The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-12-11

of Melancholy might be the model in
division and subdivision after which the
'Magnalia" was built" Boston in par
ticular inspired his pen. In his "Bos-
tonian Ebenezer' he says: "Our town
is now three score and eight years odd,
and certainly it is time for us to set up
our Ebenezer. Truly, there hath not one
year passed over this town, Alb Urba
Condita,' upon the story whereof he
might not make that note, our 'Ebe-
rezer. 1t is from thy watchful protec-
ton, thou keeper Of Boston, who neith-
er slumbers nor sleeps" Old Boston, by
name, was but st. Botolph's town.
Thou, o Boston, shalt have but one
protector in heaven. Rejoice in Him
alone and say: The Lord is my fortress
and deliverer.' Old pagan towns were
sometimes mighty solicitous to conceal
the name of the particular god that they
counted their protector. Ne alb hostibus
Evocatur. alio commigraret. But 1 shall
be far from doing my town any damage
by publishing the name Of it's protector,
for among the gods there is none like
unto thee, o Lord
Hero worship hundred years ago ran
in ecclesiastical and literary channels,
and the height of its praise has not been
since transcribed. But Mather was
equally generous with the worthless he
embalmed in his sonorous prose-Thomas
Hooker, for instance when Toxaris
met with his countryman Anarcharis, in
Athens, he gave him this fNOitation,
Come along with me and l will show
thee the wonders of Greece whereupon
he showed him Scion as the person in
whom there centered all the glories Of
that city or country. shall now invite
my reader to behold at once the Won
ders of New England, and 1t Is in ons
Thomas Hooker that he shall behold
them, our celebrious Hooker. whom I
may call, as Theodorot called Irenaeus,
the light of the western churches"
Mather was pedantfc, but it had been
fashionable since King James reign to
embroider all literary fabrics with old
jewels, and what would haye become of
Cotton Mather if he had not disgorged
some of the treasures he was continually !.
swallowing. In this, as in his discourse
1ngS on witchcraft, some allowance
should be made for the age in which he
lived. It's tastes and standards and be-
liefs were not ours; but, according to
It's own Cotton Mather was one of the
Industrious providences," and the prin-
cipal man Of his time, the perfected fruit
Of ENTHUSIASTICALLY, learned, supersu-
tious, narrow-minded. No other single
writer has furnished so complete an ac-
count Of the Puritan age, and the stu
dents of its history will find his interest
divided between what Mather has to re-
late and the diversified manner of his
variations and the variety of his ac-
quirements. For example, he published,
over 200 years ago, 1899, la Religion
Pura," an essay to convey religion into
the Spanish isles, an early instance of
American responsiveness.
There are other writings of this closing
period of the century which are in the
same vein-narrative, controversial and
marvellous. Some, like Peter Folger, tried
i,t& -,
William Hubbard and Mathew Mathew,
wrestled with the still unsettled Indian
problem, as Elliot did with their lam
guage and morals, translating for their
improvement several books, like ''BaX-
ter's Call to the Unconverted," and writ
ing Logic Primer for the Use of In
dams" Increase Mather wrote on "The
Unlawfulness of Common Prayer Wor-
ship and the Divine Right Of Infant
Baptism" George Keith found the
churches Of New England to be no true
church, and James Allen defended the
churches against the calumnies Of George
Keith.
Daniel Leeds wrote News Of Trump
ct Sounding in the Wilderness" and
Their Own Declension,'' and John Mason
"A Brief History Of the Pequot War"
Then there Is the usual flood of eulogies
and elegies on the "much-to-be- deplored
death Of that never-to- b5-forgotten per-
son, the Rev. Mr. Nathaniel Collins, or
Thomas Shepherd, or that Pattern and
Patron of Virtue, Anne Bradstreet.
The clerical factor. in early American
literature, and politics, too, had no rea-
son to be unconscious of itself, and was
seldom oppressed with dtffidence.
persons who have missed any Of the
Home Study Courses can obtain them at
the counting room Of I h G o e.
Copyright, 1907