great majority of the citizen being in that combustible state in
which a feeble spark will suffice to kindle a formidable
conflagration, the whole Colony was inflamed and distracted by the
incontinence of female spleen and presumption."

Amidst this rattle of theological guns there was danger that
others might be heard. To subdue Boston was the first necessity,
and an order for disarming the disaffected was issued. The most
eminent citizens, if suspected of favoring her, had their firearms
taken from them, and even Capt. John Underhill was forced to give
up his sword. An account of the whole controversy was written by
Mr. Welde and sent over to England for publication in order that
the Colony might not suffer from slanderous reports, and that no
"godly friends" might be prevented from coming over. For the
winter of 1637, Boston was quiet, but it was an ominous quiet, in
which destructive forces gathered, and though never visible on the
surface, worked in evil ways for more than one of the generations
that followed. Freedom had ended for any who differed from the
faith as laid down by the Cambridge Synod, and but one result
could follow. All the more liberal spirits saw that Massachusetts
could henceforth be no home for them, and made haste to other
points. Coddington led a colony to Rhode Island, made up chiefly
of the fifty-eight who had been disarmed, and in process of time
became a Quaker. This was the natural ending for many, the heart
of Anne Hutchinson's doctrine being really a belief in the "Inward
Light," a doctrine which seems to have outraged every Puritan
susceptibility for fully a hundred years, and until the reaction
began, which has made individual judgment the only creed common to
the people of New England. It was reasonable enough, however, that
Massachusetts should dread a colony of such uneasy spirits,