The Knight of the Golden Melice | Page 4

or apologize for it by the necessities of their
situation, and the peculiarities of their creed; or combine these causes,
and so extenuate what cannot be defended.
I can well understand how a Puritan of 16--would justify his rigor. His
opinion of himself would be like that of the amiable Governor
Winthrop, as found in his first will, (omitted, however, in his second,)
as one "adopted to be the child of God, and an heir of everlasting life,
and that of the mere and free favor of God, who hath elected me to be a
vessel of glory." Such was the Puritan in his own eyes. He was the

chosen of heaven. He had, for the sake of the Gospel, abandoned his
country and the comforts of civilization, to erect (in the language of
Scripture which he loved to use) his Ebenezer in the wilderness. He
wanted to be let alone. He invited not Papists or English Churchmen, or
any who differed in opinion from him, to throw in their lots with his.
They would only be obstacles in his way, jarring-strings in his heavenly
antique-fashioned harp. Away with the intruders! What right had they
to molest him with their dissenting presence? The earth was wide: let
them go somewhere else. They would find more congenial associates in
the Virginia colony. He would have no Achans to breed dissension in
his camp. With bold heart and strong hand would he cast them out. His
was the empire of the saints; an empire, not to be exercised with
feebleness and doubt, but with vigor and confidence.
It is obvious that a very wide difference existed between the characters
of the two colonies. The cavalier, sparkling and fiery as the wines he
quaffed, the defender of established authority and of the divine right of
kings, was the antithesis of the abstemious and thoughtful religionist
and reformer, dissatisfied with the present, hopeful of a better future,
and not forgetful that it was in anger God gave the Israelites a king.
Meanwhile the Roman Catholics had not been idle. Their devoted
missionaries, solicitous to occupy other regions which should more
than supply the deficiency occasioned by the Protestant defection, and
confident of the final triumph of a Church, out of whose pale they
believed could be no salvation, had scattered themselves over the
continent, and with marvellous energy and self-sacrifice, were
extending their influence among the natives. No boundaries can be
placed to the visions of the enthusiastic religionist. His strength is the
strength of God. No wonder, then, that the Roman Catholic priest
should cherish hopes of rescuing the entire new world from heresy,
which he considered worse than heathenism, and should enlist all his
energies in so grand a cause. It is almost certain that extensive plans
were formed for the accomplishment of this object.
Such were the elements which the seething caldron of the old world
threw out upon the new. A part only of the materials furnished by these
elements have I used in framing this tale. It is an attempt to elucidate
the manners and credence of quite an early period, and to explain with
the license accorded to a romancer, some passages in American history.

Thus much have I thought proper to premise. It is impossible to judge
correctly of the men of any age, without taking into consideration the
circumstances in which they were placed, and the opinions that
prevailed in their time. To apply the standard of this year of grace, 1856,
to the religious enlightenment of more than two hundred years ago,
would be like measuring one of Gulliver's Lilliputians by Gulliver
himself. I trust that the world has since improved, and that of whatever
passing follies we may be guilty, we shall never retrograde to the old
narrow views of truth. If mankind are capable of being taught any
lesson, surely this is one--that persecution or dislike for opinion sake is
a folly and an evil, and that we best perform the will of Him to whom
we are commanded to be like, not by contracting our affections into the
narrow sphere of those whose opinions harmonize with ours, but by
diffusing our love over His creation who pronounced it all "very good."

THE KNIGHT OF THE GOLDEN MELICE.

CHAPTER I.
Come on, Sir! now you set your foot on shore, In novo orbe.
BEN JONSON'S Alchemist.
Our tale begins within a few years after the end of the first quarter of
the 17th century, at Boston, in Massachusetts, then in the infancy of its
settlement.
On an evening in the month of May, were assembled some seven or
eight men around a table, in a long, low room, the sides only of which
were plastered, the rough beams and joists overhead being exposed