Among such writings that which perhaps best epitomizes the Puritan philosophy is “The Wonder-working Providence of Zion’s Saviour in New England,” by Captain Edward Johnson, one of the principal founders of Woburn.  It is an extremely valuable history of New England from 1628 to 1651, and every page is alive with the virile energy of that stirring time.  With narrative, argument, and apologue, abounding in honesty of purpose, sublimity of trust, and grotesqueness of fancy, wherein touching tenderness is often alternated with sternness most grim and merciless, yet now and then relieved by a sudden gleam of humour,—­and all in a style that is usually uncouth and harsh, but sometimes bursts forth in eloquence worthy of Bunyan,—­we are told how the founders of New England are soldiers of Christ enlisted in a holy war, and how they must “march manfully on till all opposers of Christ’s kingly power be abolished.”  “And as for you who are called to sound forth his silver trumpets, blow loud and shrill to this chiefest treble tune—­for the armies of the great Jehovah are at hand.”  “He standeth not as an idle spectator beholding his people’s ruth and their enemies’ rage, but as an actor in all actions, to bring to naught the desires of the wicked, ... having also the ordering of every weapon in its first produce, guiding every shaft that flies, leading each bullet to his place of settling, and weapon to the wound it makes.”  To men engaged in such a crusade against the powers of evil, nothing could seem insignificant or trivial; for, as Johnson continues, in truly prophetic phrase, “the Lord Christ intends to achieve greater matters by this little handful than the world is aware of.” [Sidenote:  Edward Johnson]

The general sentiment of the early New England writers was like that of the “Wonder-working Providence,” though it did not always find such rhapsodic expression.  It has left its impress upon the minds of their children’s children down to our own time, and has affected the opinions held about them by other people.  It has had something to do with a certain tacit assumption of superiority on the part of New Englanders, upon which the men and women of other communities have been heard to comment in resentful and carping tones.  There has probably never existed, in any age or at any spot on the earth’s surface, a group of people that did not take for granted its own preeminent excellence.  Upon some such assumption, as upon an incontrovertible axiom, all historical narratives, from the chronicles of a parish to the annals of an empire, alike proceed.  But in New England it assumed a form especially apt to provoke challenge.  One of its unintentional effects was the setting up of an unreal and impossible standard by which to judge the acts and motives of the Puritans of the seventeenth century.  We come upon instances of harshness and cruelty, of narrow-minded bigotry, and superstitious frenzy; and feel, perhaps, a little surprised that