[6] It is now 204 years since a battle has been fought in England.  The last was Sedgmoor in 1685.  For four centuries, since Bosworth, in 1485, the English people have lived in peace in their own homes, except for the brief episode of the Great Rebellion, and Monmouth’s slight affair.  This long peace, unparalleled in history, has powerfully influenced the English and American character for good.  Since the Middle Ages most English warfare has been warfare at a distance, and that does not nourish the brutal passions in the way that warfare at home does.  An instructive result is to be seen in the mildness of temper which characterized the conduct of our stupendous Civil War.  Nothing like it was ever seen before.

[7] Picton’s Cromwell, pp. 61, 67; Gardiner, Puritan Revolution, p. 72.

[8] Quincy, History of Harvard University, ii. 654.

[9] C.F.  Adams, Sir Christopher Gardiner, Knight, p. 31.

[10] The compact drawn up in the Mayflower’s cabin was not, in the strict sense a constitution, which is a document defining and limiting the functions of government.  Magna Charta partook of the nature of a written constitution, as far as it went, but it did not create a government.

[11] See Johnston’s Connecticut, p. 321, a very brilliant book.

[12] See the passionate exclamation of Endicott, below, p. 190.

[13] Excursions of an Evolutionist:  pp. 250, 255.

[14] A glimmer of light upon Gorton may be got from reading the title-page of one of his books:  “AN INCORRUPTIBLE KEY, composed of the CX PSALME, wherewith you may open the Rest of the Holy Scriptures; Turning itself only according to the Composure and Art of that Lock, of the Closure and Secresie of that great Mystery of God manifest in the Flesh, but justified only by the Spirit, which it evidently openeth and revealeth, out of Fall and Resurrection, Sin and Righteousness, Ascension and Descension, Height and Depth, First and Last, Beginning and Ending, Flesh and Spirit, Wisdome and Foolishnesse, Strength and Weakness, Mortality and Immortality, Jew and Gentile, Light and Darknesse, Unity and Multiplication, Fruitfulness and Barrenness, Curse and Blessing, Man and Woman, Kingdom and Priesthood, Heaven and Earth, Allsufficiency and Deficiency, God and Man.  And out of every Unity made up of twaine, it openeth that great two-leafed Gate, which is the sole Entrie into the City of God, of New Jerusalem, into which none but the King of glory can enter; and as that Porter openeth the Doore of the Sheepfold, by which whosoever entreth is the Shepheard of the Sheep; See Isa. 45. 1.  Psal. 24. 7, 8, 9, 10.  John 10. 1, 2, 3; Or, (according to the Signification of the Word translated Psalme,) it is a Pruning-Knife, to lop off from the Church of Christ all superfluous Twigs of earthly and carnal Commandments, Leviticall Services or Ministery, and fading and vanishing Priests,