the custom of their fathers and
nation.

It is the fashion of several American historians, as well as their
echoes in England, to employ epithets of contumely in regard to those
men, the Browns--both of them men of wealth--the one a lawyer and the
other a private gentleman--both of them much superior to Endicot himself
in social position in England--both of them among the original patentees
and first founders of the colony--both of them Church reformers, but
neither of them a Church revolutionist. It is not worthy of Dr. Palfrey
and Mr. Bancroft to employ the words "faction" and "factionists" to the
protests of John and Samuel Brown.[34]

What is stated by Dr. Palfrey and Mr. Bancroft more than refutes and
condemns the opprobrious epithets they apply to the Browns. On pages 29
and 30 I have given, in the words of Mr. Hutchinson, the account of the
formation of the new Church, and the expulsion of the Browns for their
refusal to conform to it. Dr. Palfrey states the transaction between
Endicot and the Browns in the following words:

"The transaction which determined the religious constitution of New
England gave offence to two of the Councillors, John and Samuel Brown.
Considering the late proceedings, _as well they might do_, to amount to
a _secession from the national Establishment_, they, with some others of
the same mind, set up a separate worship, conducted according to the
Book of Common Prayer. Endicot and his friends were in no mood to
tolerate this schism. The brothers, brought before the Governor, said
that the ministers 'were Separatists, and would be Anabaptists.' The
ministers replied that 'they came away from the Common Prayer and
ceremonies, and had suffered much for their nonconformity in their
native land, and therefore, being placed where they might have their
liberty, they neither could nor would use them, because they judged the
imposition of these things to be sinful corruptions of God's worship.'
There was no composing such strife, and 'therefore, finding these two
brothers to be of high spirits, and their speeches and practice tending
to mutiny and faction, the Governor told them that New England was no
place for such as they, and therefore he sent them both back for England
at the return of the ships the same year.'"[35]

Mr. Bancroft says: "The Church was self-constituted. It did not ask the
assent of the King or recognize him as its head; its officers were set
apart and ordained among themse