The Emancipation of Massachusetts Part 26

1696. "April 19th (Sabbath.) In the morning, as I was praying in my closet, my heart was marvellously melted with the persuasion, that I should glorify Christ in England."

"1697. June 7th. Discourse with ministers about the college, and the corporation unanimously desired me to take a voyage for England on the college's account." [Footnote: _History of Harvard_, i. 476, App. ix.]

But of what the senior tutor was doing with the rising generation he took no note at all. His attention was probably first attracted by rumors of the Brattle Church revolt, for not till 1697 was he able to divert his thoughts from himself long enough to observe that all was not as it should be at Cambridge. Then, at length, he made an effort to get rid of Leverett by striking his name from the list of fellows when a bill for incorporation was brought into the legislature; but this crafty politician had already become too strong in the house of representatives, of which he was soon after made speaker.

Two years later, however, the conservative clergy made a determined effort and prepared a bill containing a religious test, which they supported with a pet.i.tion praying "that, in the charter for the college, our holy religion may be secured to us and unto our posterity, by a provision, that no person shall be chosen president, or fellow, of the college, but such as declare their adherence unto the principles of reformation, which were espoused and intended by those who first settled the country ... and have hitherto been the general profession of New England." [Footnote: _Idem_, i. 99.] This time they narrowly missed success, for the bill pa.s.sed the houses, but was vetoed by Lord Bellomont.

Hitherto Cotton Mather had shown an unfilial lack of interest in his father's ambition to serve the public; but this summer he also began to have a.s.surances from G.o.d. One cause for his fervor may have been the death of the Rev. Mr. Morton, who was conceded to stand next in succession to the presidency, and he therefore supposed himself to be sure of the office should a vacancy occur. [Footnote: _Idem_, i. 102.]

"1699. 7th d. 4th m. (June.) The General Court has, divers times of late years, had under consideration the matter of the settlement of the college, which was like still to issue in a voyage of my father to England, and the matter is now again considered. I have made much prayer about it many and many a time. Nevertheless, I never could have my mind raised unto any particular faith about it, one way or another. But this day, as I was (may I not say) in the spirit, it was in a powerful manner a.s.sured me from heaven, that my father should one day be carried into England, and that he shall there glorify the Lord Jesus Christ;...

And thou, O Mather the younger, shalt live to see this accomplished!"

[Footnote: _History of Harvard_, i. 482, 483, App. x.]

"16th d. 5th m. (July.) Being full of distress in my spirit, as I was at prayer in my study at noon, it was told me from heaven, that my father shall be carried from me unto England, and that my opportunities to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ will, on that occasion, _be gloriously accommodated_."

"18th d. 5th m.... And now behold a most unintelligible dispensation!

At this very time, even about noon, instead of having the bill for the college enacted, as was expected, the governor plainly rejected it, because of a provision therein, made for the religion of the country."

After the veto the patriarch seems to have got the upper hand for a season, and to have made some arrangement by which he evicted his adversary, as appears by a very dissatisfied letter written by Leverett in August, 1699: "As soon as I got home I was informed, that Rev.

President (I. M.), held a corporation at the college the 7th inst., and the said corporation, after the publication of the _new settlement_, made choice of Mr. Flynt to be one of the tutors at college.... I have not the late act for incorporating the college at hand, nor have I seen the new temporary settlement; but I perceive, that all the members of the late corporation were not notified to be at the meeting. I can't say how legal these late proceedings are; but it is wonderful, that an establishment for so short a time as till October next, should be made use of so soon to introduce an unnecessary addition to that society."

[Footnote: _History of Harvard_, i. 500, App. xvi.]

A long weary year pa.s.sed, during which Dr. Mather must have suffered keenly from the public ingrat.i.tude; still, at its end he was happy, since he felt certain of being rewarded by the Lord; for, just as the earl's administration was closing, he had succeeded by unremitting toil in so adjusting the legislature as to think the spoil his own; when, alas, suddenly, without warning, in the most distressing manner, the prize slipped into Bellomont's pocket. How severely his faith was tried appears from his son's Diary.

