they themselves might establish the terms of admission. They kept firmly in their own hands the key to their asylum, and were resolved on closing its doors against the enemies of its unity, its safety, and its peace.

"The worke wee have in hand," these are Winthrop's words on board the Arbella during the passage, "is by a mutuall consent, through a speciall overruling Providence, and a more than ordinary approbation of the churches of Christ, to seeke out a place of cohabitation and consorteshipp under a due forme of government both civil and ecclesiastical. For this wee are entered into covenant with God; for this wee must be knitt together as one man, allways having before our eyes our commission as members of the same body. Soe shall wee keepe the unitie of the spirit in the bond of peace. The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as his owne people; wee shall see much more of his wisdome, power, goodness, and truthe, than formerly wee have been acquainted with; hee shall make us a prayse and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantations, 'The Lord make it likely that of New England.""

After sixty-one days at sea, the Arbella came in sight of Mount Desert; on the tenth of June, the White Hills were descried afar off; near the isle of Shoals and Cape Ann the sea was enlivened by the shallops of fishermen; and on the twelfth, as the ship came to anchor outside of Salem harbor, it was visited by William Peirce, of the Lyon, whose frequent voyages had given him experience as a pilot on the coast. Winthrop and his companions came full of hope; they found the colony in an "unexpected condition" of distress. Above eighty had died the winter before. Higginson himself was wasting under a hectic fever; many others were weak and sick; all the corn and bread among them was hardly a fit supply for a fortnight. The survivors of one hundred and eighty servants, who had been sent over in the two years before at a great expense, instead of having prepared a welcome, thronged to the new-comers to be fed; and were set free from all engagements, for their labor, urgent as was the demand for it, was worth less than the cost of their support. Famine threatened to seize the emigrants as they stepped on shore; and it

soon appeared necessary for them, even at a ruinous expense, to send the Lyon to Bristol for food.

To seek out a place for their plantation, since Salem pleased them not, Winthrop, on the seventeenth of June, sailed into Boston harbor. The west country men, who, before leaving England, had organized their church with Maverick and Warham for ministers, and who in a few years were to take part in calling into being the commonwealth of Connecticut, were found at Nantasket, where they had landed just before the end of May. Winthrop ascended the Mystic a few miles, and on the nineteenth took back to Salem a favorable report of the land on its banks. Dudley and others, who followed, preferred the country on the Charles river at Watertown. By common consent, early in the next month the removal was made, with much cost and labor, from Salem to Charlestown. But, while drooping with toil and sorrow, fevers consequent on the long voyage, and the want of proper food and shelter, twelve ships having arrived, the colonists kept the eighth of July as a day of thanksgiving. The emigrants had intended to dwell together, but in their distress they planted where each was inclined. A few remained at Salem; others halted at the Saugus, and founded Lynn. The governor was for the time at Charlestown, where the poor "lay up and down in tents and booths round the hill." On the other side of the river the little peninsula, scarce two miles long by one broad, marked by three hills, and blessed with sweet and pleasant springs, safe pastures, and land that promised "rich cornfields and fruitful gardens," attracted, among others, William Coddington, of Boston in England, who, in friendly relations with William Blackstone, built the first good house there, before it took the name which was to grow famous throughout the world. Some planted on the Mystic, in what is now Malden. Others, with Sir Richard Saltonstall and George Phillips, "a godly minister specially gifted, and very peaceful in his place," made their abode at Watertown; Pynchon and a few began Roxbury; Ludlow and Rossiter, two of the assistants, with the men from the west of England, after wavering in their choice, took possession of Dorchester Neck, now South Boston. The dispersion of the company was esteemed a grievance; but it

was no time for crimination or debate, and those who had health made haste to build. Winthrop himself, "givinge good example to all the planters, wore plaine apparell, drank ordinarily water, and, when he was not conversant about matters of justice, put his hand to labor with his servants."

