IV. Theological Writers

From the many writers who reflect the dominant religious interest of Colonial life we select only Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards. These were giants in their own generation, and they are still, in widely different ways, the two most remarkable men in the whole history of our literature.

For the next half century Mather's "fruitfulness" almost passes the bounds of belief. In an average year he would produce a score of books and pamphlets; write and deliver some two hundred sermons and lectures; keep up an enormous correspondence with great men in foreign countries; be incessantly active in politics, and attend faithfully to the thousand small duties of a large parish. He was a leader in all philanthropic work, in temperance reform, in forming the earliest Young People's Society of Christian Workers, in ransoming prisoners from Canada, in establishing schools for the education of negroes, in sending missionaries to the heathen. And with all this, he gave many hours each day to private devotion; he studied and read prodigiously; he kept innumerable fasts, vigils and thanksgivings. One can only wonder how human nerves could stand such a strain for fifty years, and repeat with that heroic Jesuit, Bressani, who survived all manner of tortures among the Iroquois, "I could never have believed it was so hard to kill a man."

As we study Mather in the midst of his excellent activities, our feelings shift from one extreme to the other; for we are dealing with a man of contradictions, who fasts in secret like an ancient saint, and plays to the gallery like a modern politician. His course at the witchcraft trials was bitterly scored by his enemies, and critics ever since have cried fanaticism, as if it were the only part he played in the tragedy. Yet he was probably the only man in the country, or in the world, who made a scientific study of the alleged witches, taking some of the poor creatures to his own home, watching over them, recording their symptoms. And by strengthening their weak wills, by keeping them in a cheerful, hopeful atmosphere, he effectually cured some that else had been surely hanged. Moreover, in connection with twelve other ministers, he urged the judges to exercise compassion, and submitted rules of evidence, which if followed would have saved every witch from death. From one point of view he is a mere wonder-hunter, as credulous as a Hottentot; from another he is a scientist, upholding some theory far in advance of his age, or laying the foundations for what is now known as organized charity. So, though he loved applause as a miser loves gold, he flung popularity to the dogs when he urged inoculation against the regular scourge of smallpox; and this at a time when magistrates, people and almost every doctor in the Colonies were crying out against inoculation as the work of the devil.

In his inner life, also, Mather is still a puzzle. He is ascetic, spending whole days and nights fasting in his study, "knocking at the door of Heaven." There, he tells us, he is "irradiated with celestial and angelic influences, . . . rewarded from Heaven with communications that cannot be uttered." Yet he is as fond as another man of the good things of life, and commends this saying of Alphonsus: "Among so many things as are by men possessed or pursued, all the rest are bubbles beside these: old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to converse with, and old books to read." Like Macaulay, he loves society, is cheerful and animated in public, attracting attention, charming everybody by his brilliant conversation. Yet he is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. The churches grow liberal, ignoring all his efforts to bind them; he fights a losing battle alone; he is thwarted in his dearest ambition, to become president of Harvard; his third wife is a terrible trial; his children die one by one; his dearest son Increase, the pride and joy of Cotton Mather's heart, is a reprobate. And this is the deepest sorrow, save one, that a man is ever called upon to bear. A cry as of mortal anguish breaks from his lips:

"Ah, my son Increase! My son, my son! My heart is water and my eyes are a fountain of tears. . . . Oh, my God, I am oppressed; undertake for me."

Here, one would think, is a winepress that Mather must tread alone. Next day he is out with a published sermon, parading in public the grief which another man hides deep in his soul, though it burn like coals of fire.

So, wherever we attempt to touch the real Cotton Mather, we are met and baffled by a contradiction, a jumble of piety and vanity, of wisdom and foolishness. One cannot judge such a man. We record simply that his last word was a paradox, like himself; that on his deathbed he cried out, "My last enemy is come; I would say, my best friend." A few hours later his contemporaries were saying that "the principal ornament of this country and the greatest scholar that ever was bred in it" had passed away.

1 From Whittier, "Double-Headed Snake of Newbury."

We shall not weary the reader with even a list of the books that flowed from the pen of this ready writer. One of the most practical is Bonifacius  (1710), sometimes called Essays to Do Good , which influenced the life of Franklin. Other significant works are Parentator , a biography of his father, written in pedantic style, but illumined by a lovely filial spirit; Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcraft , which established Mather's reputation as an authority in the uncanny subject, and Wonders of the Invisible World , consisting largely of the history of the Salem witches.

