ered to his Church.
It was not unnatural for Messrs. Higginson and Skelton to prefer
becoming the fathers and founders of a new Church than to remain
subordinate ministers of an old Church. The Company, in its written
agreement with them, or rather in its instructions accompanying them to
Endicot, allowed them discretion in their new mission field as to their
mode of teaching and worship; but certainly no authority to ignore it,
much less authority to adopt a new confession of faith and a new form of
worship.

Within three months after the arrival of these chaplains of the Company
at Salem, they and Endicot matured the plan of setting up a new Church,
and seemed to have persuaded thirty-one of the two hundred emigrants to
join with them--a minority of less than one-sixth of the little
community; but in that minority was the absolute Governor, and against
whose will a majority was nothing, even in religious matters, or in
liberty of conscience. Government by majorities and liberty of
conscience are attributes of freedom.

Let it be observed here, once for all, that Endicot and his friends are
not, in my opinion, censurable for changing their professed religious
opinions and worship and adopting others, if they thought it right to do
so. If, on their arrival at Massachusetts Bay, they thought and felt
themselves in duty bound to renounce their old and set up a new form of
worship and Church discipline, it was doubtless their right to do so;
but in doing so it was unquestionably their duty not to violate their
previous engagements and the rights of others. They were not the
original owners and occupants of the country, and were not absolutely
free to choose their own form of government and worship; they were
British subjects, and were commencing the settlement of a territory
granted them by their Sovereign; they were sent there by a Company
existing and acting under Royal Charter; Endicot was the chief agent of
that Company, and acting under their instructions. As such, duty
required him to consult his employers before taking the all-important
step of setting aside the worship they professed and establishing a new
one, much less to proscribe and banish those who had adventured as
settlers upon the old professed worship, and declined adopting the new.
And was it not a violation of good faith, as well as liberty of
conscience, to deny to the Browns and their friends the very worship on
the profession of which by all partie