Here is the true advantage of the men of religion over Shakspere and his creations,--here is the greater world than Shakspere saw,--men grappling with their fate and in the struggle working out heroic lives. The finest type of the New England colonists is seen in the Winthrops, father and son. When the migration is determined on, the son writes: "For myself, I have seen so much of the variety of the world that I esteem no more of the diversities of countries than as so many inns, whereof the traveler that hath lodged in the best or the worst findeth no difference when he cometh to his journey's end; and I shall call that my country where I may most glorify God and enjoy the presence of my dearest friends. Therefore herein I submit myself to God's will and yours, and, with your leave, do dedicate myself (laying by all desire of other employments whatsoever) to the service of God and the company herein, with the whole endeavors both of body and mind." The elder Winthrop is shown to us in the Journal or chronicle of the Massachusetts colony, a sombre record of seemingly petty events; in his religious diary of an earlier period; and in his domestic letters, which are full of manly strength and sweetness. He combined some of the chief elements of greatness,--loftiness of aim; a character disinterested, patient, modest, brave; deep religious experience; and personal tenderness. To a man like Winthrop, the heart of his creed was that man's true aim is moral perfection and a living relation with a Divine Lover. The sense of a Divine Presence--inspiring, ruling, gladdening--is what his religion means to him. In this quiet country gentleman, portrayed in his private diary, is an intense play of feeling and imagination, concentrated on the attainment of a personal and social ideal. All this introspective fervor merged into a public enterprise,--the transplanting of a church and colony to Massachusetts Bay. The last half of his life was spent in the most assiduous, minute, exacting labors. The self-watchful diary gives place to a public chronicle, prosaic as a ship's log-book--and, like the log-book, the shorthand record of adventures, heroisms, and sublimities. In the Puritan of Winthrop's type the flame of spiritual emotion was harnessed and made to serve. The drudgery of founding New England was done by men whose hearts were touched with fire,--men such as Lowell sings of:-- "Who, dowered with every gift of passion, In that fierce flame can forge and fashion Of self and sin the anchor strong; Can thence compel the driving force Of daily life's mechanic course." Winthrop set out with a great ideal--shown with statesmanlike breadth in the "Considerations," and with apostolic fervor in the "Model of Christian Charity." His conception was cramped into conformity with the far narrower views of the ministers who were the leaders in the colony. Yet it was his ideal and his personality which gave most to success.