The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1866-09-05
McCaulays Description Of the Pu-
ritans.
A BRILLIANT AND LIFE-LIKE PEN
PICTURE.

Esx = -
J A BRILLIANT AND L1rE-LrKE PEN
PICTURE.
They mistook their own vindictiv,
! feelings for emotions of piety encour
aged in themselves, by reading ant
meditation, a disposition to brood owe,
their wrongs; and, when they hat
worked themselves up into hating thei
enemies, imagined they were only ha
ting the enemies of Heaven. I'm th,
New Testament there was little indeed
which, even when prevented by thu
most disingenousexpositiQn could seen
to conference.-the indulgence of ma
|levolent passions. But the Old Tesla
ment contained the history of a race
selected by God to be Witnesses of his
| unity and ministers of his vegeanee
and specially commanded by him to dc
many things which, if done without bis
special command, would have been afro
cious. In such a history it was not diff.
fcult for fierce and gloomy spirits TIC
find much that might be rest red to suit
4 their. wishes. The extreme Puritans
therefore, began to feel for the Old Tes-
lament q preference which, perhaps
j they did not distinctly avow, even te
themselves; but which showed itsely in
all their sentiments and habits. They
paid to the Hebrew language q respect
which they refused to that tongue in
which the discourses of Jesus and the
epistIes of Paul have come down to us.
They baptized their children by the
names, not of Christian saints, but OF
Hebrew patriarchs and warriors. In
defiance of the express and reiterated
declarations of Luther and Calvin, they
turned the weekly festivalby which the
Church had, from the primitive times,
concentrated the resurrection of her
Lord, in a Jewish Sabbath. They
sought for principles of jurisprudence
in the Mosaic law, and for, presidents
to guide their ordinary conduct in the
book of Judges and Kings. Their
thoughts and discourses ran much on
acts which assuredly not recorded
as example lor our imitation. The
prophet who heoed IN pieces captive
king, the rebel general who gave the
blood of a queen to the dogs, the matron
who in defiance Of plighted faith, and
of the laws Of Eastern hospitality drove
the nail into the brain Of the fugitive
ally whoshad just fed at her board, and
who was sleeping under the shadow of
her tent--were proposed as models to
Christians suffering under the tyranny
of princes and prelates. Morals and
manners were subjected to "a code re-
sembling that Of the Synagogue, when
the synagogue was in its worst state.
The dress, the language, the deport-
ment, the studies, the amGselnents of
the rigid sect were regulated on princi-
pies resembling those of the iPharisees,
who, proud Of their washed hands and
broad phylacteries, tainted the Redeem
er as a Sabbath breaker and wine
bibber. 1t was. sin1to hang garlands
on a May-pole, to drink a friends
health, to fly d hawk, 20 hunta stag, to
play a chess, to wear love-loeks, to put
starch into a ruff, to touch the virgins,
to read the Fairy Queen. Rules such
as these-rules which would hare APP
peared insupportable to the free and
joyous spirit of Luther, and contempt
BILE to the serene and philosophical in
tellect of Zuingle, threw over all life a
more than monastic gloom. The learn
ing and eloquence by which the great.
Reformers had been eminently distin-s
guished; and to which they had been,
in no small measure, indebted for their
success, were regarded by the new
School of Protestants with suspicion, if
not with aversion. Some precisians
scrupled about teaching the Latin
grammar, because the names of Mars,
Bacchus, and Apollo occurred in it.
The fine arts were ell but prescribed.
The solemn peal of the organ was SUI
perstitious. The light music of Ben
Johnson's masks was dissolute. Half
the fine paintings in England were idol
atrOus, 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
npturned white of his eyes, the nasal
twang with which he spoke, and above
all, his peculiar dialect He employed,
on every occasion, the imagery and
style of scripture. Hebraisms violently
introduced into the English language,
and metaphors borrowed from the bold
est lyric poetry Of 9 remote age and
country, and applied to the common
concerns Of English life, were the most
striking peculiarities ofthis can't, which
moved, not without cause, the derision
both Of prelatists and ibertines.