not exempted from the sectarian contentions which agitated the
mother country after the downfall of Charles the First, and of the
established Episcopacy. The Quakers, Baptists, and Catholics were
banished, on pain of death, from the Massachusetts Colony. One
Samuel Gorton, a bold and eloquent declaimer, after preaching for a
time in Boston against the doctrines of the Puritans, and declaring
that their churches were mere human devices, and their sacrament
and baptism an abomination, was driven out of the jurisdiction of
the colony, and compelled to seek a residence among the savages. He
gathered round him a considerable number of converts, who, like the
primitive Christians, shared all things in common. His opinions,
however, were so troublesome to the leading clergy of the colony,
that they instigated an attack upon his "Family" by an armed force,
which seized upon the principal men in it, and brought them into
Massachusetts, where they were sentenced to be kept at hard labor
in several towns (one only in each town), during the pleasure of
the General Court, they being forbidden, under severe penalties, to
utter any of their religious sentiments, except to such ministers
as might labor for their conversion. They were unquestionably
sincere in their opinions, and, whatever may have been their
errors, deserve to be ranked among those who have in all ages
suffered for the freedom of conscience.

Father! to Thy suffering poor
Strength and grace and faith impart,
And with Thy own love restore
Comfort to the broken heart!
Oh, the failing ones confirm
With a holier strength of zeal!
Give Thou not the feeble worm