The gentry had the weight in the community that comes with wealth and education, and they received the deference then paid to birth, for they were for the most part the descendants of English country-gentlemen. As a matter of course they monopolized the chief offices; and they were not sentenced by the courts to degrading punishments, like whipping, for their offences, as other criminals were. They even showed some wish at the outset to create legal distinctions, such as a magistracy for life, and a disposition to magnify the jurisdiction of the Court of Assistants, whose seats they filled; but the action of the people was determined though quiet, a chamber of deputies was chosen, and such schemes were heard of no more. Yet notwithstanding the existence of this aristocratic element, the real substance of influence and power lay with the clergy. It has been taught as an axiom of Massachusetts history, that from the outset the town was the social and political unit; but an analysis of the evidence tends to show that the organization of the Puritan Commonwealth was ecclesiastical, and the congregation, not the town, the basis upon which the fabric rested. By the constitution of the corporation the franchise went with the freedom of the company; but in order to form a constituency which would support a sacerdotal oligarchy, it was enacted in 1631 “that for time to come noe man shalbe admitted to the freedome of this body polliticke, but such as are members of some of the churches within ... the same.” [Footnote: _Mass. Records_, i. 87.] Thus though communicants were not necessarily voters, no one could be a voter who was not a communicant; therefore the town-meeting was in fact nothing but the church meeting, possibly somewhat attenuated, and called by a different name. By this insidious statute the clergy seized the temporal power, which they held till the charter fell. The minister stood at the head of the congregation and moulded it to suit his purposes and to do his will; for though he could not when opposed admit an inhabitant to the sacrament, he could peremptorily exclude therefrom all those of whom he disapproved, for “none are propounded to the congregation, except they be first allowed by the elders.” [Footnote: Winthrop’s reply to Vane, _Hutch. Coll._, Prince Soc. ed. i. 101.] In such a community the influence of the priesthood must have been overwhelming. Not only in an age without newspapers or tolerable roads were their sermons, preached several times each week to every voter, the most effective of political harangues; but, unlike other party orators, they were not forced to stimulate the sluggish, or to convince the hostile, for from a people glowing with fanaticism, each elder picked his band of devoted servants of the church, men passionately longing to do the will of Christ, whose commands concerning earth and heaven their pastor had been ordained to declare. Nor was their power bounded by local limits; though