was regarded at that time in New England ... 187 Executions of Quakers on Boston Common ... 188, 189 Wenlock Christison's defiance and victory ... 189, 190 The "King's Missive" ... 191 Why Charles II. interfered to protect the Quakers ... 191 His hostile feeling toward the New England governments ... 192 The regicide judges, Goffe and Whalley ... 193, 194 New Haven annexed to Connecticut ... 194, 195 Abraham Pierson, and the founding of Newark ... 196 Breaking-down of the theocratic policy ... 197 Weakening of the Confederacy ... 198 CHAPTER V. — KING PHILIP'S WAR. Relations between the Puritan settlers and the Indians ... 199 Trade with the Indians ... 200 Missionary work; Thomas Mayhew ... 201 John Eliot and his translation of the Bible ... 202 His preaching to the Indians ... 203 His villages of Christian Indians ... 204 The Puritan's intention was to deal gently and honourably with the red men ... 205 Why Pennsylvania was so long unmolested by the Indians ... 205, 206 Difficulty of the situation in New England ... 207 It is hard for the savage and the civilized man to understand one another ... 208 How Eliot's designs must inevitably have been misinterpreted by the Indians ... 209 It is remarkable that peace should have been so long preserved ... 210 Deaths of Massasoit and his son Alexander ... 211 Very little is known about the nature of Philip's designs ... 212 The meeting at Taunton ... 213 Sausamon informs against Philip ... 213 And is murdered ... 214 Massacres at Swanzey and Dartmouth ... 214 Murder of Captain Hutchinson ... 215 Attack on Brookfield, which is relieved by Simon Willard ... 216 Fighting in the Connecticut valley; the mysterious stranger at Hadley ... 217, 218 Ambuscade at Bloody Brook ... 219 Popular excitement in Boston ... 220 The Narragansetts prepare to take the war-path ... 221 And Governor Winslow leads an army against them ... 222, 223 Storming of the great swamp fortress ... 224 Slaughter of the Indians ... 225 Effect of the blow ... 226 Growth of the humane sentiment in recent times, due to the fact that the horrors of war are seldom brought home to everybody's door ... 227, 228 Warfare with savages is likely to be truculent in character ... 229 Attack upon Lancaster ... 230 Mrs. Rowlandson's narrative ... 231-233 Virtual extermination of the Indians (February to August, 1676) ... 233, 234 Death of Canonchet ... 234 Philip pursued by Captain Church ... 235 Death of Philip ... 236 Indians sold into slavery ... 237 Conduct of the Christian Indians ... 238 War with the Tarratines ... 239 Frightful destruction of life and property ... 240 Henceforth the red man figures no more in the history of New England, except in frontier raids under French guidance ... 241 CHAPTER VI. THE TYRANNY OF ANDROS. Romantic features in the early history of New England ... 242 Captain Edward Johnson, of Woburn, and his book on "The Wonder-working Providence of Zion's Saviour in New England" ... 243,244 Acts of the Puritans often judged by an unreal and impossible standard ... 245 Spirit of the "Wonder-working Providence" ... 246 Merits and faults of the Puritan theocracy ... 247 Restriction of the suffrage to church members ... 248 It was a source of political discontent ... 249 Inquisitorial administration of justice ... 250 The "Half way Covenant" ... 251 Founding of the Old South church ... 252 Unfriendly relations between Charles II and Massachusetts ... 253 Complaints against Massachusetts ... 254 The Lords of Trade ... 255 Arrival of Edward Randolph in Boston ... 256 Joseph Dudley and the beginnings of Toryism in New England ... 257, 258 Charles II. erects the four Piscataqua towns into the royal province of New Hampshire ... 259 And quarrels with Massachusetts over the settlement of the Gorges claim to the Maine district ... 260 Simon Bradstreet and his verse-making wife ... 261 Massachusetts answers the king's peremptory message ... 262 Secret treaty between Charles II. and Louis XIV ... 263 Shameful proceedings in England ... 264 Massachusetts refuses to surrender her charter; and accordingly it is annulled by decree of chancery, June 21, 1684 ... 265 Effect of annulling the charter ... 266 Death of Charles II, accession of James II., and appointment of Sir Edmund Andros as viceroy over New England, with despotic powers ... 267 The charter oak ... 268 Episcopal services in Boston ... 268, 269 Founding of the King's Chapel ... 269 The tyranny ... 270 John Wise of Ipswich ... 271 Fall of James II ... 271 Insurrection in Boston, and overthrow of Andros ... 272 Effects of the Revolution of 1689 ... 273 Need for union among all the northern colonies ... 274 Plymouth, Maine, and Acadia annexed to Massachusetts ... 275 Which becomes a royal province ... 276 And is thus brought into political sympathy with Virginia ... 276 The seeds of the American Revolution were already sown, and the spirit of 1776 was foreshadowed in 1689 ... 277, 278

THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I. — THE ROMAN IDEA AND THE ENGLISH IDEA.

Table of Contents

It used to be the fashion of historians, looking superficially at the facts presented in chronicles and tables of dates, without analyzing and comparing vast groups of facts distributed through centuries, or even suspecting the need for such analysis and comparison, to assign the date 476 A.D. as the moment at which the Roman Empire came to an end. It was in that year that the soldier of fortune, Odovakar, commander of the Herulian mercenaries in Italy, sent the handsome boy Romulus, son of Orestes, better known as "little Augustus," from his imperial throne to the splendid villa of Lucullus near Naples, and gave him a yearly pension of $35,000 [6,000 solidi] to console him for the loss of a world. As 324 years elapsed before another emperor was crowned at Rome, and as the political headship of Europe after that happy restoration remained upon the German soil to which the events of the eighth century had shifted it, nothing could seem more natural than the habit which historians once had, of saying that the mighty career of Rome had ended, as it had begun, with a Romulus. Sometimes the date 476 was even set up as a great landmark dividing modern from ancient history. For those, however, who took such a view, it was impossible to see the events of the Middle Ages in their true relations to what went before and what came after. It was impossible to understand what went on in Italy in the sixth century, or to explain the position of that great Roman power which had its centre on the Bosphorus, which in the code of Justinian left us our grandest monument of Roman law, and which for a thousand years was the staunch bulwark of Europe against the successive aggressions of Persian, Saracen, and Turk. It was equally impossible to understand the rise of the Papal power, the all-important politics of the great Saxon and Swabian emperors, the relations of mediaeval England to the Continental powers, or the marvellously interesting growth of the modern European system of nationalities. [[Sidenote: When did the Roman Empire come to an end?]

Since the middle of the nineteenth century the study of history has undergone changes no less sweeping than those which have in the same time affected the study of the physical sciences. Vast groups of facts distributed through various ages and countries have been subjected to comparison and analysis, with the result that they have not only thrown fresh light upon one another, but have in many cases enabled us to recover historic points of view that had long been buried in oblivion. Such an instance was furnished about twenty-five years ago by Dr. Bryce's epoch-making work on the Holy Roman Empire. Since then historians still recognize the importance of the date 476 as that which left the Bishop of Rome the dominant personage in Italy, and marked the shifting of the political centre of gravity from the Palatine to the Lateran. This was one of those subtle changes which escape notice until after some of their effects have attracted attention. The most important effect, in this instance, realized after three centuries, was not the overthrow of Roman power in the West, but its indefinite extension and expansion. The men of 476 not only had no idea that they were entering upon a new era, but least of all did they dream that the Roman Empire had come to an end, or was ever likely to. Its cities might be pillaged, its provinces overrun, but the supreme imperial power itself was something without which the men of those days could not imagine the world as existing. It must have its divinely ordained representative in one place if not in another. If the throne in Italy was vacant, it was no more than had happened before; there was still a throne at Constantinople, and to its occupant Zeno the Roman Senate sent a message, saying that one emperor was enough for both ends of the earth, and begging him to confer upon the gallant Odovakar the title of patrician, and entrust the affairs of Italy to his care. So when Sicambrian Chlodwig set up his Merovingian kingdom in northern Gaul, he was glad to array himself in the robe of a Roman consul, and obtain from the eastern emperor a formal ratification of his rule.