That this last work should be often reprinted and become the measure of Mather's mind seems to us little less than scandalous. For it is one of the least of his productions, and it has given readers a sadly distorted idea of Colonial life. Even our historians, misled by this work, still refer to witchcraft as a Puritan delusion which flourished chiefly in New England. As a matter of fact, witchcraft flourished for ages before the Puritans were heard of; and our Colonists were the first people in all the world to recognize the delusion, and to treat it as they treated wolves and rattlesnakes. When America was settled, belief in witchcraft was so general in Europe that no man dared openly deny it; witches were racked, burned and tortured by thousands; and the detection of witchcraft, with its following "kill or cure," was a regular profession. Yet it was denounced and opposed in New England from the beginning. Like many another noxious germ, witchcraft was brought over and widely planted in America, where the dark forests, the screaming of unknown beasts at night, the hideously painted savages,—everything external favored the increase of the superstition. And it speaks volumes for the character of our first settlers that this horrible fungus, which flourished all over civilized Europe, found root here in only one spot,—a soil made ready by numerous descendants of some feeble-minded immigrants, who were brought here for the profit of the early transportation companies. There it grew weakly for a brief period, and was then rooted out and destroyed. Here, in a nutshell, is the real meaning of the Salem witchcraft.

Book I. Antiquities . It reports the design whereon, the manner wherein, and the people whereby the several colonies of New England were planted.

Book II. Ecclesiarum Clypei . It contains the lives of the governors and magistrates that have been shields unto the churches.

Book III. Polybius . It contains the lives of many divines by whose ministry the churches have been illuminated.

Book IV. Sal Gentium . It contains an account of the New-English University [Harvard] and the lives of some eminent persons therein educated.

Book V. Synodicum Americanum , Acts and Monuments. It contains the faith and order in the churches.

Book VI. Thaumaturgus . It contains many illustrious discoveries and demonstrations of Divine Providence in remarkable mercies and judgments.

Book VII. Ecclesiarum Prœlia , or A Book of the Wars of the Lord. It contains the afflictive disturbances which the churches of New England have suffered from their various adversaries.

One who reviews these books—for few ever read the Magnalia  systematically—gets the impression that he is wandering through a museum. Here are odds and ends gleaned from all the fields of human knowledge; quotations from a thousand works; allusions to a hundred unknown authors; mottoes, puns, witticisms, biography, poetry, moral lessons from Latin, Greek and Hebrew worthies. In a single paragraph, relating to some local event, Mather introduces a story from Suidas, a quotation from Gregory Nazianzen, and a motto from Rabbi Kimchi. In a single book we have taled nearly a thousand good mottoes, anecdotes and quotations. While this literary shower falls upon us, Mather talks incessantly, like a guide in a picture gallery. He has a marvelously stored memory, an elfish imagination, and he loves the queer, the fantastic, the unexpected. Every subject he touches is like a famous nursery pie; no sooner does he open it than out come four-and-twenty blackbirds and straight begin to sing.

This is the first impression, from the first book of the Magnalia ,—the impression of a pedant displaying his extraordinary knowledge; and the majority of historians end here, more's the pity. For this big book, with all its hotchpotch, is illumined by a great purpose. The monks of the Middle Ages had a motto, Ad majorem gloriam dei , which explains their own literary work and the loving care with which they illumined a missal or a manuscript of the Gospels. Mather, who feared and misjudged these monks, worked in the same spirit and added a significant word to their noble motto. "For the love of my country and the greater glory of God" is written across the greater part of the Magnalia . So let us read the second book, giving the history of our early magistrates.

Here one may find that Cotton Mather has the root of the matter in him, and anticipates Carlyle in writing history. According to Carlyle, history is essentially the story of great men who have inspired every historical movement. That is Mather's idea precisely, and he writes in the same spirit. If we seek for his motive in the enormous labor of preparing these biographies, we shall find it noble and patriotic. "Their souls are in Heaven; their names also should be written there," he says of his heroes with rare simplicity. And again:

"I please myself with the hope that there will yet be found among the sons of New England those young gentlemen by whom the copies given in this history shall be written again, and that saying of old Chaucer be remembered: 'To do the gentle deeds,—that makes the gentleman.' "

Such is the real purpose of the Magnalia , to cherish the memory of heroic Americans, and to inspire their descendants to noble living in the service of the Fatherland. Here in the last word, moreover, is an entirely new ideal in our literature. Hitherto America has been only the Homeland, and its symbol is the hearth fire, which inspires hope; now it is the Fatherland, and its symbol is the grave, which inspires loyalty. The first Colonists regarded England as their country. They had no love for America till they laid their heroes to rest in its soil; and even now, when we visit Jamestown or Plymouth, it is Burial Hill, not the monument or museum, that stirs our deepest emotion. Among primitive people the tomb was everywhere the symbol of patriotism, and the deepest humiliation of the Indians, or of any other race with a spark of nobility, was to be driven from the graves of their ancestors. Cotton Mather was the first to recognize this universal truth, and from the graves and the heroism of the fathers to appeal to the loyalty of the sons and daughters. His purpose is written large in the second and third books of the Magnalia . They are our first books of heroes, our first appeal to American patriotism, and with them every student of our history and literature should be familiar.

