Chapter The New England Clergy of Index by Simonds History of American Literature

Thomas Shepard, 1605-49.

Rev. Thomas Shepard arrived in America in 1635, succeeding Hooker in Cambridge, where he preached until his death in 1649. Unlike the stalwart Hooker, whose physical strength and bodily energy matched his intellectual stature, Shepard was an invalid. He was, however, a profound scholar, and a "soul-melting preacher." His writings are not voluminous, but they exercised a strong influence even after his death. His diction is imaginative and forceful, with the rugged force of Puritan vigor.

"God heweth thee by sermons, sicknesses, losses and crosses, sudden death, mercies and miseries, yet nothing makes thee better.

"Death cometh hissing . . . like a fiery dragon with the sting of vengeance in the mouth of it. Then shall God surrender up thy forsaken soul into the hands of devils, who being thy jailers, must keep thee till the great day of account; so that as they friends are scrambling for thy goods, and worms for thy body, so devils shall scramble for thy soul."

John Cotton, 1585-1652.

On the same ship which brought Thomas Hooker to America came John Cotton, most noted of these three men. For nearly twenty years, he had served the parish of St. Botolph's in Boston in Lincolnshire, and was known far and wide for his aggressive spirituality. In 1633, he discovered that he was no longer safe in his native land. The principal colony on Massachusetts Bay had longed for him. In compliment to him, its members adopted the name of Boston; and John Cotton became the foremost minister in New England, -- "a most universal scholar, a living system of the liberal arts, and a walking library," as his grandson, Cotton Mather, described him. John Cotton wrote many theological treatises, and engaged in bitter controversies. He was a laborious student. Near him as he studied stood a sand-glass which would run four hours. This glass, thrice turned, was the measure of his day's work. This he called "a scholar's day." His writings lack the picturesque imagery of Hooker and Shepard. His style is lifeless now, but he carried prodigious weight among his contemporaries and was the foremost champion in the theological battles of his age.

The Simple Cobler.

Among the more noteworthy publications of these scholastic writers was a singular book which appeared in London in 1647. Its author was Nathaniel Ward, a Cambridge graduate and retired minister, who lived at what is now the town of Ipswich in eastern Massachusetts. His work is quaintly addressed under the title of The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America. Upon the title-page, in accordance with seventeenth-century custom, the author explains his purpose at considerable length: as --

"willing to help mend his native country, lamentably tattered both in the upper-leather and sole, with all the honest stitches he can take; and as willing never to be paid for his work by old English wonted pay. It is his trade to patch all the year long gratis. Therefore I pray gentlemen keep your purses. By Theodore de la Guard."

This picturesque book, full of pungent wit, directs its satire at what its author deemed the follies and perversions of his day. The allegory of the Cobbler is not maintained much beyond the title-page. Himself a refugee from religious persecution, he expresses the usual Puritan intolerance of all independent opinion:

"That state that will give liberty of conscience in matters of religion must give liberty of conscience and conversation in their moral laws, or else the fiddle will be out of tune, and some of the strings crack."

Roger Williams, 1606-83.

Nathaniel Ward's Simple Cobler voices with characteristic fervor the utterance of Puritan bigotry; but there was in the colony one powerful champion of religious tolerance who constitutes one of its most