within certain generally acknowledged limits, was never discountenanced in New England.  On the contrary, there has never been a society in the world in which theological problems have been so seriously and persistently discussed as in New England in the colonial period.  The long sermons of the clergymen were usually learned and elaborate arguments of doctrinal points, bristling with quotations from the Bible, or from famous books of controversial divinity, and in the long winter evenings the questions thus raised afforded the occasion for lively debate in every household.  The clergy were, as a rule, men of learning, able to read both Old and New Testaments in the original languages, and familiar with the best that had been talked and written, among Protestants at least, on theological subjects.  They were also, for the most part, men of lofty character, and they were held in high social esteem on account of their character and scholarship, as well as on account of their clerical position.  But in spite of the reverence in which they were commonly held, it would have been a thing quite unheard of for one of these pastors to urge an opinion from the pulpit on the sole ground of his personal authority or his superior knowledge of Scriptural exegesis.  The hearers, too, were quick to detect novelties or variations in doctrine; and while there was perhaps no more than the ordinary human unwillingness to listen to a new thought merely because of its newness, it was above all things needful that the orthodox soundness of every new suggestion should be thoroughly and severely tested.  This intense interest in doctrinal theology was part and parcel of the whole theory of New England life; because, as I have said, it was taken for granted that each individual must hold his own opinions at his own personal risk in the world to come.  Such perpetual discussion, conducted, under such a stimulus, afforded in itself no mean school of intellectual training.  Viewed in relation to the subsequent mental activity of New England, it may be said to have occupied a position somewhat similar to that which the polemics of the medieval schoolmen occupied in relation to the European thought of the Renaissance, and of the age of Hobbes and Descartes.  At the same time the Puritan theory of life lay at the bottom of the whole system of popular education in New England.  According to that theory, it was absolutely essential that every one should be taught from early childhood how to read and understand the Bible.  So much instruction as this was assumed to be a sacred duty which the community owed to every child born within its jurisdiction.  In ignorance, the Puritans maintained, lay the principal strength of popery in religion as well as of despotism in politics; and so, to the best of their lights, they cultivated knowledge with might and main.  But in this energetic diffusion of knowledge they were unwittingly preparing the complete and irreparable destruction of the theocratic ideal