rivate letters. It was not a time in which
mythical personages or incredible legends could flourish, and such
things we do find in the history of New England. There was nevertheless
a romantic side to this history, enough to envelop some of its
characters and incidents in a glamour that may mislead the modern
reader. This wholesale migration from the smiling fields of merry
England to an unexplored wilderness beyond a thousand leagues of sea was
of itself a most romantic and thrilling event, and when viewed in the
light of its historic results it becomes clothed with sublimity. The men
who undertook this work were not at all free from self-consciousness.
They believed that they were doing a wonderful thing. They felt
themselves to be instruments in accomplishing a kind of "manifest
destiny." Their exodus was that of a chosen people who were at length
to lay the everlasting foundations of God's kingdom upon earth. Such
opinions, which took a strong colour from their assiduous study of the
Old Testament, reacted and disposed them all the more to search its
pages for illustrations and precedents, and to regard it as an oracle,
almost as a talisman. In every propitious event they saw a special
providence, an act of divine intervention to deliver them from the
snares of an ever watchful Satan. This steadfast faith in an unseen
ruler and guide was to them a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by
night. It was of great moral value. It gave them clearness of purpose
and concentration of strength, and contributed toward making them,
like the children of Israel, a people of indestructible vitality and
aggressive energy. At the same time, in the hands of the Puritan
writers, this feeling was apt to warp their estimates of events and
throw such a romantic haze about things as seriously to interfere with a
true historical perspective. [Sidenote: Romantic features in the early
history of New England]

Among such writings that which perhaps best epitomizes the Puritan
philosophy is "The Wonder-working Providence of Zion's Saviour in New
England," by Captain Edward Johnson, one of the principal founders of
Woburn. It is an extremely valuable history of New England from 1628 to
1651, and every page is alive with the virile energy of that stirring
time. With narrative, argument, and apologue, abounding in honesty
of purpose, sublimity of trust, and grotesqueness of fancy, wherein
touching tenderness is often alternated with sternness most