George Bancroft, History of the Colonization of the United States, Vol. 1, 17th edition.

[451] any person who was not as yet ordained. Thus

Chap X.}

rapidly did human nature display its power! The creation of a national, uncompromising church, led the Congregationalists of Massachusetts to the indulgence of the passions which had disgraced their English persecutors; and Laud was justified by the men whom he had wronged.

But if the Baptists were feared, as professing doctrines tending to disorganize society, how much more reason was there to dread such emissaries of the Quakers as appeared in Massachusetts.! The first and most noisy advocates of any popular sect are apt to be men of little consideration. They who have the least to risk are most clamorous for novelties; and the early advocates of the Quakers in New England displayed little of the mild philosophy, the statesman-like benevolence, of Penn and his disciples; though they possessed the virtue of passive resistance in perfection. Left to themselves, they appeared like a motley tribe of persons, half fanatic, half insane; without consideration, and without definite purposes. Persecution called them forth to show what intensity of will can dwell in the depths of the human heart. They were like those weeds which are unsightly to the eye, and which only when trampled give out precious perfumes.

The rise of ‘the people called Quakers,’ was one of the most remarkable results of the Protestant revolution. It was a consequence of the moral warfare against corruption; the aspiration of the human mind after a perfect emancipation from the long reign of bigotry and superstition. It grew up with men who were impatient at the slow progress of the reformation, the tardy advances of intellectual liberty. A