Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1866-03-13
picture Of puritanism.

The lecture delivered in Washington
on the night of the 22d Of February, BY
Mr.. Cox, of Ohio, contains this picture
of Puritanism: $50
American Puritanism had neither
great poets nor artists, nor even, IN an.
proper sense Of the phrase, men Of letters e.!
Ii founded theological seminaries IN us
quise as colleges, and kept such learning
ne II was CAPABLE of, after the manner o.
the Brahmins and the Lemaites OF ASIA
for the benefit of the priestly order, put
t;ng the men in the heel Of the minister
as n snur' wherewith the more safely 10
ride the people. II makes one shndder
to think how thoroughly the Sabbath was
kent sour and solemn under the MINIS
tration of the autoerat of the pulpit
Children we're frightened 10 sleep with
The terrific name of the preacher lie
represented the terrors OF the unseen
world. This very bigotry has produced
IT'S extreme. The transcendentaiism OIL
today is partly a protest and dissent
| from the severity of the pulpit
The blight OF Puritanism has acted
both directly and indirectly upon the
New England mind, killing all real yigor
and originality in the New England lI1er-
ature The one great writer oil New
England is the one man who has most
thoroughly and mercilessly analyzed the
weaknesses and the disease 81 Puritan
ism. the one man who has most lear
lessly scrubbed away the whitewash from
its sepulchres. Nathaniel Hawthorne,
indeed, may be regarded as sort Of
Attilla of genius, scourge Oh uou,
sent TO chastise Puritanism. The peo-
ple among whom he lived cannot help
decking themselves with the renown Oh
his genius; but they take their revenge
by declaring that he died Democrat
The transmitted selfconsciousness and
conceit of the Puritan character IS re-
sponsible for New England vaganes.
Your original Puritan, had be lived IN
the DAYS of the Lord and heard those
stern and solemn words; Let MN that
is without sin among yon cast the hrst
stone at her, would have caught up the
biggest brick in the neighborhoed and
heaved it nightly at the wretched wo-
man before him. Laughter. Your
modern trancendentalist, when ne hnds
that law of a custom rooted by ages In
the life of great people is in the way OF
any fancy or crotchst Of his own, quietly
exclaims: II am both the deity and hu-
myself--in me are all constiiu-
tons and charters-the sun, also the
moon, do they not rise in me and set IN
me? Let all these things be changed,
for do they not constrain my soul ID
serve how this influence has oozed over
from the original vessels and penetrated
The New England mind. The ancient
phrase, I'VE are the men, and wisdom
shall die with us, and the Pnritans OF
1865, who whipped one Oliver Holmes IN
Boston for perversely being Baptist, Is
,nly reproduced in another form by the
of 1866, who worship
another Oliver Holmes in Boston for
himself an autocrat OF the
breakfast table. The Bradfords, and
Carvers, and Higginsons, and the rest
If the men of 1920, who could not bear
o remain in England, where their own
opinions were not regarded as the su-
)reme law of human faith and practice,
ire only the prototypes of the Summers
md Wilson's, and Phillipses, who foam at
he mouth if one but suggests the posi-
,ility of their being mistaken in any one
particular of insight, foresight or wisdom.