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316 them only by hearsay, and for even the humblest, substantial prosperity was the rule. Johnson, in his "Wonder-Working Providence," wrote words that held no exaggeration in their description of the comfort which has, from that day to this, been the characteristic of New England homes. "The Lord hath been pleased to turn all the wigwams, huts, and hovels the English dwelt in at their first coming, into orderly, fair, and well-built houses, well furnished many of them, together with orchards, filled with goodly fruit-trees, and gardens with variety of flowers. . . . There are many hundreds of laboring men, who had not enough to bring them over, yet now, worth scores, and some, hundreds of pounds. . . . The Lord whose promises are large to His Sion, hath blessed his people's provision, and satisfied her poor with bread, in a very little space. Everything in the country proved a staple commodity. . . . And those who were formerly forced to fetch most of the bread they eat, and the beer they drink, a thousand leagues by sea, are, through the blessing of the Lord, so increased, that they have not only fed their elder sisters, Virginia, Barbadoes and many of the Summer Islands, that were preferred before her for fruitfulness, but also the grandmother of us all, even the fertile isle of Great Britain."

With such conditions the colonists were happy, and as the work of their hands prospered, one might have thought that gentler modes of judgment would have grown with it, and toleration if not welcome have been given to the few dissenting minds that appeared among them. Had Winthrop lived, this might have been possible, but the new generation, fast replacing