They were always cool, cautions, yet bold, and when they made an effort to gain a right, they always won.

They clung to all their rights and demanded more.

The bigotry of the Puritans of Massachusetts was vehemently condemned at the time of their iron rule and has been ever since; but their theology and their ideas of church government were founded upon the deepest heart-convictions of a people not broadly educated.

Having encountered and subdued a savage wilderness for the purpose of planting therein a church and a commonwealth, fashioned in all their parts after a narrow but cherished pattern, they felt that the domain thus conquered was all their own, and that they had the right to regulate the internal affairs according to their own notion of things.

They boldly proclaimed the right to the exercise of private judgment in matters of conscience, and so tacitly invited the persecuted of all lands to immigrate and settle among them.