On Friday, the thirtieth of July, a fast was held at Charlestown; and, after prayers and preaching, Winthrop, Dudley, Isaac Johnson, and Wilson united themselves by covenant into one "congregation," as a part of the visible church militant. On the next Lord's Day others were received; and the members of this body could alone partake of the Lord's Supper, or present their children for baptism. They were all brothers and equals; they revered, each in himself, the dignity of God's image, and nursed a generous reverence for one another; bound to a healing superintendence over each other's lives, they exercised no discipline to remove evil out of the inmost soul, except the censure of the assembly of the faithful, whom it would have been held grievous to offend. This church, the seminal centre of the ecclesiastical system of Massachusetts, was gathered while Higginson was yet alive; on the sixth of August he gave up the ghost with joy, for the future greatness of New England and the coming glories of its many churches floated in cheerful visions before his eyes. When, on the twenty-third of August, the first court of assistants on this side the water was held at Charlestown, how the ministers should be maintained took precedence of all other business; and it was ordered that houses should be built for them, and support provided at the common charge. Four days later the men "of the congregation" kept a fast, and, after their own free choice of John Wilson for their pastor, they themselves set him apart to his office by the imposition of hands, yet without his renouncing his ministry received in England. In like manner the ruling elder and deacons were chosen and installed. Thus was constituted the body which, crossing the Charles river, became known as the First Church of Boston. It embodied the three great principles of Congregationalism; a right faith attended by a true religious experience as the requisite qualifications for membership; the equality of all believers, including the officers of the church; the equality of

the several churches, free from the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical court or bishop, free from the jurisdiction of one church over another, free from the collective authority of them all.

The civil government was exercised with mildness and impartiality, yet with determined vigor. Justices of the peace were commissioned with the powers of those in England. On the seventh of September, names were given to Dorchester, Watertown, and Boston, which thus began their career as towns under sanction of law. Quotas were settled and money levied. The interloper who dared to "confront" the public authority was sent to England, or enjoined to depart out of the limits of the patent.

come over.

As the year for which Winthrop and his assistants had been chosen was coming to an end, on the nineteenth of October, 1630, a general court, the first in America, was held at Boston. Of members of the company, less than twenty had One hundred and eight inhabitants, some of whom were old planters, were now, at their desire, admitted to be freemen. The former officers of government were continued; as a rule for the future, "it was propounded to the people, and assented unto by the erection of hands, that the freemen should have power to choose assistants, when any were to be chosen, the assistants to choose from among themselves the governor and his deputy." The rule implied a purpose to retain continuously in the board any person once elected magistrate, and revealed a natural anxiety respecting the effect of the large creation of freemen which had just been made, and by which the old members of the company had abdicated their controlling power in the court; but, as it was in conflict with the charter, it could have no permanence.

During these events, the emigrants, miserably lodged, beheld their friends "weekly, yea, almost daily, drop away before their eyes; " in a country abounding in secret fountains, they pined for the want of good water. Many of them had been accustomed to plenty and ease, the refinements and the conveniences of luxury. Woman was there to struggle against unforeseen hardships, unimagined sorrows; the men, who defied trials for themselves, were miserable at beholding those whom they cherished dismayed by the horrors which encom

passed them. The virtues of the lady Arbella Johnson could not break through the gloom; she had been ill before her arrival, and grief hurried her to the grave. Her husband, a wise and holy man, in life "the greatest furtherer of the plantation," and by his bequests a large benefactor of the infant state, sank under disease and afflictions; but "he died willingly and in sweet peace," making a "most godly end." Winthrop lost a son, who left a widow and children in England. A hundred or more, some of them of the board of assistants, men who had been trusted as the inseparable companions of the common misery or the common success, disheartened by the scenes of woe, and dreading famine and death, deserted Massachusetts, and sailed for England, while Winthrop remained, "parent-like, to distribute his goods to brethren and neighbors." Before December, two hundred, at the least, had died. Yet, as the brightest lightnings are kindled in the darkest clouds, the general distress did but augment the piety and confirm the fortitude of the colonists. Their earnestness was softened by the mildest sympathy with one another, while trust in Providence kept guard against despair. Not a trace of repining appears in their records; the congregations always assembled at the stated times, whether in the open fields or under the shade of an ancient oak; in the midst of want, they abounded in hope; in the solitudes of the wilderness, they believed themselves watched over by an omnipresent Father. Honor is due not less to those who perished than to those who survived; to the martyrs, the hour of death was an hour of triumph. For that placid resignation, which diffuses grace round the bed of sickness, and makes death too serene for sorrow and too beautiful for fear, no one was more remarkable than the daughter of Thomas Sharpe, whose youth and sex and unequalled virtues won the eulogies of the austere Dudley. Even children caught the spirit of the place, and, in tranquil faith, went to the grave full of immortality. The survivors bore all things meekly, "remembering the end of their coming hither." "We here enjoy God and Jesus Christ," wrote Winthrop to his wife, whom pregnancy had detained in England, "and is not this enough? I thank God I like so well to be here, as I do not repent my