After the fourth book Mather turns aside from biography, and the design of his history is lost in a maze of insignificant details. In one book he becomes a theologian; in another he follows the endless trail of the Indian wars; in a third he is a mere wonder-hunter, recording miraculous escapes, infamous crimes and the friskiness of witches:

"In the year 1679 the house of William Morse, at Newberry, was infested with daemons after a most horrid manner, not altogether unlike the daemons of Tedworth. Bricks and sticks and stones were often by some invisible hand thrown at the house: a cat was thrown at the woman, and a long staff danc'd up and down in the chimney; and when two persons laid it on the fire to burn it, 't was as much as they were able with their joint strength to hold it there.

"While the man was writing, his inkhorn was by the invisible hand snatch'd from him; and being able no where to find it, he saw it at length drop out of the air down by the fire. A shooe was laid upon his shoulder; but when he would have catch'd it, it was rapt from him; it was then clapt upon his head, and there he held it so fast, that the unseen fury pull'd him with it backward on the floor. When he was writing another time, a dish went and leapt into a pail, and cast water on the man, and on all the concerns before him. His cap jump'd off his head, and on again; and the pot lid went off the pot into the kettle, then over the fire together.

"Once the fist, beating the man, was discernible; but they could not catch hold of it. At length an apparition of a Blackamoor child shew'd itself plainly to them. And another time a drumming on the boards was heard, which was follow'd with a voice that sang, Revenge! revenge! sweet is revenge!  At this the people, being terrify'd, call'd upon God, whereupon there follow'd a mournful note, several times uttering these expressions: Alas! alas! we knock no more, we knock no more!  and there was an end of all."

One who likes such grotesque stuff may find plenty of it in Mather; but to judge the Magnalia  by it, as is commonly done, is to estimate a medieval cathedral by its imps and gargoyles. So let us skip the witches and join the company of heroes:

Here are Bradford and Winthrop, whose lives are all gentleness and service. Here is Phips, the son of a Maine blacksmith, but a prince among men, whose life furnishes adventure enough for a dozen Treasure Islands . Here is Eliot, that gentle, charitable, heroic soul, of whom it was said, "The Colonies could not perish so long as Eliot was alive." He is the scholarly minister of the church at Roxbury, but he is first of all a teacher. He founds and endows a free school on the principle that "a country cannot fail whose children are educated." As if preaching and teaching were not enough, he goes out as a missionary among the Indians; lives and suffers with them, until he recognizes the real man under the grease and war-paint; and the savages love and trust him, as they never trusted a white man before or since. He learns their speech, translates the Scriptures into their language, gives them their first literature, gathers them into schools and churches, and sends the keenest of them to Harvard. He grows too old for such active work; but having, as he says, served the Lord eighty years and found him a good Master, he must still do Him service. So he gathers some negro slaves together, in the intervals of their labor, and goes once a week to teach them to read. At last he is too feeble for even this effort; he can no longer walk abroad; but still he must serve God and man. So he sends for a poor blind boy to come to his study, and his last, love-inspired service is to lead a child out of darkness into the shining world of literature.

Aside from the questions of style or literary value, these old biographies wonderfully enlarge our horizon, giving us wider views of the men who founded our nation.

Thus, we have been misled to think that Colonial magistrates and clergy had too much power, and were meddlesome and intolerant. The fact is that their power, which was wholly democratic, lay in their superior education, for which they were greatly honored and trusted. As we meet them in Mather's pages, we find them gentle, tolerant, kindly, busy with serving humanity, leaders in the struggle for free government, but making every sacrifice to avoid religious controversy. "Oh, mildness and cheerfulness, with reverence, how sweet a companion art thou!" cries John Rogers, whose Form for a Minister's Life  reflects the strong faith in God and loyal service to man which characterized the Colonial clergy.

Again, if we have thought of the Puritans as stern, hard, unlovely men, we are surprised to find that they regarded charity as the first of all virtues. A hundred examples might be quoted; but we have room for only one, showing a new side to a solemn old Puritan governor:

" 'T was his custom also to send some of his family upon errands unto the houses of the poor, about their meal time, on purpose to spy whether they wanted; and if 't were found that they wanted, he would make that the opportunity of sending supplies unto them. And there was one passage of his charity that was perhaps a little unusual: In an hard and long winter, when wood was very scarce at Boston, a man gave him private information that a needy person in the neighborhood stole wood sometimes from his pile; whereupon the Governor in a seeming anger did reply, "Does he so? I'll take a course with him; go, call that man to me; I'll warrant you I'll cure him of stealing." When the man came, the Governor considering that, if he had stolen, it was more out of necessity than disposition, said unto him, "Friend, it is a severe winter, and I doubt you are but meanly provided for wood; wherefore I would have you supply yourself at my wood-pile till this cold season be over." And then he merrily asked his friends, Whether he had not effectually cured this man of stealing his wood?"

