ll
as by the influence of certain families prominent in affairs for
generations. Yet there were no distinct class-lines, and popular power,
like popular education, was widely diffused. Practically Massachusetts
was almost independent of the mother-country. Its people were purely
English, of sound yeoman stock, with an abundant leaven drawn from the
best of the Puritan gentry; but their original character had been
somewhat modified by changed conditions of life. A harsh and exacting
creed, with its stiff formalism and its prohibition of wholesome
recreation; excess in the pursuit of gain--the only resource left to
energies robbed of their natural play; the struggle for existence on a
hard and barren soil; and the isolation of a narrow village
life,--joined to produce, in the meaner sort, qualities which were
unpleasant, and sometimes repulsive. Puritanism was not an unmixed
blessing. Its view of human nature was dark, and its attitude towards it
one of repression. It strove to crush out not only what is evil, but
much that is innocent and salutary. Human nature so treated will take
its revenge, and for every vice that it loses find another instead.
Nevertheless, while New England Puritanism bore its peculiar crop of
faults, it produced also many good and sound fruits. An uncommon vigor,
joined to the hardy virtues of a masculine race, marked the New England
type. The sinews, it is true, were hardened at the expense of blood and
flesh,--and this literally as well as figuratively; but the staple of
character was a sturdy conscientiousness, an undespairing courage,
patriotism, public spirit, sagacity, and a strong good sense. A great
change, both for better and for worse, has since come over it, due
largely to reaction against the unnatural rigors of the past. That
mixture, which is now too common, of cool emotions with excitable
brains, was then rarely seen. The New England colonies abounded in high
examples of public and private virtue, though not always under the most
prepossessing forms. They were conspicuous, moreover, for intellectual
activity, and were by no means without intellectual eminence.
Massachusetts had produced at least two men whose fame had crossed the
sea,--Edwards, who out of the grim theology of Calvin mounted to sublime
heights of mystical speculation; and Franklin, famous already by his
discoveries in electricity. On the other hand, there were few genuine
New Englanders who, however personally modest,