Page:Anne Bradstreet and her time.djvu/138

122 made against her, but inference, then as now, made the chief ground for her enemies. Excommunication followed at once, and now, the worst having come, her spirits rose, and she faced them with quiet dignity, but with all her old assurance, glorying in the whole experience so that one of the indignant ministers described her manner with deep disgust, and added: "God giving her up, since the sentence of excommunication, to that hardness of heart, as she is not affected with any remorse, but glories in it, and fears not the vengeance of God which she lies under, as if God did work contrary to his own word, and loosed from heaven, while his church had bound upon earth."

Other ministers were as eager in denunciation, preaching against her as "the American Jezebel," and even the saintly Hooker wrote: "The expression of providence against this wretched woman hath proceeded from the Lord's miraculous mercy, and his bare arm hath been discovered therein from first to last, that all the churches may hear and fear. I do believe such a heap of hideous errors at once to be vented by such a self-deluding and deluded creature, no history can record; and yet, after recantation of all, to be cast out as unsavory salt, that she may not continue a pest to the place, that will be forever marvellous in the eyes of all the saints."

Even the lapse of several generations left the animus unchanged, and Graham, usually so dispassionate and just in statement, wrote of her almost vindictively:

"In the assemblies which were held by the followers of Mrs. Hutchinson, there was nourished and