Page:Anne Bradstreet and her time.djvu/141

Rh ancestor of the Tory Governor of Massachusetts during the Revolution, and a daughter also married and settled there, so that her blood is still found in the veins of more than one New England family, some of whose ancestors were most directly concerned in casting her out. But her younger children and a son-in-law were still with her, with a few of her most devoted followers, and she still anticipated peace and a quiet future. Both came at last, but not in the looked-for guise. No date remains of the fate of the little colony and only the Indian custom of preserving the names of those they killed, has made us know that Wampago himself, the owner of the land about Pelham, was the murderer of the woman, whose troubled but not unhappy life went out in the fire and blood of an Indian massacre.

To the Puritans in Boston, such fate seemed justice, and they rejoiced with a grim exultation. "The Lord," said Welde, "heard our groans to heaven, and freed us from our great and sore affliction." No tale was too gross and shameless to find acceptance, and popular feeling against her settled into such fixed enmity that even her descendant, the historian Hutchinson, dared not write anything that would seem to favor her cause. Yet, necessary as her persecution and banishment may have been to the safety of the Colony, the faith for which she gave her life has been stronger than her enemies. Mistaken as she often was, a truer Christianity dwelt with her than with them, and the toleration denied her has shown itself as the heart of all present life or future progress.