In the midst of their sorrows and sufferings the purpose of their coming hither to establish a pure church in the wilderness was not forgotten. The first measure of the Court of Assistants was to provide for the administration of the gospel. Within two years of their landing, seven churches were firmly established and provided with devout ministers. Their second object was the settlement of a government which was to secure their beloved popular liberties. Their charter provided that laws were to be enacted in the assembly of all the freemen of the colony, but a fear soon crept in of this being susceptible of too wide an interpretation; already above a hundred old planters and members of no church “were freemen equally with themselves.” The stem, uncompromising spirit of the religionist awoke. “Late in May, after the corn was set,” a general court ordained that while the governor, deputy-governor, and assistants, should be chosen by the freemen, none should be admitted to the freedom of the body-politic but such as were members of some church within the limits of the colony. Thus was the door opened to bigotry and intolerance! A species of theocratic government was established; God was the head of his people; his people were they who constituted the elect, and whose names were registered in the book of eternal life. “An aristocracy,” adds Bancroft, “was founded, but not of wealth. A servant, a bondman, might be a member of the church and therefore a freeman of the company. The Calvinists of Massachusetts, scrupulously refusing to the clergy the least shadow of political favour, established the reign of a visible church or commonwealth of the chosen people in covenant with God.” Sincerely religious themselves, this was nevertheless a dangerous principle to introduce into their government, and one totally subversive of the spirit of true religion and democratic liberty. Among the early records, we will mention, that “the governor, in consideration of the inconveniences which had grown in England by drinking one to another, restrained it at his table, and wished others to do the like.” And that the first baptisms registered in Boston Church are those of “Joy and Recompense, daughters of brother John Miles; and Pity, daughter of our brother William Balstone.” Whilst a satisfactory form of government was being established, the colony received friendly visits from the principal surrounding Indian chiefs. The sagamore of the Mohegans from the banks of the Connecticut, invited the English to settle in his country; the Nipmucks besought aid against their enemies the Mohawks; the son of the old Canonicus sent presents; Miantonomoh, the grand warrior of the Narragansetts, the associate sachem with Canonicus, visited the governor, and attended with him divine service; and lastly from the river of the Pequods came the wily Uncas, who declared to the authorities that “his heart was not his own but theirs.”