heinous, no hatred so deep seated and abiding as those
produced by religious differences. Strange that it should be so! Strange
that the sacred cause whose province is to develop the purest and
holiest emotions of the soul, should call forth and develop the
fiercest, the darkest, and most unrelenting passions of the human heart!
Yet so it proved in this instance. Their fierce, fanatical enthusiasm
was a powerful element of strength to the Roundheads, which was lacking
to the effeminate, corrupt, and godless Cavaliers. With such an
auxiliary the struggle could not be doubtful; religious fanaticism
carried the day.

In the years succeeding the Restoration, the evil effects of this
religious antagonism were modified by mutual concessions, and in time
almost disappeared under the impartial administration of a government
founded upon a firmer basis than ever before, and more consonant to
Saxon ideas of justice and social equality. But with us of America there
was no such modification, for from the midst of this time of war and
tumult, of savage hatred and unrelenting persecution, American society
sprang. Our country was settled by representatives of these two extremes
of English society, and in their choice of abode the hand of Providence
is distinctly seen laying the foundations of our struggle of to-day,
which is to prove the refining fire, the purification and regeneration
of our race. Had the Cavaliers landed upon the shores of New England,
the bracing winds of that northern clime, the rugged and intractable
nature of the soil, the constant presence of dangers from the fiercer
Indian tribes of the north, and the absolute necessity of severe and
incessant toil to support existence, would have awakened and developed
in them those manly qualities which for centuries had lain dormant in
their souls--would have imparted new strength to their frames, new vigor
and energy to their modes of thought; their indolence and effeminacy
would soon have passed away, and they would have constantly approached,
instead of departing from the true Puritan type. While, on the other
hand, the stern, rough, almost savage peculiarities of the Puritan would
in like manner have been modified by the genial influences of a southern
sun and a teeming soil, and while the severe training and rough
experiences of centuries, as well as their peculiar mental constitution,
would have prevented their entirely lapsing into the indolence and
effeminacy of the