The old unchanging comedy or tragedy of human life is often reflected in Mather's pages. We find the good and the bad, the wise and the foolish, the minister who gave his only coat to a man poorer than himself, and the charlatan, who "bubbled the silly neighbors out of their money." We read of John Wilson that "his low opinion of himself was the top of all his other excellencies"; of Samuel Stone that he defined the Colonial church as "a speaking aristocracy in the midst of a silent democracy"; and of Eliot that he went into a store one day, found the merchant busy with a huge pile of account books, and noticed over his head a Bible and a few other works of devotion: "Sir," says Eliot, "here is earth on the table, and Heaven all on the shelf." Such records, even in their fantastic setting, suggest two things: that the hearts of the old Puritans were like our own hearts, and that the author of the Magnalia  had a very human side to his strange nature. It is the humanity of Cotton Mather, rather than his pedantry, that we have tried to reflect in this study of his life and writings.

Those who read and understand Edwards point out his spiritual resemblance to Dante, greatest of Italian poets; but few find in him any suggestion of America's most famous practical philosopher. At first glance no two men could be more unlike than the worldly-wise Franklin and the childlike Edwards, who was so absorbed in thought that he could never tell whether he was driving his own or his neighbor's cow from the common pasture. The resemblance lay in this, as a modern critic has suggested, that to each the world was intensely real, and each aimed to conquer the world by knowing it. Franklin occupied himself with the outer world of sensible things; while Edwards undertook the greater task of exploring the invisible world of thought and ideas.

Edwards was certainly an unusual boy. At nine we find him writing on "The Substance of the Soul," and at eleven a wonderfully interesting paper on the habits of spiders. The handwriting of these papers is that of a child; but the deep thought and the clear, logical expression suggest a man, and a very unusual man, full-grown.

As one reads the notebooks of his Yale college period, from his twelfth to his sixteenth year, it is hard to believe that they were written by a mere boy. Though naturally a philosopher, an explorer in the world of thought, he was not the kind to build a castle in the air without first putting a foundation under it; hence his remarkable scientific investigations, which show plainly that he was far in advance of his age. He anticipated Franklin's discovery of electricity, showed that some of the fixed stars are suns like our own, suggested a theory of atoms very much like that now accepted by chemists, and made endless observations and experiments with a view of preparing a reliable textbook on the physical sciences. In all his works, whether exploring the visible or the invisible world, Edwards sought two things: first, to know the fact, and then to find the law which expressed itself in the fact. And in all her history America has never produced a man more governed by the spirit of truth.

Toward the end of his college course Edwards evidently went through a tremendous spiritual struggle, such as awaited Puritan youths in those days before entering the visible church. The result is best expressed in his own words, which might well be those of St. Francis:

"After this my sense of divine things gradually increased, and became more and more lively, and had more of that inward sweetness. The appearance of everything was altered; there seemed to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast or appearance of divine glory in almost every thing. God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in every thing; in the sun and moon and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, trees; in the water, and all nature; which used greatly to fix my mind. I often used to sit and view the moon for continuance; and in the day spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things; in the mean time singing forth, with a low voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer."

After graduation the boy spent four more years at Yale, preparing for the ministry and tutoring undergraduates. All the while he kept himself in the strictest mental and spiritual discipline, seeking knowledge like a Faustus and holiness like a monk; and at twenty-three he was ordained minister to the church at Northampton. The discipline of the period was lightened by his love for Sarah Pierpont—a curious romance, made up of theology, mysticism and tender human emotion:

"They say there is a young lady [in New Haven] who is beloved of that great Being who made and rules the world; and that there are certain seasons in which this great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight, and that she hardly cares for anything except to meditate on Him. . . . She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections; is most just and conscientious in all her conduct; and you could not persuade her to do anything wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the world, lest she should offend this great Being. She is of wonderful calmness and universal benevolence, especially after this great God has manifested Himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about from place to place singing sweetly; and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure, and no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some one invisible always conversing with her."

Here is a companion after Edwards's own mystic heart, and with his belief in Determinism, she must be reserved for him from the foundation of the world. So presently he goes down to New Haven and marries her. Never did a stern theological doctrine find more lovely illustration. She was a rare woman, helpful and sympathetic, with a strong practical sense to balance her mysticism and keep her household in order, while her husband explored the deeps of human experience. Long afterwards, as he lay dying at Princeton, Edwards's last thought was for her, and he sent her this whispered message: "Tell her that the union which has so long subsisted between us is spiritual, and therefore will continue forever."

