ent, and with marvellous energy and self-sacrifice, were
extending their influence among the natives. No boundaries can be
placed to the visions of the enthusiastic religionist. His strength is
the strength of God. No wonder, then, that the Roman Catholic priest
should cherish hopes of rescuing the entire new world from heresy,
which he considered worse than heathenism, and should enlist all his
energies in so grand a cause. It is almost certain that extensive
plans were formed for the accomplishment of this object.

Such were the elements which the seething caldron of the old world
threw out upon the new. A part only of the materials furnished by
these elements have I used in framing this tale. It is an attempt to
elucidate the manners and credence of quite an early period, and to
explain with the license accorded to a romancer, some passages in
American history.

Thus much have I thought proper to premise. It is impossible to judge
correctly of the men of any age, without taking into consideration the
circumstances in which they were placed, and the opinions that
prevailed in their time. To apply the standard of this year of grace,
1856, to the religious enlightenment of more than two hundred years
ago, would be like measuring one of Gulliver's Lilliputians by
Gulliver himself. I trust that the world has since improved, and that
of whatever passing follies we may be guilty, we shall never
retrograde to the old narrow views of truth. If mankind are capable of
being taught any lesson, surely this is one--that persecution or
dislike for opinion sake is a folly and an evil, and that we best
perform the will of Him to whom we are commanded to be like, not by
contracting our affections into the narrow sphere of those whose
opinions harmonize with ours, but by diffusing our love over His
creation who pronounced it all "very good."

THE KNIGHT OF THE GOLDEN MELICE.

CHAPTER I.

Come on, Sir! now you set your foot on shore,
_In novo orbe_.

BEN JONSON'S _Alchemist_.

Our tale begins within a few years after the end of the first quarter
of the 17th century, at Boston, in Massachusetts, then in the infancy
of its settlement.

On an evening in the month of May, were assembled some seven or eight
men around a table, in a long, low room, the sides only of which were
plastered, the rough beams and joists overhead being exposed to view;
the windows were small, and the floor without a carpet; and the
fu