The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-08-20

IHe true character or the Purltan mas
 been, perhaps, as often concealed by
 unmerited praise as by unwarranted deractlon. The life of Thomas Munson,
 as depicted by our historian, presents
 Q faithful portrait of the typical Puri- tan. As disclosed to us it is invested with neither mystery nor romance From the day that he first emerges l from obscurity at the age of twenty
 five until his death at seventy three, his biography is but the story of un- sWerYing devotion to the colony and to his God. And this is the story of Puri- tanism Of what they suffered and en- dured, harassed by Indians, beset by
 death in every form, cut off from civil- | ization and beyond the Knowledge of
 their friends and of mankind, we need
 not speak; their glory springs not | from what they endured, but from the ! fact that they endured it; not from what they suffered, but from what they accomplished; not from the memories which they left behind them but from
 those they have handed down to us.
 The foremost trait of character that distinguished our ancestors was their profound religious faith, and from this
 has arisen most of the apprehension
 which surrounds their character, Al
 though the Puritan may justly be
 charged with intolerance, he cannot be
 accused of inconsistency. They came to this country, not for the purpose of founding a colony in which any one
 might worship God as he pleased but for the purpose of securing freedom to
 worship God in their own way, Reli gious tolerance was not taught in the l fierce school of oppression in which they had been reared. For the purpose of securing freedom of worship they fled from England to Holland and | that they might preserve among their children the language and traditions of
 their native land they came to this 1 country Their purpose was to found a i theocratic state in which the minutest
 details of their daily life should be reg
 ulated by their interpretation of Holy | Writ; and although they brought with | them the germs of civil as well as of religious liberty, nothing could have been farther from their thoughts than | the institution of a government that
 would condemn to death the judges, | jurors and witnesses who participated in the trials of witchcraft and would | command them to take their place on | the scaffold on Gallows Hill by the | side of their hapless victims; a govern
 ment that stands proud and imperious among the nations of the earth, yet guards with equal solicitude the reli- gious rights and views of Gentle and | of Jew, of Protestant and of Catholic; of Christian and of Infidel. Could they have foreseen the ultimate result of their labors, history would probably
 contain no mention of the voyage of | the May1ower While we may not jus tify their stern religious fanaticism, | their memory pleads for no apology at
 our hands; by their lives they have | made even the name fanatic illustri- | ous.
 Inseparable from their religious
 views, and grounded upon them was
 their spirit of independence. But this trait of character was to them an in-
 heritance If we would seek it's origin
 we must turn our eyes far away from the shores of New England, and look much farther back in English history than the establishment of the church at Ccrooby Manor or the flight to Hol- land. More than two centuries before James I. declared at Hampton Court that he would make the Puritans "con- | form or harry them out of the land" it i had challenged the Roman dogma of
 spiritual supremacy and ushered in the
 heroic age of England Slowly and | quietly it gathered strength during
 succeeding reigns, stayed out by perse-
 cution nor oppression, appalled, not by l the terrors of the dungeon, the sword
 or the faggot until it struggled up to
 victory on the battle field of Marston
 Moor and Naseby, and ascended with | Cromwell the throne of England. It
 was this same spirit which in 1896 dot l ted the harbor of Boston with forts in | opposition to the schemes of Charles I. | to annul the charter of Massachusetts, l and gave to Beacon Hill it's name; that 1 later found expression on the lips of l Otis. of Adams and of Patrick Henry; | that stood fire at Concord and LeXlng-
 ton, and is cornmemorated by the shaft
 on Bunker Hill that called Putnam
 from the blow, Stark from the hills of
 New Hampshire, and Greene from his
 home in Rhode Island; that "smote for 1 liberty at Trenton that withstood the sufferings at Valley Forge, that | SlOIliltu tlle eLeliiy Wolh9 ct btoily
 Point, that sailed the seas with the
 brave Paul Jones, that won at Mon-
 mouth, that received the sword of l Cornwallis at Yorktown; and that, at
 last, as if to rear with it's own hands a
 monument upon which should be for
 ever transfixed the gaze of all man.
 kind, incarnated itself in the life of that
 matchless figure of the centuries,
 George Washington.
 | Closely interwoven with the Puritan
 religion and ideas of government was | their love of education. According to | their theory of life, ignorance was the | basis of both popery and despotism.
 By the side of the church they built the
 school-house thus laying the founda- | tion of our system of public schools in
 which to-day are taught to sixteen mill
 lion of our young not only the English | language but the principles of liberty
 as we'll Compulsory education was l born in the little colony of Connecticut | long before it was even thought of by l Frederick of Prussia In direct opposi-
 ton to the theory of society which pre- l vailed in the countries of Europe, that
 the great body of the people should l have no part in the government of 1 church or state, and were better kept
 in ignorance, the New England colo
 nies declared that the state could not endure the results of ignorance in her
 citizens, and provided the common