We pass over his long ministry in Northampton, noting only two suggestive things. First, his preaching, with its vivid imagery and overwhelming sincerity, made a tremendous impression. As a result, the Great Awakening, that soul-searching religious revival which swept over the Colonies in 1740, began in Northampton, and was only intensified when the English evangelist Whitefield visited this country. Second, the literary works of this period, such as his Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Works of God  (1736) and his Treatise concerning the Religious Affections  (1746), are utterly different from those of the marvel-loving Mather. They are profound mental studies, strikingly like our modern psychological treatises, only better written and more interesting. So far as we know, Edwards was the first to attempt to explain certain universal religious experiences by a scientific study of the mind itself.

In 1750 Edwards left Northampton and went to Stockbridge, as missionary to the Indians and pastor to a handful of white people on the edge of the wilderness. Here, amid the privations of frontier life, he labored heroically seven years, finding leisure meanwhile to write the work by which he is now remembered. His Freedom of the Will  (1754) made a sensation among scholars, and was the first American book to influence profoundly the thought of the whole world. The fame of this book led to his call to be president of Princeton College; but he had hardly begun his work there when he died (1758), one of the first martyrs to the cause of inoculation.

We have given but a small outline of a great life, and those who know Edwards will complain that we have done scant justice to his greatness and his heroism. But one must learn to know this man, as one knows a friend, slowly, from year to year. Even then he often surprises us by a dainty bit of fancy which suggests a poet's soul, or by a gentle mysticism which tells us that this intellectual giant had the heart of a little child. Dealing with such a life, we need hardly mention that he was poor, and that he accepted poverty cheerfully, well content with the inner wealth that was his. Also he suffered and sorrowed much; but he made no struggle, letting the great soul within him manifest its superiority to all outward affliction. In an age of intense theological discussion he could not escape being drawn into controversy; but, like Cardinal Newman in similar circumstances, he was too great to feel bitterness, and kept that serenity of spirit, that "inward sweet delight in God," of which he had written in earlier years. Touch Edwards where you will, and instantly you feel the influence of a master mind, illuminated by a light which suggests that of the heavenly city. "Second to no mortal man" was the judgment of his contemporaries, when the news of his death passed like a cloud shadow over the Colonies.

To illustrate the matter simply: if a score of lines are drawn from a common center, like the spokes of a wheel, and a man is asked to select one line instantly, he will naturally put his finger on one of the lower lines to the right, thus indicating right-handedness and the inclination to avoid unnecessary effort; indicating also that our wills are not in a state of perfect equilibrium, but are inclined to one thing rather than another. So the question arises, Are not all our choices more or less predetermined in a similar way, by love of ease or fear of discomfort, by force of habit or conscience or inclination, by the influence of others—in short, by a score of subtle influences which lead a man to his choice even when he thinks himself perfectly free?

Strangely enough, this metaphysical question seemed then of very grave import, second only to the question of liberty, which Winthrop had defined as a choice of masters. The Colonists were men of strong religious natures, who believed profoundly in the future life and gave diligent heed to salvation. Now salvation, like liberty, was fundamentally a matter of choice, a choice of eternal rather than temporary good, of a divine rather than a human master. And no man was suffered to bide long in America without having the alternative put sternly before him: Choose, man, either God and eternal life, or the world and eternal death. But was a man free to choose, even when his choice meant life or death? That was the question which troubled not only scholars but plain working men and women, who had been trained to think for themselves, and who had heard the question of free will discussed from every backwoods pulpit.

We have given a mere outline of the subject, but enough to suggest that Edwards faced a problem of universal interest, to which every great religious and philosophical system of the world has attempted to give answer. By early training and by long study he was a Calvinist, and in his Freedom of the Will  he attempted two things: to establish the doctrine of Determinism—that man is not free, all his choices being part of a plan predetermined by the Supreme Will—and to refute every possible argument of the liberal Arminians. So thoroughly did he carry out this attempt that all the logicians of the next century were unable to find the weak spot in his argument, which seemed forged like an anchor chain from end to end. We would not attempt here to criticize the logic or the doctrine of the Freedom of the Will , which is an epitome of all Calvinistic reasoning. Perhaps the chief objection to it, and to all similar attempts, is that logic must give way to facts, which are more evident than any proof of them can possibly be. It would be difficult, for instance, to furnish logical proof of our own existence; it is no less difficult to prove the freedom of the will, which is one of the basic facts of morality and of all human experience. So, when Edwards demonstrates that our will is not free, we instinctively reject his argument; yet the rejection does not change our admiration for the man, for the grasp and power of his intellect, for the sincerity and reverence of his great spirit. Few of us may read the Freedom of the Will , but it broadens our conception of Colonial life to remember that, while Franklin made practical discoveries that startled the world, this obscure missionary on the edge of the American wilderness produced a work which for solid reasoning power has hardly a peer in the English language.

