self-denying community could flourish in the wilderness, in the enjoyment
of spiritual blessings unattainable at home. The power of English prelacy
did not extend beyond the borders of England: idolatrous ceremonies could
be eschewed in Massachusetts without fear of persecution. Thousands of
Puritans were prepared to give up their homes for the sake of liberty, and
only waited assurance that it could be obtained. The condition of society
and education in England was vicious and corrupt; and though it might
become brave and true men to suffer persecution in witness of their faith,
yet there was danger that their children might be induced to fall away
from the truth, after they were gone. Martyrdom was well, but it must not
be allowed to such an extreme as to extirpate the proclaimers of the
truth. Many of those who were prepared to take advantage of the charter
were of the best stock in England, men of brains and substance as well as
piety; graduates of the Universities, country gentlemen, men of the world
and of affairs. A colony made of such elements would be a new thing in the
earth; it would comprise all that was strong and wise in human society,
and would exclude every germ of weakness and frailty. The sealing of the
charter was like the touching of the electric button which, in our day,
sets in motion for the first time a vast mechanical system, or fires a
simultaneous salute of guns in a hundred cities. King Charles I., who was
to lose his anointed head on the block because he tried to crush popular
liberty in England, was the immediate human instrument of giving the
purest form of such liberty to English exiles beyond the sea.

The charter constituted an organization called the Governor and Company
of Massachusetts Bay in New England. The governor, annually elected by the
members, was assisted by a deputy and assistants, and was to call a
business meeting monthly or oftener, and in addition was to preside four
times a year at an assembly of the whole body of the freemen, to make laws
and determine appointments. Freedom of Puritan worship was assured, in