have come to be regarded as
"a feeble folk," with a personality as doubtful as their unrecorded
graves. They were not soldiers, like Miles Standish; they had no figure
so picturesque as Vane, no leader so rashly brave and haughty as
Endicott. No Cotton Mather wrote their Magnalia; they had no awful drama
of supernaturalism in which Satan and his angels were actors; and the
only witch mentioned in their simple annals was a poor old Swedish
woman, who, on complaint of her countrywomen, was tried and acquitted
of everything but imbecility and folly. Nothing but common-place offices
of civility came to pass between them and the Indians; indeed, their
enemies taunted them with the fact that the savages did not regard them
as Christians, but just such men as themselves. Yet it must be apparent
to every careful observer of the progress of American civilization that
its two principal currents had their sources in the entirely opposite
directions of the Puritan and Quaker colonies. To use the words of a
late writer: (1) "The historical forces, with which no others may be
compared in their influence on the people, have been those of the
Puritan and the Quaker. The strength of the one was in the confession of
an invisible Presence, a righteous, eternal Will, which would establish
righteousness on earth; and thence arose the conviction of a direct
personal responsibility, which could be tempted by no external splendor
and could be shaken by no internal agitation, and could not be evaded or
transferred. The strength of the other was the witness in the human
spirit to an eternal Word, an Inner Voice which spoke to each alone,
while yet it spoke to every man; a Light which each was to follow, and
which yet was the light of the world; and all other voices were silent
before this, and the solitary path whither it led was more sacred than
the worn ways of cathedral-aisles." It will be sufficiently apparent to
the reader that, in the poem which follows, I have attempted nothing
beyond a study of the life and times of the Pennsylvania colonist,--a
simple picture of a noteworthy man and his locality. The colors of my
sketch are all very sober, toned down to the quiet and dreamy atmosphere
through which its subject is visible. Whether, in the glare and tumult
of the present time, such a picture will find favor may well be
questioned. I only know that it has beguiled for me some hours of
weariness, and that, whatever may be its measure of publi