"Well--anything else?" She gave a tremendous tug at the
bedclothes and Kennicott was uncovered again.

"He said you suggested that they arrange a series of lectures on
modern religions, and invite Quakers and other radicals to speak
right here in Plymouth and tell us all about their beliefs. And
not only that but he said you suggested sending a message to the
Roman Catholic exiles from England, inviting them to make their
home with us. You must have made quite a little speech."

"Well this is the land of religious freedom, isn't it? That's
what you came here for, didn't you?" She sat up to deliver this
remark--a movement which enabled Kennicott to win back
seven-eighths of the bed covering.

"Now look here Prissie--I'm not narrow like some of these
pilgrims who came over with us. But I won't have my wife
intimating that a Roman Catholic or a Quaker should be allowed to
spread his heresies broadcast in this country. It's all right for
you and me to know something about those things, but we must
protect our children and those who have not had our advantages.
The only way to meet this evil is to stamp it out, quick, before
it can get a start. And it's just such so-called broadminded
thinkers as you that encourage these heretics. You'll be
criticizing the Bible next, I suppose."

Thus in early times did the pious Right Thinkers save the land
from Hellfire and Damnation; thus the great-grandfathers of
middle-western congressmen; thus the ancestors of platitudinous