_History
of the Early and Later Puritans_. But his sense of Christian justice,
tolerance, and humanity revolted at the New England Puritans'
intolerance to each other, and their cruel treatment of the Indians. Mr.
Marsden says:

"The New England Puritans were revered beyond the Atlantic as the
Pilgrim Fathers, the founders of great cities, and of States renowned
through the wide world for wealth, intelligence, and liberty. Their
memory is cherished in England with feelings of silent respect rather
than of unmixed admiration; for their inconsistencies were almost equal
to their virtues; and here, while we respect their integrity, we are not
blinded to their faults. A persecuted band themselves, they soon learned
to persecute each other. The disciples of liberty, they confined its
blessings to themselves. The loud champions of the freedom of
conscience, they allowed no freedom which interfered with their narrow
views. Professing a mission of Gospel holiness, they fulfilled it but in
part. When opposed, they were revengeful; when irritated, fanatical and
cruel. In them a great experiment was to be tried, under conditions the
most favourable to its success; and it failed in its most important
point. The question to be solved was this: How would the Puritans, the
hunted, persecuted Puritans behave, were they but once free, once at
liberty to carry their principles into full effect? The answer was
returned from the shores of another world. It was distinct and
unequivocal. And it was this: they were prepared to copy the worst vices
of their English persecutors, and, untaught by experience, to imitate
their worst mistakes. The severities of Whitgift seemed to be justified
when it was made apparent on the plains of North America, that they had
been inflicted upon men who wanted only the opportunity to inflict them
again, and inflict them on one another." (Marsden's History of the Early
Puritans, Chap, xi., pp. 305, 306.)

After referring to early conflicts between the Puritans and Indians, Mr.
Marsden remarks as follows in regard to the manner in which the Puritans
destroyed the Pequod nation:

"If there be a justifiable cause of war, it surely must be this, when
our territory is invaded and our means of existence threatened. That the
Indians fell upon their enemies by the most nefarious stratagems, or
exposed them, when taken in war, to cruel torments (though such ferocity
is not alleged in this instance), does not much affe