she still holds (how much longer she may hold it remains to be seen) as the leading power of the world.  If she has to relinquish that position, it will only be to a power that is true to the spirit, and is not ashamed of the name, of a republic.  The nation that fully develops the policy which pervaded the records of the English Commonwealth will be the leader of the world.  The suppression of those records has not suppressed the spirit of popular liberty, or the progress of mankind in the path of reform, freedom, equal rights, and a true civilization.  It has only cast a shadow, which can never wholly be dispelled, over what otherwise would have been the brightest page in the annals of a great people.  We depend for our knowledge of the steps by which England then made a most wonderful stride to prosperity and power, not upon official and authoritative records, but upon the desultory and sometimes merely gossiping memoirs of particular persons, and such other miscellaneous materials as can be picked up.  The only consequence of an attempt to extinguish the memory of republicans, radicals, reformers, and regicides has been, that the history of England’s true glory can never be adequately written.

The referees used the following language touching the point of the ordination of Mr. Lawson:  “If more than a mere major part should not consent to it, we should be loath to advise our brethren to proceed.”  This, in connection with the other sentence I have quoted from their communication recommending them “to desist at present” from urging it, was fatal to the immediate movement in his favor; and, not seeing any prospect of their “spirits becoming better quieted and composed,” and weary of the attempt to bring them to any comfortable degree of unanimity, Mr. Lawson threw up his connection with them, and removed back to Boston.  We shall meet him again; but it is well to despatch at this point what is to be said of his character and history.

It is evident that Deodat Lawson had received the best education of his day.  It is not easy to account for his not having left a more distinguished mark in Old or New England.  He had much learning and great talents.  Of his power in getting up pulpit performances in the highest style of eloquence, of which that period afforded remarkable specimens, I shall have occasion to speak.  Among his other attainments, he was, what cannot be said of learned and professional men generally now any more than then, an admirable penman.  The village parish adopted the practice at the beginning, when paying the salaries of its ministers from time to time, instead of taking receipts on detached and loose pieces of paper, of having them write them out in their own hand on the pages of the record-book, with their signatures.  It is a luxury, in looking over the old volume, to come upon the receipts of Deodat Lawson, in his plain, round hand.  A specimen is given among the autographs.  His chirography is easy, free, graceful, clear, and