"1700. 16th d. 4th mo. (Lord's Day.) I am going to relate one of the most astonishing things that ever befell in all the time of my pilgrimage.

"A particular faith had been unaccountably produced in my father's heart, and in my own, that G.o.d will carry him unto England, and there give him a short but great opportunity to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, before his entrance into the heavenly kingdom. There appears no probability of my father's going thither but in an agency to obtain a charter for the college. This matter having been for several years upon the very point of being carried in the General a.s.sembly, hath strangely miscarried when it hath come to the birth. It is now again before the a.s.sembly, in circ.u.mstances wherein if it succeed not, it is never like to be revived and resumed any more....

"But the matter in the a.s.sembly being likely now to come unto nothing, I was in this day in extreme distress of spirit concerning it.... After I had finished all the other duties of this day, I did in my distress cast myself prostrate on my study floor before the Lord.... I spread before him the consequences of things, and the present posture and aspect of them, and, having told the Lord, that I had always taken a particular faith to be a work of heaven on the minds of the faithful, but if it should prove a deceit in that remarkable instance which was now the cause of my agony, I should be cast into a most wonderful confusion; I then begged of the Lord, that, if my particular faith about my father's voyage to England were not a delusion, he would be pleased to renew it upon me. All this while my heart had the coldness of a stone upon it, and the straitness that is to be expected from the lone exercise of reason. But now all on the sudden I felt an inexpressible force to fall on my mind, an afflatus, which cannot be described in words; _none knows it but he that has it_.... It was told me, that the Lord Jesus Christ loved my father, and loved me, and that he took delight in us, as in two of his faithful servants, and that he had not permitted us to be deceived in our particular faith, but that my father should be carried into England, and there glorify the Lord Jesus Christ before his pa.s.sing into glory....

"Having left a flood of tears from me, by these rages from the invisible world, on my study floor, I rose and went into my chair. There I took up my Bible, and the first place that I opened was at Acts xxvii.

23-25, 'There stood by me an angel of G.o.d, whose I am, and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, thou must be brought before Caesar.' ... A new flood of tears gushed from my flowing eyes, and I broke out into these expressions. 'What! shall my father yet appear before Caesar! Has an angel from heaven told me so! And must I believe what has been told me!

Well then, it shall be so! It shall be so!'"

"And now what shall I say! When the affair of my father's agency after this came to a turning point in the court, it strangely miscarried! All came to nothing! Some of the Tories had so wrought upon the governor, that, though he had first moved this matter, and had given us both directions and promises about it, yet he now (not without base unhandsomeness) deferred it. The lieutenant-governor, who had formerly been for it, now (not without great ebullition of unaccountable prejudice and ingrat.i.tude) appeared, with all the little tricks imaginable, to confound it. It had for all this been carried, had not some of the council been inconveniently called off and absent. But now the whole affair of the college was left unto the management of the Earl of Bellamont, so that all expectation of a voyage for my father unto England, on any such occasion, is utterly at an end." [Footnote: _History of Harvard_, i. 484-486, App. x.]

During all these years the legislature had been steadily pa.s.sing resolutions requiring the president to go into residence; and in 1698 they went so far as to vote him the liberal salary, for that age, of two hundred pounds, and appointed a committee to wait upon him. Judge Sewall describes the interview:--

"Mr. President expostulated with Mr. Speaker ... about the votes being alter'd from 250 [.?]." ... "We urg'd his going all we could; I told him of his birth and education here; that he look'd at work rather than wages, all met in desiring him.... Objected want of a house, bill for corporation not pa.s.s'd ... must needs preach once every week, which he preferred before the gold and silver of the West-Indies. I told him would preach twice aday to the students. He said that [exposition]

was nothing like preaching." [Footnote: Sewall's _Diary_. _Ma.s.s. Hist.

Coll._ fifth series, v. 487.] And in this the patriarch spoke the truth; for if there was anything he loved more than money it was the incense of adulation which steamed up to his nostrils from a great congregation.

