to give the seals, but in his own congregation."

Some slight question, as to whether Boston alone, or the colony at
large should be taxed for his support was settled with little
difficulty, and on Sept. 10, another gathering from all the
neighboring towns, witnessed his induction into the new church a
ceremony of peculiar solemnity, preceded by a fast, and followed
by such feasting as the still narrow stores of the people
admitted.

No one can estimate the importance of this occasion, who does not
realize what a minister meant in those first days, when the sermon
held for the majority the sole opportunity of intellectual
stimulus as well as spiritual growth. The coming of John Cotton to
Boston, was much as if Phillips Brooks should bestow himself upon
the remotest English settlement in Australia, or a missionary
station in northern Minnesota, and a ripple of excitement ran
through the whole community. It meant keener political as well as
religious life, for the two went side by side. Mather wrote later
of New England: "It is a country whose interests were most
remarkably and generally enwrapped in its ecclesiastical
circumstances," and he added: "The gospel has evidently been the
making of our towns."

It was the deacons and elders who ruled public affairs, always
under direction of well-nigh supreme authority vested in the
minister. There was reason for such faith in them. "The objects of
much public deference were not unaware of their authority; they
seldom abused it; they never forgot it. If ever men, for real
worth and greatness, deserved such pre-eminence, they did; they