the progress of thought and the providential indications of the age. But they are felt in a new form, and commence a life of new vigor, from the moment of regeneration. They may be suppressed by cruel power, or restrained from motives of high discretion; but they have a voice, and the ears of souls will not fail to hear it. The quiet acts and utterances of truth and right and holy laws, the meekness of suffering without yielding to wrong, and especially the sublime composure and triumph of martyrdom for the right to worship, teach the profoundest lessons of liberty. It is thus that the influence of true Christianity, silently it may be, but powerfully, extends the spirit and the area of freedom; and thus that we are to explain the slow but certain progress of civil and religious liberty together in England, and upon a larger scale in America. We must also recognize the blending of true religious principles and power with all other civilizing forces, in producing that subtle and pervading sense of right which all men feel, and are sure in some form or other, sooner or later, to manifest. This is, in part, the religion of creation, and the direct work of the great Creator. Man emerges from barbarism under its living power. This is the source and reason of the uprisings of individuals and masses in forms of even savage resentment for wrongs which have been felt but undefined in the ages gone by, and have produced contortions as of a man in his sleep scorched with fire, who springs up at the moment of consciousness, and rushes he knows not how nor where. Long thinking and enduring ultimately give form to this pervading invisible life-force of the nations. Revealed religion comes in to eliminate its vices, purify its feelings, exalt its motives, and direct its energy. Divine communications from heaven give it moderation, wisdom, and irresistible power; and thus the unity of the great moral forces which are struggling for the emancipation of the race is found in God. The incarnate Son is revealed as the great Liberator of inthralled humanity; and the cross, wrested from the bloody hand of spiritual despotism, is held aloft as the truest, noblest emblem of freedom to the race. All this has its unequivocal expression in the gradual development of American liberty. If faithful history has made one thing clearer than another, it is that Christianity can never retain its purity or its vital power, when, as in the hands of Rome, it is forced into the service of oppression and persecution. From a captivity and perversion so violent and vile it must be rescued before it is or can be the Christian religion again. And, as a part of the same clear historic revelation, we have come to understand that no attempt at the establishment of a sound and durable free government can be successful in the assertion of atheism, in the rejection of the Holy Bible, or " trampling under foot the Son of God." Whoever, therefore, should attempt to account for the growth of liberty in England, and its final vindication and triumph in America, without recognizing the vital organizing power of Christianity, would inevitably fail. As well explain and demonstrate the circulating system of the human body without the blood, or the perfecting of grain or fruits without the vitalizing forces of atmospheric air. It is therefore to identify the life-power of this great system of freedom that we have brought forward the small and larger manifestations of true religion in the British nation, and the earlier history of her first great colony in the New World. It was necessary first to recognize the presence of this holy principle, and mournfully to acknowledge its unnatural alliance with the spirit of oppression; and we must wait yet longer for a full manifestation of the liberating power of Christianity, a truer development of the great spirit of the Reformation. In this place it has been our purpose to present faithfully those indications of the influence of this supernatural power which really existed, and could alone account for such progress as had already been made in that portion of our territory destined for ages to be the battle-ground of the great antagonist forces of freedom and despotism. LIBERTY ASSERTS HER RIGHTS, AND ADVANCES. As early as the days of Edward, in 1547, "the ascendency of Protestantism marked the era when England began to foreshadow her maritime superiority." Under the fearless Elizabeth, the same uprising of true Christianity "quickened the spirit of nationality, and gave a new impulse to the people." This impulse was never lost. It stirred the hearts of noble pioneers, and gave vigor to emigrants. It struggled with monarch and corporation until it extorted reluctant but most valuable concessions. Protestantism colonized and ultimately moulded Virginia. Let us step forward to the month of April, 1619. Sir George Yeardly arrived, and took charge of the colony, with "commissions and instructions from the company for the better establishing of a commonwealth." He announced "that those cruell lawes by which the ancient planters had soe long been governed were now abrogated, and that they were to be governed by those free lawes which his majesties subjects lived under in England;" and, in order "that the planters might have a hande in the governing of themselves, yt was granted that a generall assemblie shoulde be helde yearly once, whereat were to be present the governor and counsell, with two burgesses from each plantation, freely to be elected by the inhabitants thereof; this assemblie to have power to make and ordaine whatsoever lawes and orders should by them be thought good and profitable for their subsistance." Sir George, therefore, "sente his summons all over the country, as well to invite those of the counsell of estate that were absente, as also for the election of burgesses;" and on Friday, the thirtieth day of July, 1619, a day memorable in American colonial history, this grand free legislative assembly met in James City, and God was solemnly recognized by prayer. Their "great charter" sent over by Sir George Yeardly, these keen-eyed, heroic freemen would not attempt "to correct or control;" but they would cautiously provide for redress"in case they should find aught not perfectly squaring with the state of the colony." Brave, noble men! How bright these luminaries of freedom shine through the dim haze of two and a half centuries! "When the question was taken on accepting the great charter,' we are not surprised to find that 'it had the general assent and the applause of the whole assembly,' and, let it be observed,' with thanks for it to Almighty God, and to those from whom it had issued in the name of the burgesses, and the whole colony whom they represented, the more so as they were promised the power to allow or disallow the orders of the court of the London company." * This was a little alarming to royal despotism. The office of treasurer was vacant. There might be necessity for ascertaining whether this disloyal freedom had not gone too far, even in the London Company; and the king determined to settle the question by sending in four nominees for treasurer. Astonishing! They are all rejected; and "the Earl of Southampton, the early friend of Shakspeare, was elect ed"! "Having thus vindicated their own rights, the company proceeded to redress former wrongs, and to provide colonial liberty with its written guaranties." Praise God! Another test must come up from the colony. Argall had pronounced sentence of death. The case went home on appeal. The Earl of Warwick, and other powerful friends of Argall, took this occasion to instruct these presuming American Englishmen "that trial by martial law is the noblest kind of trial, because soldiers and men of the sword were the judges;" but "this opinion was reversed, and the rights of the colonists to trial by jury sustained." grand the triumph! How Two years later, namely, on the 24th of July, 1621, *Bancroft, i. 154-156. the colony received from the London Company, by the hands |