by allowing the escape of the
explosive advocates of "Innovation."[63:3]

Cotton Mather is perhaps not a typical representative of the
conservative sentiment at the close of the seventeenth century, but his
writings may partly reflect the attitude of Boston Bay toward New
England's first Western frontier. Writing in 1694 of "Wonderful Passages
which have Occurred, First in the Protections and then in the
Afflictions of New England," he says:

One while the Enclosing of _Commons_ hath made Neighbours,
that should have been like Sheep, to _Bite and devour one
another_. . . . Again, Do our _Old_ People, any of them _Go
Out_ from the Institutions of God, Swarming into New
Settlements, where they and their Untaught Families are like
to _Perish for Lack of Vision_? They that have done so,
heretofore, have to their Cost found, that they were got unto
the _Wrong side of the Hedge_, in their doing so. Think, here
_Should this be done any more?_ We read of Balaam, in Num. 22,
23. He was to his Damage, _driven to the_ Wall, when he would
needs make an unlawful Salley forth after the _Gain_ of this
World. . . . Why, when men, for the Sake of Earthly Gain,
would be _going out_ into the _Warm_ Sun, they drive _Through
the Wall_, and the _Angel of the Lord_ becomes their Enemy.

In his essay on "Frontiers Well-Defended" (1707) Mather assures the
pioneers that they "dwell in a Hatsarmaneth," a place of "tawney
serpents," are "inhabitants of the Valley of Achor," and are "the Poor
of this World." There may be significance in his assertion: "It is
remarkable to see that when the Unchurched Villages, have been so many
of them, _utterly broken up_, in the _War_, that has been upon us, those
that have had _Churches_ regularly formed in them, have generally been
under a more _sensible Protection_ of Heaven." "Sirs," he says, "a
_Church-State_ well form'd may fortify you wonderfully!" He recommends
abstention from profane swearing, furious cursing, Sabbath breaking,
unchastity, dishonesty, robbing of God by defrauding the ministers of
their dues, drunkenness, and revels and he reminds them that even the
Indians have family prayers! Like his successors who solicited
missionary contributions for the salvation of the frontier in the
Mississippi Valley during the forties of the nineteenth century, this
early spokesman for New England laid stress upon teaching anti-popery,
p