Of course he declined; and yet this importunity pained the good man, not because there was any conflict in his mind between his duty to a cause he held sacred and his own interest, but because it was "a thing contrary to the faith marvellously wrought into my soul, that G.o.d will give me an opportunity to serve and glorify Christ in England, I set the day apart to cry to heaven about it." [Footnote: _History of Harvard_, vi. 481, App. ix.]

There were limits, however, even to the patience of the Ma.s.sachusetts a.s.sembly with an orthodox divine; and no sooner was the question of the agency decided by the appointment of Bellomont, than it addressed itself resolutely to the seemingly hopeless task of forcing Dr. Mather to settle in Cambridge or resign his office. On the 10th of July, 1700, they voted him two hundred and twenty pounds a year, and they appointed a committee to obtain from him a categorical answer. This time he thought it prudent to feign compliance; and after a "suitable place...

for the reception and entertainment of the president" had been prepared at the public expense, he moved out of town and stayed till the 17th of October, when he went back to Boston, and wrote to tell Stoughton his health was suffering. His disingenuousness seems to have given Leverett the opportunity for which he had been waiting; and his acting as chairman of a committee appointed by the representatives suggests his having forced the issue; it was resolved that, should Mr. Mather be absent from the college, his duties should devolve upon Samuel Willard, the vice-president; [Footnote: _History of Harvard_, i. 111; _Court Rec._ vii. 172, 175.] and in March the committee apparently reported the president's house to be in good condition. Stimulated by this hint, the doctor went back to Cambridge and stayed a little more than three months, when he wrote a characteristic note to Stoughton, who was acting governor. "I promised the last General Court to take care of the college until the Commencement. Accordingly I have been residing in Cambridge these three months. I am determined (if the Lord will) to return to Boston the next week, and no more return to reside in Cambridge; for it is not reasonable to desire me to be (as, out of respect to the public interest, I have been six months within this twelve) any longer absent from my family.... I do therefore earnestly desire, that the General Court would... think of another president.... It would be fatal to the interest of religion, if a person disaffected to the order of the Gospel, professed and practised in these churches, should preside over this society. I know the General a.s.sembly, out of their regard to the interest of Christ, will take care to prevent it." [Footnote: _History of Harvard_, i. 501, App. xvii.] Yet though he himself begged the legislature to select his successor, in his inordinate vanity he did not dream of being taken at his word; so when he was invited to meet both houses in the council chamber he explained with perfect cheerfulness how "he was now removed from Cambridge to Boston, and ... did not think fitt to continue his residence there, ... but, if the court thought fit to desire he should continue his care of the colledge as formerly, he would do so." [Footnote: _Court Records_, vii. 229.]

Increase Mather delighted to blazon himself as Christ's foremost champion in the land. He predicted, and with reason, that should those who had been already designated succeed him at Harvard, it would be fatal to that cause to which his life was vowed. The alternative was presented of serving himself or G.o.d, and to him it seemed unreasonable of his friends to expect of him a choice. And yet when, as was his wont, he would describe himself from the pulpit, as a refulgent beacon blazing before New England, he would use such words as these: "Every ... one of a publick spirit ... will deny himself as to his worldly interests, provided he may thereby promove the welfare of his people.... He will not only deny himself, but if called thereto, will encounter the greatest difficulties and dangers for the publicks sake." [Footnote: Sermon, _The Publick Spirited Man_, pp. 7, 9.]

The man had presumed too far; the world was wearying of him. On September 6, 1701, the government was transferred to Samuel Willard, the vice-president, and Harvard was lost forever. [Footnote: _History of Harvard_, i. 116.]

No education is so baleful as the ecclesiastical, because it breeds the belief in men that resistance to their will is not only a wrong to their country and themselves, but a sacrilege toward G.o.d. The Mathers were now to give an ill.u.s.tration of the degree to which the theocratic training debauched the mind; and it is only necessary to observe that Samuel Sewall, who tells the story, was educated for the ministry, and was perhaps as staunch a conservative as there was in the province.

1701, "October 20. Mr. Cotton Mather came to Mr. Wilkins's shop, and there talked very sharply against me as if I had used his father worse than a neger; spake so loud that people in the street might hear him....

