holders of mystic and pernicious principles having spread before them,
the Puritans early endeavored to banish and to prevent the further
intrusion of the rising sect. But the measures by which it was
intended to purge the land of heresy, though more than sufficiently
vigorous, were entirely unsuccessful. The Quakers, esteeming
persecution as a divine call to the post of danger, laid claim to a
holy courage unknown to the Puritans themselves, who had shunned the
cross by providing for the peaceable exercise of their religion in a
distant wilderness. Though it was the singular fact that every nation
of the earth rejected the wandering enthusiasts who practised peace
toward all men, the place of greatest uneasiness and peril, and
therefore in their eyes the most eligible, was the province of
Massachusetts Bay.

The fines, imprisonments and stripes liberally distributed by our
pious forefathers, the popular antipathy, so strong that it endured
nearly a hundred years after actual persecution had ceased, were
attractions as powerful for the Quakers as peace, honor and reward
would have been for the worldly-minded. Every European vessel brought
new cargoes of the sect, eager to testify against the oppression which
they hoped to share; and when shipmasters were restrained by heavy
fines from affording them passage, they made long and circuitous
journeys through the Indian country, and appeared in the province as
if conveyed by a supernatural power. Their enthusiasm, heightened
almost to madness by the treatment which they received, produced
actions contrary to the rules of decency as well as of rational
religion, and presented a singular contrast to the calm and staid
deportment of their sectarian successors of the present day. The
command of the Spirit, inaudible except to the soul and not to be
controverted on grounds of human wisdom, was made a plea for most