Those in the new colony, who turned to the somewhat softer and sweeter givings out of the Great Teacher, and to whom these qualities made the predominant elements of his doctrines, were few in numbers, scattered and weak, while the mass of the immigrants were staunch in the theology of their old home.  The holders of the new ideas not only suffered from the odium of all new heresies, but their doctrines were especially odious, as tending to destroy the wholesome sanctions of fitting punishments, while, like the teachers of all ideas at variance with the old, they were surrounded by and confounded with the herd of old scoffers and unbelievers, who always try to ally themselves with those who, for any reason, doubt or question the dogmas always rejected by them.

And so it is that the apostles of a new dogma come to be weighted with whatever of odium may attach to the old rejectors of the old; and there is always this bond of sympathy between the new heretic and the old infidel; they are both opposed to the holders of the old faith, and hence so far are allies.

In Newbury, in that far-off time, a dozen families, perhaps, respectable for intelligence and morality, were zealous acceptors of the new ideas; and about these, to their great scandal, gathered the straggling, rude spirits and doubtful characters that lightly float on the wave of emigration, to be dropped wherever that subsides.

The organizing power of the new ideas in itself, was not great.  Their spirit was not, and cannot, be aggressive.  They consisted in part of a rejection of much that made Puritanism intolerant in doctrine, and that furnished it with its organizing and militant power.

Men organize to do, and not merely to not do.  Among the most earnest in the support of these ideas were Thomas Ridgeley and his wife, who were also among the most prominent in their neighborhood.  Their public religious exercises were not frequent, and were holden in a school-house in their vicinity, the most attractive feature of which was the excellent singing of the small congregation.  Mrs. Ridgeley came from a family of much local celebrity for their vocal powers, while her husband was not only an accomplished singer, but master of several instruments, and in the new settlements he was often employed as a teacher of music.

The preacher of this small congregation was Mr. Alexander, “Uncle Aleck,” as everybody called him, who lived in the west part of the town, on the border of “the woods.”  A man well in years, inferior in person, with a mild, sweet, benevolent face, and blameless, dreamy life, he spent much time in “sarching the Scripters,” as he expressed it, in constant conversations and mild disputations of Bible texts and doctrines, and sermonizing at the Sunday assemblies of his co-believers.  He was a man without culture, without the advantage of much converse with cultivated people, of rather feeble and slender mental endowments, but of a wonderfully sweet,