I had read in the morn Mr. Dod's saying; Sanctified afflictions are good promotions. I found it now a cordial."

"October 9. I sent Mr. Increase Mather a hanch of very good venison; I hope in that I did not treat him as a negro."

"October 2, 1701. I, with Major Walley and Capt. Samuel Checkly, speak with Mr. Cotton Mather at Mr. Wilkins's.... I told him of his book of the Law of Kindness for the Tongue, whether this were correspondent with that. Whether correspondent with Christ's rule:

"He said, having spoken to me before there was no need to speak to me again; and so justified his reviling me behind my back. Charg'd the council with lying, hypocrisy, tricks, and I know not what all. I ask'd him if it were done with that meekness as it should; Answer'd, Yes.

Charg'd the council in general, and then shew'd my share, which was my speech in council; viz. If Mr. Mather should goe to Cambridge again to reside there with a resolution not to read the Scriptures, and expound in the Hall: I fear the example of it will do more hurt than his going thither will doe good. This speech I owned.... I ask'd him if I should supose he had done somthing amiss in his church as an officer; whether it would be well for me to exclaim against him in the street for it."

"Thorsday October 23. Mr. Increase Mather said at Mr. Wilkins's, If I am a servant of Jesus Christ, some great judgment will fall on Capt.

Sewall, or his family." [Footnote: Sewall's _Diary. Ma.s.s. Hist. Coll._ fifth series, vi. 43-45.]

Had the patriarch been capable of a disinterested action, for the sake of those principles he professed to love, he would have stopped Willard's presidency, no matter at what personal cost, for he knew him to be no better than a liberal in disguise, and he had already quarrelled bitterly with him in 1697 when he was trying to eject Leverett. Sewall noted on "Nov. 20.... Mr. Willard told me of the falling out between the president and him about chusing fellows last Monday. Mr. Mather has sent him word, he will never come to his house more till he give him satisfaction." [Footnote: _Ma.s.s. Hist. Coll._ fifth series, v. 464.] But they had in reality separated years before; for when, in the witchcraft terror, Willard was cried out upon, and had to look a shameful death in the face, he learned to feel that the men who were willing to risk their lives to save him were by no means public enemies. And so, as the vice-president lived in Boston, the administration of the college was left very much to Leverett and the Brattles, who were presently reinstated.

Joseph Dudley was the son of that old governor who wrote the verses about the c.o.c.katrice to be hatched by toleration, yet he inherited very little of his father's disposition. He was bred for the ministry, and as the career did not attract him, he turned to politics, in which he made a brilliant opening. At first he was the hope of the high churchmen, but they afterward learned to hate him with a rancor exceptional even toward their enemies. And he gave them only too good a handle against him, for he was guilty of the error of selling himself without reserve to the Andros government. At the Revolution he suffered a long imprisonment, and afterward went to England, where he pa.s.sed most of William's reign. There his ability soon brought him forward, he was made lieutenant-governor of the Isle of Wight, was returned to Parliament, and at last appointed governor by Queen Anne. Though Ma.s.sachusetts owes a deeper debt to few of her chief magistrates, there are few who have found scantier praise at the hands of her historians. He was, it is true, an unscrupulous politician and courtier, but his mind was broad and vigorous, his policy wise and liberal, and at the moment of his power his influence was of inestimable value.

Among his other gifts, he was endowed with infinite tact, and when working for his office he managed not only to conciliate the Mathers, but even to induce the son to write a letter in his favor; and so when he arrived in 1702 they were both sedulous in their attentions in the expectation of controlling him. A month had not pa.s.sed, however, before this ominous entry was made in the younger's diary:--

"June 16, 1702. I received a visit from Governour Dudley.... I said to him ... I should be content, I would approve it, ... if any one should say to your excellency, 'By no means let any people have cause to say, that you take all your measures from the two Mr. Mathers.' By the same rule I may say without offence,' By no means let any people say, that you go by no measures in your conduct, but Mr. Byfield's and Mr.

Leverett's.'... The WRETCH went unto those men and told them, that I had advised him to be no ways advised by them; and inflamed them into an implacable rage against me." [Footnote: _Ma.s.s. Hist. Coll._ first series, iii. 137.]

