But
the spirit in which the Hebrew prophet rebuked and humbled an idolatrous
king was a spirit they could comprehend. Such a spirit was sure to
manifest itself in narrow cramping measures and in ugly acts of
persecution; but it is none the less to the fortunate alliance of
that fervid religious enthusiasm with the Englishman's love of
self-government that our modern freedom owes its existence. [Sidenote:
Spirit of the Wonder-working Providence]
The history of New England under Charles II. yields abundant proof that
political liberty is no less indebted in the New World than in the Old
to the spirit of the "Wonder-working Providence." The theocratic ideal
which the Puritan sought to put into practice in Massachusetts and
Connecticut was a sacred institution in faults of the defence of
which all his faculties were kept perpetually alert. Much as he loved
self-government he would never have been so swift to detect and so
stubborn to resist every slightest encroachment on the part of the crown
had not the loss of self-government involved the imminent danger that
the ark of the Lord might be abandoned to the worshippers of Dagon.
It was in Massachusetts, where the theocracy was strongest, that the
resistance to Charles II. was most dogged and did most to prepare the
way for the work of achieving political independence a century later.
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