Descended directly from some stray member of the Cromwellian party
who fled at the Restoration, he chose Virginia rather than New
England, allured by the milder climate. But he is of the same
class, the same prejudices and limitations as the New England
Puritan, the sole difference being that he has stood still while
the other passed on unrestingly. But in 1635, it was merely a
difference of location, never of mental habit, that divided them.
For both alike, the description given by one of our most brilliant
writers, applied the English people of the seventeenth century
being summed up in words quite as applicable to-day as then: "At
that time, though they were apparently divided into many classes,
they were really divided into only two---first, the disciples of
things as they are; second, the disciples of things as they ought
to be."

It was chiefly "the disciples of things as they ought to be" that
passed over from Old England to the New, and as such faith means
usually supreme discomfort for its holder, and quite as much for
the opposer, there was a constant and lively ebullition of forces
on either side. Every Puritan who came over waged a triple war--
first, with himself as a creature of malignant and desperate
tendencies, likely at any moment to commit some act born of hell;
second, with the devil, at times regarded as practically
synonymous with one's own nature, at others as a tangible and
audacious adversary; and last and always, with all who differed
from his own standard of right and wrong---chiefly wrong. The
motto of that time was less "Dare to do right," than "Do not dare
to do wrong." All mental and spiritual furnishings were shaken out
of the windows daily, by way of dislodging any chance seeds of
vice sown by the great adversary. One would have thought the