Shortly before the departure of Williams, there came to Boston one of the greatest Puritan statesmen of that heroic age, the younger Henry Vane.  It is pleasant to remember that the man and Anne who did so much to overthrow the tyranny of Strafford, who brought the military strength of Scotland to the aid of the hard-pressed Parliament, who administered the navy with which Blake won his astonishing victories, who dared even withstand Cromwell at the height of his power when his measures became too violent,—­it is pleasant to remember that this admirable man was once the chief magistrate of an American commonwealth.  It is pleasant for a Harvard man to remember that as such he presided over the assembly that founded our first university.  Thorough republican and enthusiastic lover of liberty, he was spiritually akin to Jefferson and to Samuel Adams.  Like Williams he was a friend to toleration, and like Williams he found Massachusetts an uncomfortable home.  In 1636 he was only twenty-four years of age, “young in years,” and perhaps not yet “in sage counsel old.”  He was chosen governor for that year, and his administration was stormy.  Among those persons who had followed Mr. Cotton from Lincolnshire was Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, a very bright and capable lady, if perhaps somewhat impulsive and indiscreet.  She had brought over with her, says Winthrop, “two dangerous errors:  first, that the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person; second, that no sanctification can help to evidence to us our justification.”  Into the merits of such abstruse doctrines it is not necessary for the historian to enter.  One can hardly repress a smile as one reflects how early in the history of Boston some of its characteristic social features were developed.  It is curious to read of lectures there in 1636, lectures by a lady, and transcendentalist lectures withal!  Never did lectures in Boston arouse greater excitement than Mrs. Hutchinson’s.  Many of her hearers forsook the teachings of the regular ministers, to follow her. [Sidenote:  Henry Vane and Anne Hutchinson]

She was very effectively supported by her brother-in-law, Mr. Wheelwright, an eloquent preacher, and for a while she seemed to be carrying everything before her.  She won her old minister Mr. Cotton, she won the stout soldier Captain Underhill, she won Governor Vane himself; while she incurred the deadly hatred of such men as Dudley and Cotton’s associate John Wilson.  The church at Boston was divided into two hostile camps.  The sensible Winthrop marvelled at hearing men distinguished “by being under a covenant of grace or a covenant of works, as in other countries between Protestants and Papists,” and he ventured to doubt whether any man could really tell what the difference was.  The theological strife went on until it threatened to breed civil disaffection among the followers of Mrs. Hutchinson.  A peculiar bitterness was given to the affair, from the fact that she professed to be endowed with the spirit of prophecy