Great Falls daily tribune., 1920-05-30
ANNE HUTCHINSON IN BOSTON


hundred years since Boston and the state OF
Massachusetts was violently excited about Anne
Hutchinson and the doctrines she preached-so
much so that the legislature banished her from
the colony for heresy and sedtion. And now'
we read in Massachusetts paper that Governor
Coolidge of that state has accepted statue OF
the seditious and heretcal Anne, who will now
confront the successors Of the men who banished
her from the colony, at the foot of staircase
which leads to the assembly room of the house
of representatives in the state capitot. Inc
Massachusetts paper says:
"Visitors to the state house viii soon have an
opportunity to see the fine statue Of Anne Hutch-
inson-or rather the plaster cast-by Cyrus T..
Dallin, which for some years has been IN semi
retirement in a corridor of the museum of fine
arts. Governor Coolidge has accepted for the
commonwealth the bronze statue not yet COM
pleted for which a special fund is being raised.
The state art commission has designated the
site for this statue just outside the hall OF flags
at the foot of the staircase leading to the house
of representatives. By placing the plaster model
there for the present, it is hoped that silent
appeal will be effective in leading people to sub
scribe generously toward the completion of the
fund for the statue. Anne Hutchinson herself
was no supplicant. The new world has seen few
women as independent as she in thought and
speech and as fearless of consequences. There is
nothing of the supplicant in the statue as Mr..
DaEn depicts this Lincolnshire woman of our
earliest Boston, whom neither ministers nor the
general court could cow. 1t is an unusual turn
of the wheel of fate that Anne Hutchinson should
he given place at the foot of the stairs leading
to the hall of representatives-the same general
court that sent her into exile and indirectly
caused her death. For at the home in New York
which was her asylum, she was killed by Indians.
Mr.. Dallins statue shows standing figure IN
the picturesque full gown of the 18th century,
with pointed hood and long cloak. She clasps
a Bible to her breast. Clinging to her is a small
er figure, also standng-her little daughter,
Faith. General F. H. Appleton, Mrs. Margaret
Deland. Rev. James De Normandie, Joseph
Grafton Minot and Arthur Winslow, and Erving
Winslow are the committee on the statue
Probably not one in fifty thousand voters in
Massachusetts could tell us without consulting
some history or cyclopedia just what the high
crimes and misdemeanors of Anne Hutchinson
were, which led to her banishment from the Old
Bay state, and indirectly to her death, for on
leaving Massachusetts, under the decree OF the
general court, she went first to Rhode Island
and afterwards to New Netherlands, or New
York. Here for 40 fathoms Of wampum she
bought a tract of land from the Narragansett
Indians and afterwards was murdered with her
entire family save one little girl taken prisoner.
Well we learn from the cyclopedia that the crime
of Anne Hutchinson consisted in her believing
and teaching two horrible doctrines which were
heretical The first was "that the Holy Ghost
dwells in justified person." The second was
that mo sanctification can help to evidence to
us our Justification From these doctrines she
deduced the further conclusion that the clergy of
Massachusetts, with few named exceptions,
were under "a covenant Of works" instead OF
under "a covenant of grace" So important and
vital was the distinction in those days that on
the eve of the Pequot war a regiment of Massa-
chusetts soldiers mutined and refused to march
because they believed their chaplain was under
a covenant of works instead of grace.
It sounds crazy enough these days. now, does
it not Yet, it marks the distance we have trav-
eled since 1886 or thereabouts. In fact, we do
not have to go back century to learn how
people were stirred up over professor in An
dover theological seminary who declared to an
examining committee that he had some doubt in
his mind whether the heather who never had any
chance to hear Christ and the Christian religion
might not through grace be given chance to
escape eternal torment in hell. Such heretical
doctrine, though not asserted as a fact but
merely as a possibility through the goodness and
mercy of God, nearly shocked the ministers of
that day to death, through its wickedness.
Who now is familiar with all the nice dis
tinctions between the doctrines of justification
and sanctification, and the covenant of works
and the covenant of grace. Who knows just
what an Antimonian is, and that was the desig
nation given the followers of Anne Hutchinson