from the best of the Puritan gentry; but their original character had been somewhat modified by changed conditions of life.  A harsh and exacting creed, with its stiff formalism and its prohibition of wholesome recreation; excess in the pursuit of gain—­the only resource left to energies robbed of their natural play; the struggle for existence on a hard and barren soil; and the isolation of a narrow village life,—­joined to produce, in the meaner sort, qualities which were unpleasant, and sometimes repulsive.  Puritanism was not an unmixed blessing.  Its view of human nature was dark, and its attitude towards it one of repression.  It strove to crush out not only what is evil, but much that is innocent and salutary.  Human nature so treated will take its revenge, and for every vice that it loses find another instead.  Nevertheless, while New England Puritanism bore its peculiar crop of faults, it produced also many good and sound fruits.  An uncommon vigor, joined to the hardy virtues of a masculine race, marked the New England type.  The sinews, it is true, were hardened at the expense of blood and flesh,—­and this literally as well as figuratively; but the staple of character was a sturdy conscientiousness, an undespairing courage, patriotism, public spirit, sagacity, and a strong good sense.  A great change, both for better and for worse, has since come over it, due largely to reaction against the unnatural rigors of the past.  That mixture, which is now too common, of cool emotions with excitable brains, was then rarely seen.  The New England colonies abounded in high examples of public and private virtue, though not always under the most prepossessing forms.  They were conspicuous, moreover, for intellectual activity, and were by no means without intellectual eminence.  Massachusetts had produced at least two men whose fame had crossed the sea,—­Edwards, who out of the grim theology of Calvin mounted to sublime heights of mystical speculation; and Franklin, famous already by his discoveries in electricity.  On the other hand, there were few genuine New Englanders who, however personally modest, could divest themselves of the notion that they belonged to a people in an especial manner the object of divine approval; and this self-righteousness, along with certain other traits, failed to commend the Puritan colonies to the favor of their fellows.  Then, as now, New England was best known to her neighbors by her worst side.

In one point, however, she found general applause.  She was regarded as the most military among the British colonies.  This reputation was well founded, and is easily explained.  More than all the rest, she lay open to attack.  The long waving line of the New England border, with its lonely hamlets and scattered farms, extended from the Kennebec to beyond the Connecticut, and was everywhere vulnerable to the guns and tomahawks of the neighboring French and their savage allies.  The colonies towards the south had thus far been safe