The Emancipation of Massachusetts

by Brooks Adams

Then Moses said, if “the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord....

“And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.

“They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them:... And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also.” [Footnote: Numbers xvi.] Traces of a similar conflict are found in Hindoo sacred literature, and probably the process has been well-nigh universal. The caste, therefore, originates in knowledge, real and pretended, kept by secret tradition in certain families, and its power is maintained by systematized terrorism. But to learn the mysteries and ritual requires a special education, hence those destined for the priesthood have careful provision made for their instruction. The youthful Zuñi is taught at the sacred college at the shrine of his order; the pious Hindoo lives for years with some famous Brahmin; as soon as the down came on the cheek, the descendants of Aaron were taken into the Temple at Jerusalem, and all have read how Hannah carried the infant Samuel to the house of the Lord at Shiloh, and how the child did minister unto the Lord before Eli the priest.

These facts seem to lead to well-defined conclusions when applied to New England history. In their passionate zeal the colonists conceived the idea of reproducing, as far as they could, the society of the Pentateuch, or, in other words, of reverting to the archaic stage of caste; and in point of fact they did succeed in creating a theocratic despotism which lasted in full force for more than forty years. Of course, in the seventeenth century such a phase of feeling was ephemeral; but the phenomena which attended it are exceptionally interesting, and possibly they are somewhat similar to those which accompany the liberation of a primitive people.

The knowledge which divided the Massachusetts clergy from other men was their supposed proficiency in the interpretation of the ancient writings containing the revelations of God. For the perpetuation of this lore a seminary was as essential to them as an association of priests for the instruction of neophytes is to the Zuni now, or as the training at the Temple was to the Jews. In no other way could the popular faith in their special sanctity be sustained. It is also true that few priesthoods have made more systematic use of terror. The slaughter of Anne Hutchinson and her family was exultingly declared to be the judgment of God for defaming the elders. Increase Mather denounced the disobedient Colman in the words of Moses to Korah; Cotton Mather revelled in picturing the torments of the bewitched; and, even in the last century Jonathan Edwards frightened people into convulsions by his preaching. On the other hand, it is obvious that the reproduction of the Mosaic law could not in the nature of things have been complete; and the two weak points in the otherwise strong position of the clergy were that the spirit of their age did not permit them to make their order hereditary, nor, although their college was a true theological school, did they perceive the danger of allowing any lay admixture. The tendency to weaken the force of the discipline is obvious, yet they were led to abandon the safe Biblical precedent, not only by their own early associations, but by their hatred of anything savoring of Catholicism.

Men to be great leaders must exalt their cause above themselves; and if so godly a man as the Rev. Increase Mather can be said to have had a human failing it was an inordinate love of money and of flattery. The first of these peculiarities showed itself early in life when, as his son says, he was reluctant to settle at the North Church, because of “views he had of greater service elsewhere.” [Footnote: Parentator, p. 25.] In other words, the parish was not liberal; for it seems “the deacons ... were not spirited like some that have succeeded them; and the leaders of the more honest people also, were men of a low, mean, sordid spirit.... For one of his education, and erudition, and gentlemanly spirit, and conversation, to be so creepled and kept in such a depressing poverty!—In these distresses, it was to little purpose for him to make his complaint unto man! If he had, it would have been basely improved unto his disadvantage.” [Footnote: Idem, p. 30.] His diary teemed with repinings. “Oh! that the Lord Jesus, who hears my complaints before him, would either give an heart to my people to look after my comfortable subsistance among them, or ... remove me to another people, who will take care of me, that so I may be in a capacity to attend his work, and glorify his name in my generation.” [Footnote: Idem, p. 33.] However, matters mended with him, for we are assured that “the Glorious One who knew the works, and the service and the patience of this tempted man, ordered it, that several gentlemen of good estate, and of better spirit, were become the members of his church;” and from them he had “such filial usages... as took away from him all room of repenting, that he had not under his temptations prosecuted a removal from them.” [Footnote: Parentator, pp. 34, 35.]

The presidency of Harvard, though nominally the highest place a clergyman could hold in Massachusetts, had always been one of poverty and self-denial; for the salary was paid by the legislature, which, as the unfortunate Dunster had found, was not disposed to be generous. Therefore, although Mr. Mather was chosen president in 1685, and was afterward confirmed as rector by Andros, he was far too pious to be led again into those temptations from which he had been delivered by the interposition of the Glorious One; and the last thing he proposed was to go into residence and give up his congregation. Besides, he was engrossed in politics and went to England in 1688, where he stayed four years. Meanwhile the real control of education was left in the hands of Leverett, who was appointed tutor in 1686, and of William Brattle, who was in full sympathy with his policy. Among the many powers usurped by the old trading company was that of erecting corporations; hence the effect of the judgment vacating the patent had been to annul the college charter which had been granted by the General Court; [Footnote: 23 May, 1650. Mass. Rec. iii. 195.] and although the institution had gone on much as usual after the Revolution, its position was felt to be precarious. Such being the situation when the patriarch came home in 1692 in the plenitude of power, he conceived the idea of making himself the untrammelled master of the university, and he forthwith caused a bill to be introduced into the legislature which would certainly have produced that result. [Footnote: Province Laws, 1692-93, c. 10.] Nor did he meet with any serious opposition in Massachusetts, where his power was, for the moment, well-nigh supreme. His difficulty lay with the king, since the fixed policy of Great Britain was to foster Episcopalianism, and of course to obtain some recognition for that sect at Cambridge. And so it came to pass that all the advantage he reaped by the enactment of this singular law was a degree of Doctor of Divinity [Footnote: Sept. 5, 1692. Quincy’s History of Harvard, i. 71.] which he gave himself between the approval of the bill by Phips and its rejection at London. The compliment was the more flattering, however, as it was the first ever granted in New England. But the clouds were fast gathering over the head of this good man. Like many another benefactor of his race, he was doomed to experience the pangs inflicted by ingratitude, and indeed his pain was so acute he seldom lost an opportunity of giving it public expression; to use his own words of some years later, “these are the last lecture sermons... to be preached by me.... The ill treatment which I have had from those from whom I had reason to have expected better, have discouraged me from being any more concerned on such occasions.” [Footnote: Address to Sermon, The Righteous Man a Blessing, 1702.]

Certainly he was in a false position; he was necessarily unappreciated by the liberals, and he had not only alienated many staunch conservatives by his acceptance of the charter, but he had embittered them, by rigorously excluding all except his particular faction from Phips’s council. To his deep chagrin, the elections of 1693 went in favor of many of these thankless men, and his discontent soon took the form of an intense longing to go abroad in some official position which would give him importance. The only possible opening seemed to be to get himself made agent to negotiate a charter for Harvard; and therefore he soon had “angelical” suggestions that God needed him in England to glorify his name.

“1693. September 3d. As I was riding to preach at Cambridge, I prayed to God,—begged that my labors might be blessed to the souls of the students; at the which I was much melted. Also saying to the Lord, that some workings of his Providence seemed to intimate, that I must be returned to England again; ... I was inexpressibly melted, and that for a considerable time, and a stirring suggestion, that to England I must go. In this there was something extraordinary, either divine or angelical.”

“December 30th. Meltings before the Lord this day when praying, desiring being returned to England again, there to do service to his name, and persuasions that the Lord will appear therein.”