quietly nullified them, as the case might be. But all the time,
while England was rocked to its foundations, the colonists struck
steadily forward into their own independent life.

CHAPTER III. THE THIRD AND FOURTH GENERATION

When the eighteenth century opened, many signs of change were in
the air. The third generation of native-born Americans was
becoming secularized. The theocracy of New England had failed. In
the height of the tragic folly over the supposed "witchcraft" in
Salem, Increase Mather and his son Cotton had held up the hands
of the judges in their implacable work. But before five years had
passed, Judge Sewall does public penance in church for his share
of the awful blunder, desiring "to take the shame and blame of
it." Robert Calef's cool pamphlet exposing the weakness of the
prosecutors' case is indeed burned by Increase Mather in the
Harvard Yard, but the liberal party are soon to force Mather from
the Presidency and to refuse that office to his son. In the town
of Boston, once hermetically sealed against heresy, there are
Baptist and Episcopal churches--and a dancing-master. Young
Benjamin Franklin, born in 1706, professes a high respect for the
Mathers, but he does not go to church, "Sunday being my studying
day," and neither the clerical nor the secular arm of Boston is
long enough and strong enough to compel that industrious
apprentice into piety.

If such was the state of New England, the laxity of New York and
Virginia needs little evidence. Contemporary travelers found the
New Yorkers singularly attached to the things of this present
world. Philadelphia was prosperous and therewith content.