The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-03-12
worship and His glorious temple in the Old Tes-

"Most persons have heard Of the blue laws Of
i New Haven, embracing the following among
their provisions: No one shall travel, cook
victuals, make BEDS sweep house, cut hair or
shave on the Sabbath day. No woman shall
kiss her children on the Sabbath or fasting day;
no one shall read common PRAYER, keep Christ
mas or Saints day, make mince pies, dance, play
cards or play on any instrument of music except
the drum, trumpet and jews-harp.' We are
| told, but this is traditional that another law
| prohibited the brewing of beer on Sat
urday. lest 1t should work the following day.
and thus violate the Sabbath We are
| not surprised that Plymouth In 1886 declares
that it will punish with death the solemn COM
| FACTION or conversing with the devil by way of
| witchcraft. conjuring or the like The Puritans
were inadequate to poetry and romance. Their
tales were of witchcraft and cruelty. Their SUI
perstition was selfish as we'll as blind New
| Hampshire had stone throwing devils A poor
old Irish Catholic woman named Glover. because
she said her prayers in Irish and the Lord 9
| prayer in Latin, and could not say them In En-
| gish, was sufficient proof that she was witch.
| of witch killing was awful. No less than nine
/ teen were executed in 1892. They treated tho
Indians with great cruelty. Robinson, writing
| from Holland bitterly complains at
| the pilgrims at Plymouth for beginning
to STAY the Indians before they tried to convert
| them The Indians were in Puritan eyes wor-
| shippers of the devil and common laborers with
Satan They considered it their God given duty
| to exterminate them from the face of the earth
| 1t was a long time before Eliot and others came
| who took different view of it. The Puritans
never had single tribe in New England as last
| ing allies The French. the Dutch, the English
| in New York, Penn, and Lord Baltimore all Sc
cured the friendship of Indian tribes, but the
Purtans of Now England never could win and
never made any efforts to win the enduring at
| tachment of single Indian tribe.
"As to slaves. in 1888 slaves were brought
| from the West Indies and subsequently from
-
sanctioned by the General Court of Massachu-
sets Downey writes, in l645: "A war with
the Narragansetts is very considerable to this
plantation. We might easily have men, women
and children enough to exchange for Moors
which will be more eainfu pillage for US than
we can conceive From this it appears that
African rulers on the slave coast and Gods elect
at Plymouth had entered into contract. which
leads us to conjecture if there was something
more at the bottom of these Indian wars than
appears on the surface.
"Iu his lecture, delivered on the 22d of Janu-
airy, on the fugitive slave law. Mr. W. P. Fish
back spoke as follows of the New Englanders:
when this country was settled it occurred to
men in New England that it would be good way to
make money by engaging in the African slave trade.
So vessels fitted out from New England ports,
by New England owners by the descendants of those
Puritan fathers who came the Mayfower
They went to Jamaica and bought rum, and took the
rum to the coast of Guinea There they would get
the natives drunk decoy them in their out to
u,
with the poor wretches to the West Indies where they
would sell them for more rum They would sell some
of this rum in New England and with
The remainder they would go to Africa and
get negroes. Men stolen and subjected to
servitude to other men, who had right to them at
ALL These slave-traders would often pack these ma
tives into the hold of the ship land shut down the
matches, and there without water food they would
die by hundreds. Many were smothered to death:
throw out the dead 1t has been estimated that often
80 cent of TIE natives died before they got to the
West India islands. The New England people were
making great deal out of this. and many sold
to Southerners who paid great amount of money
for them This the way slavery was brought to
this country and have heard preachers say in pul
pits that God had ordained it. and that it good
thing"
"On Feb. 10, Rev. N. A. Hyde spoke in the
same place. and before much the same audience
on The Puritan Young Man. Whether design
eddy or or otherwise. this address came just in
the nick of time to re-whitewash the old Puritan
fence which Mr. Fishback had despatched with
mud
';John Eliot, who rose above his surroundings
and viewed slavery from humane Christian
standpoint, objected to selling away such Indians
unto islands for perpetual slaves who shall yield
M themselves to your mercy and Cotton
Mather testifes of Eliot that he had long la
mented it with bleeding and burning passion
that the English used their negroes but their
horses or their oxen, and that little care
was taken about their immortal souls. He
looked upon it as a prodigy that any wearing the
name of Christians should much have the
heart of devils in them as to prevent and hinder
the instruction Of the poor backamoors. In 1850
Governor Bradstreet reported few blacks as born
in Massachusetts,, and none baptized that have
heard off,
ut was in 1855 that the instruction and bap-
tism of slaves in America began. 1t was not be-
gun at the instance of New England Purtans,
but because the Catholic king, James Second,
ordered that the negroes in the plantations should
all be baptized, exceedingly decaiming against
the impiety OF their masters prohibiting it,
1.-THE theories and opinions of modern New
England on the sale and use of spirituous liquors
as on many other other points are ompletely at
war with those held by their ancestors. The
denuncations OF Southern slavery which
famed the flames Of the late civil war all direct
iy condemn the early Puritans of Massachusetts
The denunciations of the liquor traffic, now pro
hibited under severe penalties in some of the
New England States. are equally applicable to
the founders of New England. The indignant
protests against the modern treatment of In
dians have but petty grounds compared with
those furnished by Puritan history. The modern
cry for religious tolerance and freedom of con
science would have aroused the wrath of the
Seventeenth century New Highlander. Evident
ly the New Highlander must either forego his
present opinions or stop auding to the skies the
old Puritans who committed the very sins they
now denounce. New Englanders of to-day are
not what their forefathers were.'
Father Alerding then turned to the Catholic
colony of Lord Baltimore and citing numerous
authorities, showed how great the contrast be-
tween the benifcent liberality of that colony and
the hard and cruel government of the Puritan.
Terra Marie" the land of Mary or Maryland,
is theme worthy of the noblest effort. It is
the first spot on American soil on which men
could meet TO live in peace and enjoy liberty of
conscience. 1t was George Calvert, the first
Lord Baltimore. who in the generosity of his
soul, determined to secure for the prosecuted
Catholics of England, asylum against all religious
persecution. He first attempted to found a col
ony in Newfoundland and visited it twice but
political distractions, the severity of the
climate, and the barrenness of the SOIL COM
PEELED him to abandon it. He next visited
Virginia arriving at jamestown in Octo-
her, 1927 Immediately upon his arrival he
was reouess ed by the General Assembly to take
the oath prescribed When Lord Baltimore re