ur long-forgotten graves at last;
Let us behold your faces, let us hear
The words ye uttered in those days of fear
Revisit your familiar haunts again,--
The scenes of triumph, and the scenes of pain
And leave the footprints of your bleeding feet
Once more upon the pavement of the street!

Nor let the Historian blame the Poet here,
If he perchance misdate the day or year,
And group events together, by his art,
That in the Chronicles lie far apart;
For as the double stars, though sundered far,
Seem to the naked eye a single star,
So facts of history, at a distance seen,
Into one common point of light convene.

"Why touch upon such themes?" perhaps some friend
May ask, incredulous; "and to what good end?
Why drag again into the light of day
The errors of an age long passed away?"
I answer: "For the lessons that they teach:
The tolerance of opinion and of speech.
Hope, Faith, and Charity remain,--these three;
And greatest of them all is Charity."

Let us remember, if these words be true,
That unto all men Charity is due;
Give what we ask; and pity, while we blame,
Lest we become copartners in the shame,
Lest we condemn, and yet ourselves partake,
And persecute the dead for conscience' sake.

Therefore it is the author seeks and strives
To represent the dead as in their lives,
And lets at times his characters unfold
Their thoughts in their own language, strong and bold;
He only asks of you to do the like;
To hear hint first, and, if you will, then strike.

ACT I.

SCENE I. -- Sunday afternoon. The interior of the Meeting-house.

On the pulpit, an hour-glass; below, a box for contributions.
JOHN NORTON in the pulpit. GOVERNOR ENDICOTT in a canopied seat,
attended by four halberdiers. The congregation singing.

The Lord descended from above,
And bowed the heavens high;
And underneath his feet He cast
The darkness of the sky.

On Cherubim and Seraphim
Right royally He rode,
And on the wings of mighty winds
Came flying all abroad.

NORTON (rising and turning the hourglass on the pulpit).
I heard a great voice from the temple saying
Unto the Seven Angels, Go your ways;
Pour out the vials of the wrath of God
Upon the earth. And the First Angel went
And poured his vial on the earth; and straight
There fell a noisome and a grievous sore
On them which had the birth-mark of the Beast,
And them which worshipped and adored his image.
On us hath fallen this grievous pestilence.