It must be admitted that much in Mrs. Bradstreet's verse does not rise above that of Wigglesworth or The Bay Psalm Book. On the other hand she at times reaches a height altogether beyond that of any of her contemporaries. Though usually faulty in execution, her best passages show unquestionable poetic insight, and a genuine poetic approach to

nature. A good specimen of this may be seen in the stanza of Contemplations in praise of the grasshopper and the cricket. Though much of her poetry has the characteristic religious tone, Mrs. Bradstreet is distinguished from other New England verse writers by the fact that it was never her purpose to inculcate doctrine. The mere pleasure of composition seems to have been her greatest spur. Of her it has been well said that she, "in some worthy sense, found in poetry a vocation."

Of the host of theologians who gave to the literature of this period its character, two stand out preeminent - Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards. Both came of ministerial stock; both were phenomenal children; both distinguished themselves in their own calling and in others; and both exerted great influence among their people.

Cotton Mather (1663-1728).- Cotton Mather was the third and the greatest of the "Mather Dynasty" already referred to, and is the first writer mentioned in this book who was born in America. His father, Increase, and both his grandfathers, Richard Mather and John Cotton, were ministers. From childhood he was famed for his learning and piety; he was graduated from Harvard at the age of fifteen; he began preaching at seventeen. He knew Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and Algonquin (an Indian dialect); and he published books in most

of these languages. He had the largest private library in the New World, and was, apparently, acquainted with all it contained. He was a tremendous worker, and by a legend over his study door invited visitors to waste no words. For forty years he was connected with the North Church of Boston as assistant pastor (to his father) and as pastor.

From firm conviction he became a leader in the witchcraft persecution, and set forth the grounds of his conviction in several treatises.

We shall notice only two of the more than four hundred works written by Mather. To his Essays to do Good Franklin attributed much of his own usefulness in life, a sufficient evidence that it possessed real merit even for a practical man. Mather's greatest work, and in many respects the greatest of colonial America, is entitled: Magnalia Christi Americana; or, The Ecclesiastical History of New England from its First Planting in the year 1620, unto the Year of Our Lord 1698. "A bulky thing," Mather appropriately called it, for it fills over one thousand pages. A miscellaneous thing it might also be called; for it contains history of the colony, history of Harvard College, biographies of governors and of ministers, church doctrine, a record of church squabbles, and a collection of "remarkable mercies and judgements." His main purpose in the Magnalia seems to have been to make a final defense of the old order - of the rigorous Puritan religion which was already fast losing its power, and of the immense importance of the clergy, who were beginning to find much of their power assumed by civil officers. By this book he became more famous in Europe for his learning than were any of his countrymen. It is a storehouse of facts regarding the life of the people; but as history it is not so dependable as are the writings of Bradford and Winthrop.

Mather was a man of strong prejudices, and his learning was ill-digested and ill-arranged. His great book is, moreover, unattractive to our day by reason of its style, which was no accident, but deliberately cultivated by its author. He followed what is known as the "fantastic "school of literature, the distinguishing quality of which is a boastful display of all sorts of learning. Scarcely a page in the

In the tower of which Paul Revere's lanterns were placed. Magnalia but is burdened with unusual phraseology and figures of speech, and with learned allusions to books, very frequently in foreign languages. The "fantastic" school had already had its day in Europe; with Mather it may be said to have had its demise.

With Mather passed away also the ascendency of the clergy. His son Samuel, who succeeded him in the pastorate of the North Church, was forced by disaffection to leave his charge and form a new organization of those who adhered to him. Edwards, as we shall see, found also that a New England congregation would no longer take its pastor's word as law, but would discipline him just as he would discipline a humble member. And this changed state of things lasted. The ministry continued to be influential and respected, but never again occupied any such position of power as it had occupied throughout the seventeenth century.

JONATHAN EDWARDS.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). Jonathan Edwards was a theologian of the same type as Mather, but a man of much more trustworthy knowledge. Like Mather also he was born old and a preacher. His father was a preacher, as was his maternal grandfather; he himself married at the age of twenty-three a preacher's daughter; and one of his daughters married a preacher. On the face of things there would seem to have been enough religion in the atmosphere in which he lived, and the effect of this environment appeared early; for when about ten years old, he set apart a retreat in a near-by swamp for secret prayer.