some sanctions of
fitting punishments, while, like the teachers of all ideas at variance
with the old, they were surrounded by and confounded with the herd of
old scoffers and unbelievers, who always try to ally themselves
with those who, for any reason, doubt or question the dogmas always
rejected by them.

And so it is that the apostles of a new dogma come to be weighted
with whatever of odium may attach to the old rejectors of the old; and
there is always this bond of sympathy between the new heretic and the
old infidel; they are both opposed to the holders of the old faith,
and hence so far are allies.

In Newbury, in that far-off time, a dozen families, perhaps,
respectable for intelligence and morality, were zealous acceptors of
the new ideas; and about these, to their great scandal, gathered the
straggling, rude spirits and doubtful characters that lightly float on
the wave of emigration, to be dropped wherever that subsides.

The organizing power of the new ideas in itself, was not great. Their
spirit was not, and cannot, be aggressive. They consisted in part of
a rejection of much that made Puritanism intolerant in doctrine, and
that furnished it with its organizing and militant power.

Men organize to do, and not merely to not do. Among the most earnest
in the support of these ideas were Thomas Ridgeley and his wife, who
were also among the most prominent in their neighborhood. Their
public religious exercises were not frequent, and were holden in a
school-house in their vicinity, the most attractive feature of which
was the excellent singing of the small congregation. Mrs. Ridgeley
came from a family of much local celebrity for their vocal powers,
while her husband was not only an accomplished singer, but master of
several instruments, and in the new settlements he was often employed
as a teacher of music.

The preacher of this small congregation was Mr. Alexander, "Uncle
Aleck," as everybody called him, who lived in the west part of the
town, on the border of "the woods." A man well in years, inferior in
person, with a mild, sweet, benevolent face, and blameless, dreamy
life, he spent much time in "sarching the Scripters," as he expressed
it, in constant conversations and mild disputations of Bible texts
and doctrines, and sermonizing at the Sunday assemblies of his
co-believers. He was a man without culture, without the advantage of
much converse with cultivated people, of rather feeble and slender
m