PREFACE.

"THE law of optics is reversed in history." The events and characters of a past age are often more accurately discerned, and more correctly appreciated, than the circumstances which now surround us and the men among whom we live. Hence we meet with persons, who, while they brand with the stigma of fanaticism certain classes among the living, are quite prepared to bind the wreath of honour round the memories of men similar in sentiment and character, but who are now numbered among the dead. The remark forcibly applies to the judgment formed of the Puritans. Contemporaries traduced and vilified them. Historians of the next age, influenced by prejudice, gave to these calumnies implicit credence. But time has been gradually removing the old Puritans to a distance which subdues the force of passion in the mind of the beholder; and historical research, especially of late, has brought facts to light which have tended to vindicate them from the unjust charges preferred by their enemies. Thus public opinion has, to