[Transcriber's note: page missing in original.] still survives in political methods and habits of thought that will yet be long in dying out. With great political systems, as with typical forms of organic life, the processes of development and of extinction are exceedingly slow, and it is seldom that the stages can be sharply marked by dates. The processes which have gradually shifted the seat of empire until the prominent part played nineteen centuries ago by Rome and Alexandria, on opposite sides of the Mediterranean, has been at length assumed by London and New York, on opposite sides of the Atlantic, form a most interesting subject of study. But to understand them, one must do much more than merely catalogue the facts of political history; one must acquire a knowledge of the drifts and tendencies of human thought and feeling and action from the earliest ages to the times in which we live. In covering so wide a field we cannot of course expect to obtain anything like complete results. In order to make a statement simple enough to be generally intelligible, it is necessary to pass over many circumstances and many considerations that might in one way and another qualify what we have to say. Nevertheless it is quite possible for us to discern, in their bold general outlines, some historic truths of supreme importance. In contemplating the salient features of the change which has now for a long time been making the world more English and less Roman, we shall find not only intellectual pleasure and profit but practical guidance. For in order to understand this slow but mighty change, we must look a little into that process of nation-making which has been going on since prehistoric ages and is going on here among us to-day, and from the recorded experience of men in times long past we may gather lessons of infinite value for ourselves and for our children's children. As in all the achievements of mankind it is only after much weary experiment and many a heart-sickening failure that success is attained, so has it been especially with nation-making. Skill in the political art is the fruit of ages of intellectual and moral discipline; and just as picture-writing had to come before printing and canoes before steamboats, so the cruder political methods had to be tried and found wanting, amid the tears and groans of unnumbered generations, before methods less crude could be put into operation. In the historic survey upon which we are now to enter, we shall see that the Roman Empire represented a crude method of nation-making which began with a masterful career of triumph over earlier and cruder methods, but has now for several centuries been giving way before a more potent and satisfactory method. And just as the merest glance at the history of Europe shows us Germanic peoples wresting the supremacy from Rome, so in this deeper study we shall discover a grand and far-reaching Teutonic Idea of political life overthrowing and supplanting the Roman Idea. Our attention will be drawn toward England as the battle-ground and the seventeenth century as the critical moment of the struggle; we shall see in Puritanism the tremendous militant force that determined the issue; and when our perspective has thus become properly adjusted, we shall begin to realize for the first time how truly wonderful was the age that witnessed the Beginnings of New England. We have long had before our minds the colossal figure of Roman Julius as "the foremost man of all this world," but as the seventeenth century recedes into the past the figure of English Oliver begins to loom up as perhaps even more colossal. In order to see these world-events in their true perspective, and to make perfectly clear the manner in which we are to estimate them, we must go a long distance away from them. We must even go back, as nearly as may be, to the beginning of things. [[Sidenote: Gradual shifting of primacy from the men who spoke Latin, and their descendants, to the men who speak English]

If we look back for a moment to the primitive stages of society, we may picture to ourselves the surface of the earth sparsely and scantily covered with wandering tribes of savages, rude in morals and manners, narrow and monotonous in experience, sustaining life very much as lower animals sustain it, by gathering wild fruits or slaying wild game, and waging chronic warfare alike with powerful beasts and with rival tribes of men. [[Sidenote: Political history is the history of nation-making]

In the widest sense the subject of political history is the description of the processes by which, under favourable circumstances, innumerable such primitive tribes have become welded together into mighty nations, with elevated standards of morals and manners, with wide and varied experience, sustaining life and ministering to human happiness by elaborate arts and sciences, and putting a curb upon warfare by limiting its scope, diminishing its cruelty, and interrupting it by intervals of peace. The story, as laid before us in the records of three thousand years, is fascinating and absorbing in its human interest for those who content themselves with the study of its countless personal incidents, and neglect its profound philosophical lessons. But for those who study it in the scientific spirit, the human interest of its details becomes still more intensely fascinating and absorbing. Battles and coronations, poems and inventions, migrations and martyrdoms, acquire new meanings and awaken new emotions as we begin to discern their bearings upon the solemn work of ages that is slowly winning for humanity a richer and more perfect life. By such meditation upon men's thoughts and deeds is the understanding purified, till we become better able to comprehend our relations to the world and the duty that lies upon each of us to shape his conduct rightly.