fellowship at any college;
could become a professor at either university; could sit in the House
of Commons; could be appointed to any municipal office; could hold a
commission in the army or navy. These restrictions practically--though
with some exceptions--reduced Nonconformity in England to the lower
middle class, the small traders. Their ministers, who had formerly
been scholars and theologians, fell into ignorance; their creeds
became narrower; they had no social influence; but for the example of
their brethren across the ocean they would have melted away and been
lost like the Non-Jurors who expired fifty years ago in the last
surviving member; or, like a hundred sects which have arisen, made a
show of flourishing for a while, and then perished. They were
sustained, first, by the memory of a _victorious_ past; next, by the
tradition of religious liberty; and, thirdly, by the report of a
country--a flourishing country--where there were no religious
disabilities, no social inferiority on account of faith and creed. Not
reports only: there was a continual passing to and fro between Bristol
and Boston during three-fourths of the eighteenth century. The
colonies were visited by traders, soldiers and sailors. John Dunton in
the year 1710 thought nothing of a voyage to Boston with a consignment
of books for sale. Ned Ward, another bookseller, made the same journey
with the same object. There exists a whole library of Quaker
biographies showing how these restless apostles travelled backwards
and forwards, crossing and recrossing the Atlantic, and journeying up
and down the country, to preach their gospel. And the life of John
Wesley also proves that the Colonies were regarded as easily
accessible. I have seen a correspondence between a family in London
and their cousins in Philadelphia, in the reign of Queen Anne, which
brings out very clearly the fact that they thought nothing of the
voyage, and fearlessly crossed the ocean on business or pleasure. The
connection between the Colonies and England was much closer than we
are apt to imagine. The Colonies were much better known by us than we
are given to believe; they were regarded by the ecclesiastical mind as
the home of schismatic rebellion; but by the layman as the land where
thought was free.

That was one side--perhaps the most important side. But the halo of
adventure still lay glowing in the western land. No colony but had its
history of massacre, treachery, and war