Leverett, on the contrary, now reached his zenith; from the house he pa.s.sed into the council and became one of Dudley's most trusted advisers. The Mathers were no match for these two men, and few routs have been more disastrous than theirs. Lord Bellomont's sudden death had put an end to all hope of obtaining a charter by compromise with England, and no further action had been taken, when, on September 12, 1707, Willard died. On the 28th of October the fellows met and chose John Leverett president of Harvard College; and then came a demonstration which proved not only Increase Mather's prescience, when he foretold how a liberal university would kill a disciplined church, but which shows the mighty influence a devoted teacher can have upon his age. Thirty-nine ministers addressed Governor Dudley thus:--

"We have lately, with great joy, understood the great and early care that our brethren, who have the present care and oversight of the college at Cambridge, have taken, ... by their unanimous choice of Mr.

John Leverett, ... to be the president ... Your Excellency personally knows Mr. Leverett so well, that we shall say the less of him. However, we cannot but give this testimony of our great affection to and esteem for him; that we are abundantly satisfied ... of his religion, learning, and other excellent accomplishments for that eminent service, a long experience of which we had while he was senior fellow of that house; for that, under the wise and faithful government of him, and the Rev. Mr.

Brattle, of Cambridge, the greatest part of the now rising ministry in New England were happily educated; and we hope and promise ourselves, through the blessing of the G.o.d of our fathers, to see religion and learning thrive and flourish in that society, under Mr. Leverett's wise conduct and influence, as much as ever yet it hath done." [Footnote: _History of Harvard_, i. 504, App. xx.]

His salary was only one hundred and fifty pounds a year; but the man worked for love of a great cause, and did not stop to haggle. Nor were he and Dudley of the temper to leave a task half done. Undoubtedly at the governor's instigation, a resolve was introduced into the a.s.sembly reviving the Act of 1650 by which the university had been incorporated, and it is by the sanction of this lawless and masterly feat of statesmanship that Harvard has been administered for almost two hundred years.

Sewall tells how Dudley went out in state to inaugurate his friend. "The governour prepared a Latin speech for instalment of the president. Then took the president by the hand and led him down into the hall;... The governour sat with his back against a n.o.ble fire.... Then the governour read his speech ... and mov'd the books in token of their delivery.

Then president made a short Latin speech, importing the difficulties discouraging, and yet that he did accept: ... Clos'd with the hymn to the Trinity. Had a very good dinner upon 3 or 4 tables.... Got home very well. _Laus Deo._" [Footnote: _Ma.s.s. Hist. Coll._ fifth series, vi.

209.]

Nor did Dudley fail to provide the new executive with fit support. By the old law he had revived the corporation was reduced to seven; of this board Leverett himself was one, and on the day he took his office both the Brattles and Pemberton were also appointed. And more than this, when, a few years later, Pemberton died, the arch-rebel, Benjamin Colman, was chosen in his place. The liberal triumph was complete, and in looking back through the vista of the past, there are few pages of our history more strongly stamped with the native energy of the New England mind than this brilliant capture of Harvard, by which the ancient cradle of bigotry and superst.i.tion was made the home of American liberal thought. As for the Mathers, when they found themselves beaten in fair fight, they conceived a revenge so dastardly that Pemberton declared with much emotion he would humble them, were he governor, though it cost him his head. Being unable longer to withstand Dudley by honorable means, they tried to blast him by charging him with felony.

Their letters are too long to be reproduced in full; but their purport may be guessed by the extracts given, and to this day they remain choice gems of theocratic morality.

SIR, That I have had a singular respect for you, the Lord knows; but that since your arrival to the government, my charitable expectations have been greatly disappointed, I may not deny....

1st. I am afraid you cannot clear yourself from the guilt of bribery and unrighteousness....

2d. I am afraid that you have not been true to the interest of your country, as G.o.d (considering his marvellous dispensations towards you) and his people have expected from you....

3d. I am afraid that you cannot clear yourself from the guilt of much hypocrisy and falseness in the affair of the college....