effected by another company, who set sail from England one month after the departure of the Mary and John. Among their number were Sir Richard Saltonstall and Rev. George Phillips, the first pastor of the Watertown Church.

Concerning the exact date of the formation of the church, there seems to have been some doubt and controversy, the question having engaged the attention and divided the opinions of some of the most able and accurate antiquarians.

If Dr. Kendall in his Century Discourse is right,— and he makes a very fair and lucid collation of authorities, the Watertown Church is second only to that of Salem. The latter may, without doubt, claim the priority. The original First Church of Dorchester was the second or next oldest. But, in 1636, this church, or a large part of it, with its church organization, migrated to Windsor, Conn., and of course ceased to be a church of Massachusetts Bay. Since that migration, Watertown has a fair claim to rank as the second church of the colony. The only one, according to Bond's statement, beside Dorchester, that has a plausible claim to be coeval, is the First Church of Boston, originally organized in Charlestown.

This question of priority of date, however, it is not within my present province to discuss. Neither if it were, have I sufficient knowledge of the subject to adequately present it. I simply suggest it as an interesting historical inquiry upon which some light may perhaps be thrown by the studies to which the attention of many of us will this year very naturally be directed.

To-day, you will be more interested to know something of the spirit which animated the early founders of the church whose history tallies so closely with your own. Of the fleet of four ships which sailed from the Isle of Wight on the 8th of April, the Arbella, having among its passengers the early settlers of Watertown, was the first which arrived. It could

not keep company with the rest of the fleet, for it held the Independents of the Independents.

Says Dr. Francis, in his Historical Discourse: "Whatever charges of bigotry, of intolerance, or of a persecuting spirit may be brought against the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, cannot attach to the church at Watertown, established by Saltonstall and his followers." These men, accepting the logic of Protestantism, were characterized by a spirit of toleration, which in those days and under the circumstances was rare indeed. The church was heretical and independent from its very foundation. Its first pastor for a long time stood alone among the New England clergy in his advocacy of strict congregationalism and independency in church government; and, when his colleague was settled, the installation was by this church alone, the neighboring parishes being entirely ignored, much to the scandal of the brethren.

The church, as a whole, seemed to sympathize strongly with its pastor in his independent views, and upheld him in all his theological heresies, which were, for those days, of a pronounced character.

Individual members of the church were also distinguished for their liberality and for their tolerant spirit. Among these, Sir Richard Saltonstall was pre-eminent.

When the other churches of the colony were exhibiting their intolerant zeal by persecuting all who differed from them in matters of faith, the indignation of Sir Richard was fairly roused, and found utterance in an admirable letter of rebuke to Mr. Cotton and Mr. Wilson, ministers of Boston. From this letter, I know you will be glad to have me read the following extract : —

Reverend and deare friends whom I unfaynedly love and respect,— It doth not a little grieve my spirit to heare what sadd things are reported daily of your tyranny and persecutions in New England, as that you fyne,

whip, and imprison men for their consciences. First, you compel such to come into your assemblies, as you know will not joyne with you in your worship; and, when they show their dislike thereof or witness against it, then you styrre up your magistrates to punish them for such (as you conceyve) their publick affronts.

Truly, friends, this your practise of compelling any in matters of worship to doe that whereof they are not fully persuaded is to make them sin; for soe the Apostle tells us, and many are made hypocrites thereby, conforming in their outward man for feare of punishment. We who pray for you and wish you prosperity every way hoped the Lord would have given you so much light and love there, that you might have been eyes to God's people here, and not to practice those courses in a wilderness, which you went so far to prevent. These rigid ways have laid you very lowe in the hearts of the saints. I doe assure you I have heard them pray in the publique assemblies that the Lord would give you meek and humble spirits, not to stryve so much for uniformity as to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

I hope you do not assume to yourselves infallibilitie of judgment, when the most learned of the apostles confesseth he knew in part and saw but darkly as through a glass. Oh, that all those who are brethren, though they cannot think and speak the same things, might be of one accord in the Lord.

Now, the God of patience and consolation grant you to be thus minded toward one another, after the example of Jesus Christ our blessed Savior, in whose everlasting armes of protection he leaves you, who will never cease to be

Your truly and much affectionate friend in the nearest union,

RIC: SALTONSTALL.

Nor was this eminent leader alone in this avowal of the ultra-liberalism of the time. "Mr. Richard Brown, a ruling elder of the congregation, had the boldness even to avow and defend the opinion that 'the churches of Rome were true churches.' In this sentiment, the pastor concurred, maintaining that the papal church was not so fundamentally erroneous as to render salvation impossible within her communion,-a concession which, though we should now regard it as only an ordinary exercise of charity and justice,

must have been in those times exceedingly offensive, especially as it was then made only by the High Church party in England."

Side by side with this extreme liberalism in ecclesiastical matters, we find, as we might naturally expect, an equally extreme sensitiveness in matters relating to civil freedom. Just as in our own time the churches most liberal in their theology were the foremost champions of the cause of the slave, so, significantly enough, we find in a protest of the Watertown Parish in 1631, against a tax levied upon them for a fortification at Cambridge, the earliest manifestation of that watchful jealousy of unauthorized taxation which was afterward developed with such serious consequences in the disputes between the colonies and the mother country.

So strong waxed this spirit in after times, so uniformly were the parish and its ministers imbued with the feeling of patriotism, that this early home of heresy and freedom was selected as a place of refuge for the General Court during the Revolution.

Such was the spirit which animated the company of emigrants who embarked in the Arbella,-a spirit which, estimated by its outcome and results in the civil and ecclesiastical life of New England, makes the name of this ship worthy to be placed in history beside that of the Mayflower.

It was their bold and consistent following of the logic of Protestantism, their willingness to accept the consequences of freedom in religion, and their fearlessness as to the results to which it might lead, which laid the foundation not only of the freedom, but of the faith which we enjoy to-day.

Dr. Francis says that "our fathers, when they began their cheerless work here in the wilderness, would have deemed it the wildest dream of romance, had they been told of the mighty edifice which was to be reared on their labors."

So might we say of these early champions of religious

freedom, that they could not have had the faintest conception of the faith to which the logic of their principles would lead, the faith which has now superseded their grim, unlovely creeds.

But may we not believe that, were they living to-day, they would as gladly accept the faith as the facts of to-day, entirely transformed as that faith has become?

The church at Watertown fronts a road, in the history of which as set forth in a Cambridge discourse of one of our brethren, a few years since - - there is a fact peculiarly significant of the course of religious thought in that church so early indicated, and of the inevitable result of abiding by the logic of a principle.

The discourse says: "Some two hundred years ago, commissioners were appointed by the colony of Massachusetts Bay to lay out a road ten miles west of Boston, into what was then the wilderness of Newton. It took, like such works now, more time and money than was expected, and the commissioners felt obliged to explain the facts to the General Court; but they triumphantly added that, though it had been such a great expense, the colony was to be congratulated on the successful completion of the work, as there would never be need of a road any further in that direction.

"Now mount some eminence, and see how far the awakened life of thought has travelled. The ten miles have lengthened into hundreds and thousands. Wilderness after wilderness of doubt has been successfully tracked. Valleys of despair have been exalted. Hills that obstructed vision and were difficult of access have been laid low. Niagara's terrific flood, that seemed the very opening of moral chaos and of the infernal regions, has been safely spanned. Deserts of barren philosophy have been made passable and converted to fertility. The Rocky Mountains, thick-ribbed with the strength of ancient, long-spent forces, like the Church