Living alike, thinking alike,
feeling alike, placing under solemn ban all speculations in religion,
and even all research into the deeper mysteries of natural science,
grinding with iron heel the very germ of intellectual progress, in their
blind presumption they would have closed the doors of heaven itself upon
all mankind save the called and elected of the Puritan faith. This
intellectual life was one of mere abstractions, and as a natural
consequence all their thoughts and emotions, their joys and sorrows,
their loves and hatreds, became morbid to the last degree. But the bent
bow will seek release; the reaction came at last, and the astonishing
mental progress of the New England of to-day, the wild speculation upon
all questions of morals and religion, rivalling in their daring scope
the most impious theories of the German metaphysicians, which our New
England fosters and sustains, and above all, the proverbial trickery of
the Yankee race, are but the reaction of the stern and gloomy tenets of
that olden time which would have made of our earth a charnel house
crowded with mouldering bones.
In the midst of this intensely morbid Puritan life, no more eligible
object could have been presented for the exercise of their bitterest
antipathies than the descendants of their ancient enemies, the
Cavaliers,--who were already rivalling them in the South, and who, as we
have shown, were equally ready to cast or lift the gauntlet.
Pages:
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282