d be one among the "crowd of hooded
women and men in steeple hats and close-cropped hair ... assembled at
the door and open windows of a house newly-built. An earnest expression
glows in every face ... and some press inward as if the bread of life
were to be dealt forth, and they feared to lose their share."

In plain English Ann Hutchinson's doctrines were these: "She held and
advocated as the highest truth," writes Mr. Drake, "that a person could
be justified only by an actual and manifest revelation of the Spirit to
him personally. There could be no other evidence of grace. She
repudiated a doctrine of works, and she denied that holiness of living
alone could be received as evidence of regeneration, since hypocrites
might live outwardly as pure lives as the saints do. The Puritan
churches held that sanctification by the will was evidence of
justification." In advancing these views, Mrs. Hutchinson's pronounced
personal magnetism stood her in good stead. She made many converts, and,
believing herself inspired to do a certain work, and emboldened by the
increasing number of her followers, she soon became unwisely and
unpleasantly aggressive in her criticisms of those ministers who
preached a covenant of works. She seems to have been led into speaking
her mind as to doctrines and persons more freely than was consistent
with prudence and moderation, because she was altogether unsuspicious
that what was being said in the privacy of her own house was being
carefully treasured up against her. So she constantly added fuel to the
flame, which was soon to burst forth to her undoing.

She was accused of fostering sedition in the church, and was then
confronted with charges relative to the meetings of women held at her
house. This she successfully parried.

It looked indeed as if she would surely be acquitted, when by an
impassioned discourse upon special revelations that had come to her, and
an assertion that God would miraculously protect her whatever the court
might decree, she impugned the position of her judges and roused keen
resentment. Because of this it was that she was banished "as unfit for
our society." In the colony records of Massachusetts the sentence
pronounced reads as follows: "Mrs. Hutchinson (the wife of Mr. William
Hutchinson) being convented for traducing the ministers and their
ministry in this country, shee declared voluntarily her revelations for
her ground, and that shee should bee delivred and the Co