latter part of her life must be
written down a failure, though it held a brave struggle to maintain a
gallant front to her foes; and when, in August, 1643, she fell one of
the victims of an Indian massacre even her best friends must have felt
that there was little cause to regret her fate. She had been in the
colonies about two years before she began to preach, about four before
she was excommunicated, and about nine before her death. In that time
she had proved a firebrand and a disturber of the peace such as had not
before been known and she had threatened to disrupt the colony of Boston
and rend it into lasting separation. She had failed; but she had made
manifest a danger.

She had done more than this. She had proved the possibility of woman as
an element in the polity and progress of the State. In her way she was a
pioneer. She was the first American woman to take a decided lead in
matters of general interest. She was the first to hold meetings, to
claim for her sex the privilege of freedom as claimed by the men of the
Pilgrims. She was the first American woman to uprear the banner of her
sex in the matter of independence; she may be said to have been the
prototype of all the succeeding upholders of "women's rights." When
Winthrop, at her trial, brought up the accusation of having held women's
meetings, she quoted "a clear rule in Titus, that the elder women should
instruct the younger." Then Winthrop asked her if she would instruct an
hundred men if they desired it, to which she replied that she would not,
but would instruct any one man who might so wish. She insisted
positively upon her right to teach in her own way, and asked: "Do you
think it not lawful for me to teach women, and why do you call me to
teach the Court?" She may have been somewhat hazy as to her real
theological creed, but she assuredly held clear ideas as to the rights
of her sex.

Above all, and in this she was highly typical of the American woman of
later days, she was an enthusiast. Contrary though the theory be to the
general belief, the most salient and persistent trait among the Puritans
was enthusiasm, however it hid itself behind a cold and contained
exterior. It was their enthusiasm that made them what they were, that
enabled them to found their portion of a mighty nation; they were the
most intensely enthusiastic people that ever went to the making of a
nation; not a Cavalier, not a Frenchman, not a Castilian, ever held the
fire that