. Old New England churches and their children. ed civil rights without first havingto qualify as Puritans. It was the majority thatwas developing Ne\^ England, while the Puritanfills the space we habitually give to news—theexceptional; the grotesque perhaps; certainlythe picturesque. Dr. Hale in his apology for Cotton Matherreminds us that he wrote the book on InvisibleWonders when a very young man, and the bookis not one whit more absurd than the absurdbooks which absurd people write to-day. Buthe does not point out that to-day we either re-gard the people who write absurd books moreor less i
. Old New England churches and their children. ed civil rights without first havingto qualify as Puritans. It was the majority thatwas developing Ne\^ England, while the Puritanfills the space we habitually give to news—theexceptional; the grotesque perhaps; certainlythe picturesque. Dr. Hale in his apology for Cotton Matherreminds us that he wrote the book on InvisibleWonders when a very young man, and the bookis not one whit more absurd than the absurdbooks which absurd people write to-day. Buthe does not point out that to-day we either re-gard the people who write absurd books moreor less indulgently as people who are more or lessunsound or else such books are frankly admittedby their writers to be fairy tales. Hauptmannwrote Die versunkene Glocke, but we are not hang-ing people because an author chooses to makeliterary material of nixies and other uncanny Cotton Mather wrote of Invisible Won-ders he compelled his flock to live up to themor to have their lives crushed out. Mathers was at no time a master mind, nor. U <=SI — H p i w £ O a; O p- ^ -s Old North Church, Boston, Mass. 35 was his the master hand among his people. Hewas the abject slave of his own fears and dis-tractions, and his feverishness influenced othersonly momentarily, gaining response from a fewfebrile souls like his own. The natural healththat was in the community prevailed, and hefound himself so much despised that he wrotewith a whimpering weakness—enough to havemade a great man contemptible—when he foundhimself hoisted by his own petard. Some, he wrote on purpose to affront me,call their negroes by the name of Cotton Mather,so that they may with some shadow of truth assertcrimes committed by one of that name which thehearers take me to be. Here speaks a minddiseased if ever one spoke. Doubtless negroeswere given the name of Cotton Mather in derisionor contempt by those who at last vehementlyprotested against the Mather regime; but onlya mind capable of profound meann
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