Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1864-05-02
MACAULAY'S DESCRIPTION OF
THE PURITANS.
ABrlllIuntnnd Lirc-like pen- pIctur,
from the First Volume of Macaulay's History

from the First Volume of Macaulays History Of
rf .# ..... England.l
They mistook their own vindictve feel
ings for emotions of piety; encouraged in
themselves, by reading and meditation, a
disposition to brood over their wrongs; and,
when they had worked themselves up into
hating their enemies imagined they were
only hating the enemies of Heaven. In the
New Testament there was little indeed
which, even when perverted by the most
disingcnuous exposition, could seem to
eOuntenance the indulgence of malevolent
passions. But the Old Testament contained
the history of q race selected by God to be
witnesses of his unity and ministers of his
vengeance, and specially commanded by
him to do many things which, if done with
out his special command, would have been
atrociOus crimes. In such a history il was
not difficult for fierce and gloomy spirits to
find much that might be distorted to suit
their wishes. The extreme Puritans, there
fore, began to feel for the Old Testament
preference which, perhaps. they did not
distinctly avow even to themselves, but
which showed itself in all their sentiments
and habits. They paid to the Hebrew Ian
guagc a respect which they refused to that
tongue in which the discourses of Jesus and
the epistles of Paul have come down to us.
They baptized their children by the names,
not of Christian saints, but of Hebrew pa
triarchs and warriors. In defiance of the
express and reiterated declarations of Lu-
ther and Calvin, they turned the weekly
festival by which the Church had, from the
primitive times, commemorated the resur-
rection of her Lord, into a Jewish Sabbath.
They sought for principles of jurisprudence
In the Mosaic law, and for precedents to
guide their ordinary conduct in the books
of Judges and Kings. Their thoughts and
discOllrses ran much on acts which were
assuredly not recorded as examples for our
imitation. The prophet who hewed In pieces
a captive king; the rebel general who gave
the blood of a queen to the dogs; the ma
tT0n who, in defiance of plighted faith. and
Of the laws of Eastern hospitality, drove
the nail into the brain of the fugitive ally
who had Just fed at her board, and who was
sleeping under the shadow of her tent
were proposed as models to Christians suf-
fering under the tyranny of princes and
prclates. Morals and manners were sub
jected to code resembling that of the syn
agOgue, when the synagogue was in its
worst state. The dress, the department, the
language, the studies, the ainusements of
the rigid sect were regulated Oh principles
resembling those of the Pharisees, who,
phylacteries, taunted the Redeemer as a
Sabbath breaker and winc-bibber. 1t
Was a sin to hang garlands on a May
pole, to drink friends health, to fly a
hawk, to hunt stag, to play at chess,
to wear love-locks, to put starch
into ruff, to touch the Virginals, to
read the Fairy Queen. Rules such as these
rules which would have appeared insup-
portable to the free and joyous spirit of
Luther, and contemplate to the serene and
philosophical intellect Of Zuingle, threw
over all life more than monastic gloom
The learning and eloqucnce by which the
great Reformers had been eminently distin-
guished, and to which they had been, in no
small measure, indebted for their success,
were regarded by the new school of PrOtes-
t:nts with suspicion, If not with aversion.
some precisians scrupled about teach
ing the Latin grammar, because the names
of Mars, BacclIus, and Apollo occurred in
1t. The fine arts were all but prescribed
The solemn peal of the organ was supersti-
tlous. The light music of Ben Jonson's
masks was dissolute. Half the fine paint
ings in England were idolatrous, and the
other half indecent. The Puritan was at
once known from other men by his gait, his
garb, his lank hair, the sour solemnity of
his face, the upturned white of his eyes, the
nasal twang with which he spoke, and,
above all, by his peculiar dialect. He en-
ployed. OIL every occasion, the imagery and
style of Scripture. Hebrasms violently in
troduced into the English language, and
m tal h ,rs borrowed from the boldest lyric
poetry of a remote age and country, and
applied to the common concerns of English
life, were the most striking pcculiarities Of
this cant, which moved, not without cause,
the derision both of prelatists and liber-
tines.