tell you, sir, there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland. There is Christ Jesus the king, and his kingdom the kirk, whose subject James VI. is, and of whose kingdom, not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member. And they whom Christ hath called to watch over his kirk and govern his spiritual kingdom, have sufficient power and authority so to do both together and severally."

Here is the very dialect of our old document, but what sounds to an uninstructed ear to be but the outburst of an angry theologian is really an assertion of popular rights against despotic privilege; an assertion couched in language as lofty as any king ever held toward his poorest vassal. When James had put on his English crown, he said of such as Melville: "I will make them conform, or I will harry them out of the land." The son of James was to find that though he might "harry" his Puritans, he could not make them "conform." They were to show the world a new thing under the sun, "A church without a bishop, and a state without a king."

That was the meaning of the old covenant, kept for us on the yellow page of Cotton Mather's rambling record, to which "that excellent knight, Sir Richard Saltonstall" and "about forty" other men set their hands "with oath and solemn protestation," on that 30th day of July, 1630.

The first church organized on the soil of New England was that in Salem which had its origin in 1629, on the 6th day of August. It has been quite commonly supposed that the church in Dorchester came next, in June, 1630, and that the First Church in Boston was organized on the same day as that in Watertown.

The facts, however, seem to be otherwise. First: The people who settled in Dorchester, in June, 1630, had been organized into a church before they left England. Second: This original church left Dorchester in 1636, and established itself in Windsor, Connecticut, where it still remains. The present First Church in Dorchester is not the original. Bond says: "After this removal, the remnant of the church. left in Dorchester, with Mr. Richard Mather and the company that came over with him, united and organized another church, their covenant being dated August 23, 1636." This statement of Bond is confirmed by Professor Alexander Johnston, in his Connecticut. In this Professor Johnston says: "The original church of Watertown is still in Massachusetts; the original churches of Cambridge and Dorchester are now in Hartford and Windsor." If anything further were needed to settle the matter, we might find it in these words from Winthrop's Journal, under date of February 1, 1636.

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“Mr. Mather and others, of Dorchester, intending to begin a new church there (a great part of the old one being gone to Connecticut) desired the approbation of the other churches and of the magistrates; and, accordingly, they assembled this day, and, after some of them had made proof of their gifts, they made confession of their faith, which was approved of; but proceeding to manifest the work of God's grace in themselves, the churches, by their elders, the magistrates, etc., thought them not meet, at present, to be the foundation of a church; and thereupon they were content to forbear to join till further consideration."

This "further consideration" lasted until August

23, 1636, under which date, Winthrop says: "A new church was gathered at Dorchester, with the approbation of the magistrates and elders, etc."

The facts regarding the First Church in Boston seem to be as follows: It was organized August 27, 1630, in Charlestown. Under this date, Governor Winthrop wrote in his Journal: "We of the congregation kept a fast, and chose Mr. Wilson our teacher, and Mr. Nowell an elder, and Mr. Gager and Mr. Aspinwall deacons." That this was the true date, is shown by an entry in the diary of the Reverend Joseph Sewall of Boston. This entry reads as follows: "1730, August 27, I preached the lecture from 2 Peter 3.15, Account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salva". N.B. It is y" day one hundred years since the first church in this Town was gathered in Charlestown."

This is perfectly explicit, and is conclusive as to Boston opinion when men had access to original and living authorities. The writer of this note might have seen and talked with men who had participated in the meeting recorded by Governor Winthrop, and heard from their own lips their own understanding of what they did at that time.

The decision and capacity for affairs displayed by the founders of Watertown, in the first steps of their community-life, marked them as men of no ordinary type. Some, at least, of the men who settled here understood what the newly opening era was to record, better than any others in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, and they were better prepared to enter upon the new stage and rightly act their parts.

This appears at once in the structure of the church they organized "as their first work." The "estate"

founded by them was not "a church" as that institution had existed in England and during most of the Christian centuries. It was a free democracy, a miniature state, organized under the charter of divine law, by men who held themselves to be sons of God. George Phillips, the first minister of Watertown, declared, before he had been two weeks on shore, that "if they would have him stand minister by that calling which he had received from the prelates in England, he would leave them." The only "calling" he would recognize was that given him by his brethren when they asked him to be their minister. His position in this matter was regarded by most as extreme, but he steadily adhered to it, and in so doing he was sustained by his people. And when, in 1639, they desired a colleague for Mr. Phillips, they selected Mr. John Knowles, and ordained him as a second pastor, pastor, without giving the governor any notice of their intended action, without consultation with any other church, and without inviting any minister except their own. By doing as they did, they simply put into practice a widely accepted theory of Christian liberty; but then, as now, theory and practice were not always seen in company, and Watertown became notorious for its perverse consistency. But it is now seen that, by turning theory into practice, it had incarnated the principle of congregational independence in the first purely congregational church in the colony.

But they went farther than this. In this they simply asserted their own right to liberty of thought and action. To do this, as they did it, required a high type of enlightenment and daring. But to assert the right of other people to liberty of thought

and action requires not only a high type of enlightenment and daring, but also a largeness of spirit not common at the present day. In 1630, and among Puritan seceders from the Church of England, it was found only in a few rare souls. But such souls were found here on the Charles, before the church was a year old. Richard Browne, the elder of the church, declared that "the churches of Rome were true churches." This was, practically, to say that as he had acted out his conviction in helping to organize a democratic church, so another man might act out his conviction in helping to organize a Romish church. This was a heresy of the first order, and on the 21st of July, 1631, the governor, the deputy-governor, and the elder of the Boston church, came out to make inquiry and administer rebuke. It then came out that Mr. Phillips, the minister of the church, gave his countenance to Browne's doctrine. In the following November the matter was taken up by the General Court, but there is nothing to show that either Mr. Phillips or his elder ever receded from the ground they had taken. The people of the town stood by their minister, and showed their approval of Browne by sending him more than twenty times as their representative to the General Court.

Sir Richard Saltonstall was, as we have seen, one of the founders of our town, and his name was the first on the old church covenant. He did not remain in the colony, but as he held his lands and intended to return, he must have remained a member of the Watertown church. His famous letter to the ministers of Boston may, therefore, be regarded as a part of our church history. In this letter he