of universal equity, and claiming “the ultimate resolution for the whole body of the people:”  and Hooker, of vast endowments, a strong will and an energetic mind; ingenuous in his temper, and open in his professions; trained to benevolence by the discipline of affliction; versed in tolerance by his refuge in Holland; choleric, yet gentle in his affections; firm in his faith, yet readily yielding to the power of reason; the peer of the reformers, without their harshness; the devoted apostle to the humble and the poor, severe toward the proud, mild in his soothings of a wounded spirit, glowing with the raptures of devotion, and kindling with the messages of redeeming love; his eye, voice, gesture, and whole frame animate with the living vigor of heart-felt religion; public-spirited and lavishly charitable; and, “though persecutions and banishments had awaited him as one wave follows another,” ever serenely blessed with “a glorious peace of soul”; fixed in his trust in Providence, and in his adhesion to that cause of advancing civilization, which he cherished always, even while it remained to him a mystery.  This was he whom, for his abilities and services, his contemporaries placed “in the first rank” of men; praising him as “the one rich pearl, with which Europe more than repaid America for the treasures from her coast.”  The people to whom Hooker ministered had preceded him; as he landed they crowded about him with their welcome.  “Now I live,” exclaimed he, as with open arms he embraced them, “now I live if ye stand fast in the Lord.”

Thus recruited, the little band in Massachusetts grew more jealous of its liberties.  “The prophets in exile see the true forms of the house.”  By a common impulse, the freemen of the towns chose deputies to consider in advance the duties of the general court.  The charter plainly gave legislative power to the whole body of the freemen; if it allowed representatives, thought Winthrop, it was only by inference; and, as the whole people could not always assemble, the chief power, it was argued, lay necessarily with the assistants.

Far different was the reasoning of the people.  To check the democratic tendency, Cotton, on the election day, preached to the assembled freemen against rotation in office.  The right of an honest magistrate to his place was like that of a proprietor to his freehold.  But the electors, now between three and four hundred in number, were bent on exercising “their absolute power,” and, reversing the decision of the pulpit, chose a new governor and deputy.  The mode of taking the votes was at the same time reformed; and, instead of the erection of hands, the ballot-box was introduced.  Thus “the people established a reformation of such things as they judged to be amiss in the government.”

It was further decreed that the whole body of the freemen should be convened only for the election of the magistrates:  to these, with deputies to be chosen by the several towns, the powers of legislation and appointment were henceforward intrusted.  The trading corporation was unconsciously become a representative democracy.