It is not in these heavy works, however, but rather in the short miscellaneous papers that the student will find most enjoyment. Here we meet the man rather than the theologian; and a very strong, helpful, inspiring man he is. The most remarkable thing about him is what has been well called his God-consciousness. To him God was the most real, the most lovable being in the universe; and one can hardly be with Edwards five minutes without being led reverently into the presence of the Eternal. Another interesting quality is his nature-consciousness, his instant response to the changing beauty of earth and sky. To him, as to Ruskin, nature was another Book of the Lord, a vast open Bible in which to read divine messages. A third noteworthy thing is his idealism; and here he should be read as a supplement, or rather an antidote, to Franklin; for these two men give us the two sides of the native American mind. Franklin is the man of sight, shrewd and practical, concerned for the tangible outer world; Edwards is the seer, the man of vision, penetrating to the heart of things and revealing spirit and ideals as the only enduring realities. And the American who follows Franklin in his practical method is at heart a believer in the eternal ideals which have been emphasized by Edwards, Bushnell, Channing, Emerson, and indeed by all our profound thinkers.

There are many other significant things to be found in Edwards, including his wonderful catholicity; but these the reader must find and appreciate for himself. His style, even in his philosophical works, is remarkably clear and transparent, reflecting his thought perfectly. It is unconscious also, entirely free from the affectation and pedantry of Cotton Mather. Here and there are vivid flashes of imagery which reveal a poet's soul, and bits of delicate satire and irony which suggest a literary power that Edwards was sternly repressing in the interest of truth. Altogether, he seems to us, both in style and matter, incomparably the greatest of all our early writers.

No unified history of the period has yet been written. In our historical reading the attention is divided among thirteen different organizations, which historians now group locally into New England, Middle and Southern, or politically into charter, royal and proprietary colonies, but which then had no outward semblance of unity. Each colony was separated from its nearest neighbors by vast stretches of forest, through which travel was difficult or dangerous or at times impossible. In consequence each pursued its own immediate ends, of agriculture or trade or liberty; each cleared the forest before its own door, and then explored the rich unknown lands that were calling men everywhere to enlarge their borders. The first problem that confronted every settler was to subdue the earth, to win shelter and support, to establish the comfort and peace of home in the midst of a savage wilderness. That in itself might well employ a man's full energy, but the second problem was even harder, namely, to settle the vexed matters of political and religious freedom with which the old-world nations had struggled for centuries in vain. It was due to their absorption in these two problems, one of vital interest to the present, the other of untold consequences to the future, that the Colonists produced comparatively few books, and that their works were practical and didactic rather than artistic in form and motive.

Though outwardly separate and independent, the people of all these colonies show the same spiritual characteristics. They speak the same noble language; they follow the same high ideals; they love liberty, and are determined not only to enjoy it themselves but to secure it forever to their children. When occasion arises they unite readily, here to protect themselves from a general uprising of the Indians, there to secure a greater measure of self-government from England; and as early as 1643 we have "The United Colonies of New England," which endured forty years, and was a prophecy of greater things to come.

This tendency toward unity, though often interrupted by trading disputes, increased steadily with the growth of the Colonies. It was strengthened, moreover, by the influence of the American colleges, which were founded with the express purpose of furnishing teachers to all the people. The extraordinary success of these colleges suggests one of the chief characteristics of the first Americans, namely, their high regard for learning and their selection of educated men to be their leaders and representatives. During the Colonial period seven colleges—Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, New Jersey, Kings, Philadelphia, and Rhode Island, all maintaining a high standard of learning—were firmly established here, and each was largely supported by a handful of settlers engaged in wresting a living from the wilderness. Search the history of the world, and you shall find no other such inspiring picture, of pioneers demanding a university, of colonization guided by scholarship. In these colleges young men of various colonies fraternized for a time, and returned to the distant settlements whence they had come, carrying the ideal of a common fellowship and a common destiny. And these young men, be it remembered, were trusted leaders in the Revolutionary struggle that changed certain English colonies into the American nation.

As might be expected in a country which was largely settled by men who sought freedom of belief and worship, the theological note is constantly heard in our early literature. Indeed, a large part of that literature was made up of theological and controversial works which, with few exceptions, were soon forgotten. Far more significant than the theological is the sincerely religious spirit that shows itself in all our earliest prose and verse. The Colonists believed, and reflected their belief on almost every page of their records, that in founding a state, as in forming a character, religion and education are the two factors of supreme importance.

