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Rh of material comfort and prosperity. The more Southern Colonies were this basis, adding to it the freedom of life—the large hospitality possible where miles of land formed the plantation, and service meant no direct outlay or expense. Here and there a Southern Puritan was found, as his type may be found to-day, resisting the charm of physical ease and comfort, and constituting himself a missionary to the Indians of South Carolina, or to settlements remote from all gospel privileges, but for the most part the habits of an English spuire-ruledsquire-ruled [sic] country prevailed, and were enlarged upon; each man in the centre of his great property being practically king. Dispersion of forces was the order, and thus many necessities of civilization were dispensed with. The man who had a river at his door had no occasion to worry over the making or improvement of roads, a boat carrying his supplies, and bridle-paths sufficing his horse and himself. With no need for strenuous conflict with nature or man, the power of resistance died naturally. Sharp lines softened; muscles weakened, and before many generations the type had so altered that the people who had left England as one, were two, once for all.

The law of dispersion, practical and agreeable to the Southern landholder, would have been destruction to his New England brethren. For the latter, concentration was the only safety. They massed together in close communities, and necessarily were forced to plan for the general rather than for the individual good. In such close quarters, where every angle made itself felt, and constant contact developed and implied criticism, law must work far more minutely than in less exacting communities. Every tendency