Hutchinson says, “Notwithstanding the great variety of sectaries in England, there had been no divisions of any consequence in the Massachusetts; but from 1637 to 1656, they enjoyed, in general, great quietness in their ecclesiastical affairs, discords in particular churches being healed and made up by a submission to the arbitrament of neighboring churches, and sometimes the interposition of the civil power.” But soon after all this, commencing indeed in 1655, in New England, continues Hutchinson, “it must be confessed, that bigotry and cruel zeal prevailed, and to that degree that no opinions but their own could be tolerated. They were sincere but mistaken in their principles; and absurd as it is, it is too evident, they believed it to be for the glory of God to take away the lives of his creatures for maintaining tenets contrary to what they professed themselves.” It is said, however, “that every religion which is persecuted becomes itself persecuting; for as soon as, by some accidental turn, it arises from persecution, it attacks the religion which persecuted it.” Perhaps the Puritans thought they had been persecuted!
It seems to be understood that the Quakers finally got a standing in Boston, and a meeting-house, as, in 1667, mention is made of their “ordinary place of meeting,” though their numbers were small. The Baptists, however, did not get their meeting-house until 1679; and then, as a law had been passed against the building of meeting-houses without permission of the county courts, theirs was built as a private house, and afterwards purchased by them. But Drake says, “The times had become so much changed that such a law could not be very well enforced.” By this time, also, the matter was again brought to the notice of the king, Charles II.; and he wrote, on July 24, to the authorities of Boston, “requiring them not to molest people in their worship, who were of the Protestant faith, and directing that liberty of conscience should be extended to all such.” This letter, it is said, had some effect on the rulers, although they regarded it as an interference with their chartered rights; and, after all, it was rather a development of that common sense which fanaticism and bigotry had so long obscured, possibly awakened by the order of the king, rather than controlled by it, that brought about the change in the spirit of persecution.
In 1737, a different Christian spirit was manifested towards the Quakers, and they were exempted from taxes for the support of the clergy, provided they attended their own meetings. A letter from a Quaker to the King gives the following statement of the punishments and penalties received by his brethren: “Twenty-two have been banished on pain of death, three have been martyred, three have had their right ears cut, one hath been burned in the hand with the letter H, thirty-one persons have received six hundred and fifty stripes, ... one thousand and forty-four pounds worth of goods have been taken from them, and one lieth now in fetters, condemned to die.” The letter H was probably intended for “heretic,” which would certainly be giving a judgment against the religion the Quakers professed.
In 1694, the Quakers owned a lot on Brattle Street, and it is thought probable had some sort of a meeting-house upon it; but still the years passed on, we hardly know how, until 1708, when they desired to build a brick house, but could not get permission to do so. Afterwards they built a small brick meeting-house in the rear of Congress Street on one side, and in the rear of Water Street on the other. It ran back to what is now the line of Exchange Place; in fact, was nearly in the centre of the square formed by State, Congress, Water, and Devonshire Streets. This building was partly destroyed by fire in 1760, having been standing more than fifty years; was then repaired, and finally demolished in 1825, having been unoccupied for nearly twenty years, the society, in 1808, having voted to discontinue their meetings.
It is probably true that the treatment of the Quakers in the Massachusetts Colony, in the years mentioned, from 1600 to 1666-67, is unparalleled in the history of the human race; and although it may be true, as has been said, that the people here exiled themselves in order that “they might maintain and perpetuate what they conceived to be the principles of true Christianity,” they manifested but little of the spirit of the Saviour of mankind or the religion he came to teach. Hutchinson concludes what he has to say of the remarkable persecution of the Quakers and its severity, with the remark, “May the time never come again, when the government shall think that by killing men for their religion they do God good service.” However other denominations of Christians were persecuted by the Puritans, only Quakers and witches were hung. “These transient persecutions,” as Bancroft calls them, with all the leniency possible, “begun in self-defence, were yet no more than a train of mists hovering of an autumn morning over the channel of a fine river, that diffused freshness and fertility wherever it wound.” Much of this condition of things, it must be admitted, resulted from natural causes; namely, the character and circumstances of the settlers, their peculiar religious belief, and absolute fanaticism.
Finally, another writer says, “The Puritans disclaimed the right to sit in judgment on the opinions of others. They denied that they persecuted for conscience sake.” These and some other statements seem to show that they did not practise as they preached, or gave an interpretation to that practice not in accordance with the understanding and convictions of mankind. To be sure, they had a law to punish any one who spoke disrespectfully of the Scriptures, and at the same time fined, punished, banished, and hung those who entertained and presumed to teach principles, belief, or doctrines in relation to the Scriptures different from their own; not, as they allege, because they had the right to sit in judgment upon them, but because of the dangers of their teaching and practice: in other words, for their own protection, “self-defence,” as has been said. Nevertheless, maiming, marring, and taking the lives of God’s creatures, the equals in every respect of themselves, as Hutchinson puts it, is only to be apologized for or excused by the infirmities of humanity; indeed, we should rather say, is not to be excused on any such ground, and their own doctrine and belief teaches that it was a proceeding to be punished and repented of. This, at any rate, was always the belief of the Quakers. Drake says, “The persecuted Quakers were fully persuaded that a day of wrath would overtake New England, and they did not fail to declare their belief; and, indeed, it was not long before their predictions were fulfilled: for the terrible war with the Indians, which followed in a few years, was viewed by them as the vengeance of heaven for their cruelty to the Quakers.”
VIII.
FIRST NEWSPAPER IN AMERICA.