In our study we have confined ourselves largely to certain significant types of Colonial writers: (1) The annalists and historians, of whom Bradford, Winthrop and Byrd are the best examples. Among these we place also Sewall, whose diary might well be called a window in old Boston. (2) The poets, with their general tendency to copy English models. Chief of these minor singers are Anne Bradstreet, the first American woman to win general literary recognition; Wigglesworth, whose poetic genius was kept chained, like a prisoner in a dungeon, by his terrible theology; and Godfrey, who at the end of the Colonial period made a crude but unmistakable beginning of artistic literature. (3) The theological writers, of whom Mather and Edwards are the most notable. The former gave us our first book of national heroes; the latter produced a philosophical work which for solid reasoning power has never been surpassed in America.

In addition to these typical writers we have reviewed a number of miscellaneous authors: Whittaker, "the apostle of Virginia"; Wood, the naturalist; Edward Johnson, maker of our first verse-history, or rhyming chronicle; Mary Rowlandson, and other writers on Indian life and warfare. All these were well known to Colonial readers, and we find their works still interesting. Among miscellaneous writers the greatest name is that of Eliot, a noble character, whose works on the Indian language, including a translation of the Bible into the Indian tongue, were America's first contribution to the literature of scholarship and original investigation.

Representative selections from all authors named in the text may be found in Trent and Wells, Colonial Prose and Poetry; in Cairns, Early American Writers; in Stedman and Hutchinson, Duyckinck, etc. (see "Collections" and "Texts," in General References, at the beginning of this book).

History . Contemporaneous : Original Narratives of Early American History, a series of well-edited volumes reproducing the narratives of explorers and founders: Narratives of Early Virginia, edited by Tyler; Bradford's History, by Davis; Winthrop's Journal, by Hosmer; early narratives of New Netherlands, Maryland, Carolina, Pennsylvania, etc. (Scribner). Hart, American History told by Contemporaries, 4 vols. (Macmillan).

Modern Works : Fisher, The Colonial Era (contains a chapter on Colonial literature); Osgood, American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century; Doyle, English Colonies in America, 3 vols.; Thwaite, The Colonies, in Epochs of American History series; Fiske, Beginnings of New England, Old Virginia and her Neighbors, Dutch and Quaker Colonies; Lodge, English Colonies in America; Arber, Story of the Pilgrim Fathers; Eggleston, Beginners of a Nation.

Supplementary : Alice Morse Earle, Home Life in Colonial Days, Child Life in Colonial Days, Colonial Dames and Goodwives, Customs and Fashions, etc. (Macmillan); Fisher, Men, Women, and Manners of Colonial Times; Whittier, Margaret Smith's Journal (fiction); Lowell, New England Two Centuries Ago; Emerson, Historical Discourse at Concord.

Biographical: Lives of Higginson, Hooker, Winthrop, Peter Stuyvesant, the Calverts, Cotton Mather, Oglethorpe, in Makers of America (Dodd); in the same series, Griffis, Sir William Johnson and the Six Nations; Walker, Ten New England Leaders; Bowen, Life of Sir William Phipps (1834); Straus, Roger Williams; Green, Pioneer Mothers of America, 3 vols. (Putnam). For other biographies, of Jonathan Edwards, Anne Bradstreet, etc., see below.

Literature . Tyler, History of American Literature 1607–1765, 2 vols., or Students' Edition, two volumes in one (Putnam), is the most complete and scholarly work on the Colonial period. Other works are Preston, Colonial Ballads; Holliday, Wit and Humor of Colonial Days; Jameson, History of Historical Writing in America; Smyth, Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741–1850.

John Smith . Texts: Works, in Arber's Reprints, English Scholar's Library (Birmingham, 1884); selected narratives, in Tyler's Early Virginia (Original Narratives series); Winsor's America, Vol. III; Hart's American History, Vol. I (see General References). Selections, in Old South Leaflets, Maynard's Historical Readings, etc.

Biography and Criticism: Life by Simms (1846); by C. D. Warner (1881); Fiske, Old Virginia and her Neighbors; Poindexter, Capt. John Smith and His Critics; Deane's edition of the True Relation (1866); Henry, Proceedings of the Virginia Historical Society (1882); Charles Francis Adams, in Chapters of Erie and Other Essays.

Bradford . Texts: Works, in Collections of Massachusetts Historical Society; Of Plimoth Plantation, edited by Davis, in Original Narratives series; various other editions, the best by Ford, 2 vols. (1913). Selections, in Chronicles of the Pilgrims, etc. (see Selections for Reading, above).

