Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/91

] considerable stir, and it was even proposed, to meet the desires of those among the aristocracy who might be expected to make New England their home, to establish an order of hereditary magistracy, but the proposition was never carried into effect. Soon after, Vane was elected chief magistrate of the colony, and on the occasion of a new religious fermentation arising, he became a prominent actor in it. We can not do better, in speaking of this matter, than use the language of Dr. Robertson:

"It was the custom at that time in New England, among the chief men in every congregation, to meet once a week, in order to repeat the sermons which they had heard, and to hold religious conference with respect to the doctrines contained in them. Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, whose husband was among the most respectable members of the colony, regretting that persons of her sex were excluded from the benefit of those meetings, assembled statedly in her house a number of women, who employed themselves in pious exercises similar to those of the men. At first she satisfied herself with repeating what she could recollect of the discourses delivered by their teachers. She began afterwards to add illustrations, and at length proceeded to censure some of the clergy as unsound, and to vent opinions and fancies of her own. These were all founded on the system which is denominated Antinomian by divines, and tinged with the deepest enthusiasm. She taught that sanctity of life is no evidence of justification, or of a state of favor with God; and that such as inculcated the necessity of manifesting the reality of our faith by obedience, preached only a covenant of works ; she contended that the Spirit of God dwelt personally in good men, and by inward revelations and impressions they received the fullest discoveries of the Divine will. The fluency and confidence with which she delivered these notions, gained her many admirers and proselytes, not only among the vulgar, but among the principal inhabitants. The whole colony was interested and agitated. Vane, whose sagacity and acuteness seemed to forsake him whenever they were turned towards religion, espoused and defended her wildest tenets. Many conferences were held, days of fasting and humiliation were appointed, a general synod was called; and, after dissensions which threatened the dissolution of the colony, Mrs. Hutchinson's opinions were condemned as erroneous, and she herself banished. Several of her disciples withdrew from the province of their own accord. Vane quitted America in disgust, unlamented even by those who had lately admired him; some of whom now regarded him as a mere visionary, and others, as one of those dark, turbulent spirits doomed to embroil every society into which they enter."

The fate of Mrs. Hutchinson was as unhappy as her life was restless. After her retirement to Aquiday, or the Isle of Rhodes, where she participated in all the toils and privations of a new