The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-12-25
WHEN PURITANIsM WAS IN FLOWER.

participation III the WOTlu WOIk OIL extend
ing civilization.
WHEN PURITANISM WAS In FLOWER.
At the annual dinner of the New England
Society in this city, a few nights ago, at
which lack Of sympathy with the founders
of New England was considerably in evil
dence, one of the speakers had a good deal
to say about the repelent aspects of Puri-
tanism in England and made fun of Oliver
Cromwell his Barebones Parliament,
''Praise-God Barebones,' after whom it was
named, and other noted Puritans of the
period. The argument seemed to be that the
hard features of the Puritan character in
old England, which the speaker ridiculed
were largely responsible for the alleged
narrowness of the early New Englanders
The speaker who INDUCED in this sarcasm
is of Irish descent and author of when
Knighthood Was in Flower" Perhaps his
researches in the reign of the much-married
Henry VIII and the imaginary love-making
scenes between Princess Mary and Charles
er qualities that marked the period of the
L IeNOlullOn III the H6AC "
There was knighthood in flower in Crom-.
wells time, too, but it employed itself with
more serious matters than giving dancing
lessons and keeping clandestine appoint
ments with love-sick girls and organizing
night expeditions to rescue them from alb
surd escapades. The knighthood of Crom-
wells time the flower of plain living
and high fhinlIiDos 10 70
to Puritanism by devoting itself earnestly
and prayerfully to the great problems of
church and state that were then ripe for
solution. The impress thus given to Puri-
tanism in old England was perpetuated by
Puritanism in New England, and one must
take very narrow and superficial view of
it in either country who does not see, be-
meath its surface eccentricities and repel-
lent features, the heroic and enduring quail
tiles of human character that make men and
nations great. The men who sat in the Bare
bones Parliament were none the less knight
ly leaders in new crusade for constitu-
tional liberty because some of them bore
Christian names which we now think ridic-
ulous. The great organizer OF the crusade,
who lea in prayer as often as he did in
battle and who taught his soldiers that to
be good fighters they must have the fear of
God before them, the commander of the
Ironsides and the founder of Puritansm
might have been called Praise-God Crom-
well as well as plain Oliver but it would
not have dotracted anything from his great
ness nor from the character of the religious
cult which he and his fellow-P urtans made
power in England and the world. The
Puritans who came to New England had
the vices of fanaticism, prescription
and intolerance, but even their vices
leaned to virtues side. Their religion was
hard, severe, narrow, exacting, intolerant.
but it made them high-thinking men and
women and enabled them to establish a
civilization which has become the light of
the world and the salt of the earth. When
they left England they left almost every
thing behind except their Puritanism. They
left established institutions, laws and social
restraints behind, but they brought their re-
ligion along. Coming to a new country
where there was neither law nor social GUS
tom to enforce morality, they might have
established wide-open towns the forty
miners did in California, or made gambling
and drinking the sole recreations, as in the
mining towns of Colorado to-day. They
might have introduced bull fights as the
Spaniards did, or horse racing as the early
country, they did none of these things. The
seeds of civilization that was to dominate
the continent, and perhaps the world, were
not to be sown by such methods as these.
The world knows pretty well how they were
sown, and how, with good deal of religious
narrowness, some religious persecution and
occasional political laundering Puritan
prayers and the Puritan conscience con-
tinually pointed the way to progress until
the end crowned the work and free state
was formed which was destined to be the
mother of many other free States To the
Puritans we are indebted for the township
system and government by town meeting,
which is the cornerstone of our whole po
litical system. The municipal township was
an outgrowth of the Puritan religion and the
town meeting of the meeting house. which
originally was used for civil as well as
ecclesiastical purposes. Thus, while the
Puritans established complete separation
between church and state, they nevertheless
brought their politics under the shadow of
the pulpit and made government well as
religion matter Of conscience. Thus the
foundations of the Republic were laid in
prayer, and the flower Of Puritanism became
the flower Of liberty 1t should be the aim
OF New England societies to keep ali that
was best, most noble and most knightly in