meeting-house could not contain them; and in 1729 the famous building which still stands was erected on the same spot,--a building with a grander history than any other on the American continent, unless it be that other plain brick building in Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence was adopted and the Federal Constitution framed. [Sidenote: Founding of the Old South Church, 1669] The wrath of the First Church at this secession from its ranks was deep and bitter, and for thirteen years it refused to entertain ecclesiastical intercourse with the South Church. But by 1682 it had become apparent that the king and his friends were meditating an attack upon the Puritan theocracy in New England. It had even been suggested, in the council for the colonies, that the Church of England should be established in Massachusetts, and that none but duly ordained Episcopal clergymen should be allowed to solemnize marriages. Such alarming suggestions began to impress the various Puritan churches with the importance of uniting their forces against the common enemy; and accordingly in 1682 the quarrel between the two Boston societies came to an end. There was urgent need of all the sympathy and good feeling that the community could muster, whereby to cheer itself in the crisis that was coming. The four years from 1684 to 1688 were the darkest years in the history of New England. Massachusetts, though not lacking in the spirit, had not the power to beard the tyrant as she did eighty years later. Her attitude toward the Stuarts--as we have seen--had been sometimes openly haughty and defiant, sometimes silent and sullen, but always independent. At the accession of Charles II. the colonists had thought it worth while to send commissioners to England to confer with the king and avoid a quarrel. Charles promised to respect their charter, but insisted that in return they must take an oath of allegiance to the crown, must administer justice in the king's name, and must repeal their laws restricting the right of suffrage to church members and prohibiting the Episcopal form of worship. [Sidenote: Founding of the Old South Church, 1669] [Sidenote: Demands of Charles II.]