nature of man, and it brought little relief from the despotism of rulers.  One can hardly read the horrible records of the Medici or the Borgias, or the political observations of Machiavelli, without marveling at the moral and political degradation of a cultured nation.  In the North, especially among the German and English peoples, the Renaissance was accompanied by a moral awakening, and it is precisely that awakening in England, “that greatest moral and political reform which ever swept over a nation in the short space of half a century,” which is meant by the Puritan movement.  We shall understand it better if we remember that it had two chief objects:  the first was personal righteousness; the second was civil and religious liberty.  In other words, it aimed to make men honest and to make them free.

Such a movement should be cleared of all the misconceptions which have clung to it since the Restoration, when the very name of Puritan was made ridiculous by the jeers of the gay courtiers of Charles II.  Though the spirit of the movement was profoundly religious, the Puritans were not a religious sect; neither was the Puritan a narrow-minded and gloomy dogmatist, as he is still pictured even in the histories.  Pym and Hampden and Eliot and Milton were Puritans; and in the long struggle for human liberty there are few names more honored by freemen everywhere.  Cromwell and Thomas Hooker were Puritans; yet Cromwell stood like a rock for religious tolerance; and Thomas Hooker, in Connecticut, gave to the world the first written constitution, in which freemen, before electing their officers, laid down the strict limits of the offices to which they were elected.  That is a Puritan document, and it marks one of the greatest achievements in the history of government.

From a religious view point Puritanism included all shades of belief.  The name was first given to those who advocated certain changes in the form of worship of the reformed English Church under Elizabeth; but as the ideal of liberty rose in men’s minds, and opposed to it were the king and his evil counselors and the band of intolerant churchmen of whom Laud is the great example, then Puritanism became a great national movement.  It included English churchmen as well as extreme Separatists, Calvinists, Covenanters, Catholic noblemen,—­all bound together in resistance to despotism in Church and State, and with a passion for liberty and righteousness such as the world has never since seen.  Naturally such a movement had its extremes and excesses, and it is from a few zealots and fanatics that most of our misconceptions about the Puritans arise.  Life was stern in those days, too stern perhaps, and the intensity of the struggle against despotism made men narrow and hard.  In the triumph of Puritanism under Cromwell severe laws were passed, many simple pleasures were forbidden, and an austere standard of living was forced upon an unwilling people.  So the criticism is made