*o Nothing can be more curious and, at the same time more instructive, than the legislation of that period; it is there that the solution of the great social problem which the United States now present to the world is to be found.
[Footnote o: The inhabitants of Massachusetts had deviated from the forms which are preserved in the criminal and civil procedure of England; in 1650 the decrees of justice were not yet headed by the royal style.

See Hutchinson, vol.i.p.

452.] Amongst these documents we shall notice, as especially characteristic, the code of laws promulgated by the little State of Connecticut in 1650.
*p The legislators of Connecticut *q begin with the penal laws, and, strange to say, they borrow their provisions from the text of Holy Writ.
"Whosoever shall worship any other God than the Lord," says the preamble of the Code, "shall surely be put to death." This is followed by ten or twelve enactments of the same kind, copied verbatim from the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy.

Blasphemy, sorcery, adultery, *r and rape were punished with death; an outrage offered by a son to his parents was to be expiated by the same penalty.

The legislation of a rude and half-civilized people was thus applied to an enlightened and moral community.