Biography and Criticism: Cotton Mather's life of Bradford, in Old South Leaflets, number 77; a good sketch in Leslie Stephen's Dictionary of National Biography; others in Appleton, etc. (see "Biography" in General References). Walker, Ten New England Leaders; Winsor's America, Vol. III, chap. viii; Tyler, I, 116–126; C. F. Adams, Massachusetts: its Historians and its History; Steele, The Chief of the Pilgrims (life of Brewster). For the story of the discovery and return of Bradford's manuscript, see Winsor, Governor Bradford's Manuscript; also Introduction to the edition of Bradford's History published by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1899.

Winthrop . Texts: Journal, called History of New England, edited by Savage, 2 vols. (Boston, 1853); in Original Narratives, edited by Hosmer (Scribner). Some Old Puritan Love Letters, edited by Twitchell (Dodd).

Biography and Criticism: Life, by R. C. Winthrop, 2 vols. (1864); by Twitchell, in Makers of America series; Walker, Ten New England Leaders; Adams, Massachusetts.

Supplementary: Alice M. Earle, Margaret Winthrop; Anderson, Memorable Women of Puritan Times (1862); Ellis, Puritan Age in Massachusetts.

Sewall . Texts: Works, in Collections of Massachusetts Historical Society.

Biography and Criticism: Chamberlain, Samuel Sewall and the World He Lived in; Lodge, A Puritan Pepys, in Studies in History; Whittier's poem, The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall.

Byrd . Texts: Byrd Manuscripts, edited by Basset (1901).

Biography and Criticism: Only fragments are available, in Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 1902; Moses, Literature of the South; Campbell, History of Virginia; Holliday, Southern Literature, etc.

Anne Bradstreet . Texts: Works, prose and verse, edited by Ellis (Charlestown, 1867); Poems, edited by C. E. Norton (privately printed, Boston, 1897); Selected Poems, in Old South Leaflets.

Biography and Criticism: Helen Campbell, Anne Bradstreet and Her Time (Lothrop, 1891).

Wigglesworth . Texts: Day of Doom, reprint of sixth edition, with notes, memoir, etc., edited by Burr (American News Co., 1867). Minor prose works, in Proceedings of Massachusetts Historical Society.

Biography and Criticism: Dean, Memoir of Wigglesworth (1871).

Cotton Mather . Texts: Magnalia, last edition 1855. Lives of Bradford, Winthrop, etc., in Old South Leaflets. (No worthy book of selections from Cotton Mather has ever been made.)

Biography and Criticism: Life by Wendell (1891); by Marvin (1892).

Supplementary: A Daughter of Cotton Mather, in The Outlook, Oct. 7 and 14, 1905.

Jonathan Edwards . Texts: Dwight's edition, 10 vols. (New York, 1830); abridged edition, 4 vols. (1852).

Biography and Criticism: Life, by Allen (1889); Gardiner, Jonathan Edwards, a Retrospect (1901). Essays: by Leslie Stephen, in Hours in a Library; by Holmes, in Pages from an Old Volume of Life.

Supplementary: Whittier's poem, The Preacher.

Historical Fiction . Early Romances of Colonial Times : Mrs. Child, Hobomok; Miss Sedgwick, Hope Leslie, Redwood; Paulding, Dutchman's Fireside, Koningsmarke; Kennedy, Rob of the Bowl; Cooper, Satanstoe, Red Rover, Water Witch.

Later Romances : Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter; Motley, Merry Mount; Cooke, Virginia Comedians, My Lady Pokahontas; Eggleston, Pocahontas and Powhattan; Thompson, Green Mountain Boys; Caruthers, Cavaliers of Virginia; Bynner, Begum's Daughter; Goodwin, White Aprons (romance of Bacon's Rebellion); Barr, Black Shilling (witchcraft); Austin, Standish of Standish; Stimson, King Noanett; Mary Johnston, To Have and to Hold.

Books for Young People . Colonial History : Catherwood, Heroes of the Middle West, a book of early French explorers (Ginn and Company); Drake, Making of New England, Making of Virginia and the Middle Colonies, Making of the Great West, 3 vols. (Scribner); Baldwin, Discovery of the Old Northwest, Conquest of the Old Northwest, 2 vols. (American Book Co.); Moore-Tiffany, Pilgrims and Puritans (Ginn and Company); Edgar, Struggle for a Continent, edited from Parkman's histories (Little, Brown); Helen Smith, The Colonies; Alma Burton, Story of the Indians of New England (Silver, Burdett).

Colonial Stories : Hawthorne, Grandfather's Chair, Legends of the Province House; Bass, Stories of Pioneer Life (Heath); Eggleston, Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans, Stories of American Life and Adventure (American Book Co.); Tappan, Letters from Colonial Children (Houghton).