Widely differing judgments have been formed of these two celebrated divines; the ecclesiastical view is perhaps well summed up by the Rev. John Eliot, who thus describes the President of Harvard: “He was the father of the New England clergy, and his name and character were held in veneration, not only by those, who knew him, but by succeeding generations.” [Footnote: _Biographical Dictionary_, p. 312.] All must admit his ability and learning, while in sanctimoniousness of deportment he was unrivalled. His son Cotton says he had such a “gravity as made all sorts of persons, wherever he came, to be struck with a sensible awe of his presence, ... yea, if he laughed on them, they believed it not.” “His very countenance carried the force of a sermon with it.” [Footnote: _Parentator_, p. 40.] He kept a strict account of his mental condition, and always was pleased when able to enter in his diary at the end of the day, “heart serious.” He was unctuous in his preaching, and wept much in the pulpit; he often mentions being “quickened at the Lord’s table [during which] tears gushed from me before the Lord,” [Footnote: _Parentator_, p. 48.] but of his self-sacrifice, his mercy, and his truth, his own acts and words are the best evidence that remain. When the new government was about to be put in operation, an extraordinary amount of patronage lay at the disposal of the crown; for, beside the regular executive officers, the entire council had to be named, since they could not be elected until a legislature had been organized to choose them. Increase Mather, Elisha Cooke, and Thomas Oakes were acting as agents, and all had been bitterly opposed to the new charter; but of the three, the English ministers thought Mather the most important to secure. And now an odd coincidence happened in the life of this singular man. He suddenly one day announced himself convinced that the king’s project was not so intolerable as to be unworthy of support; and then it very shortly transpired that he had been given all the spoil before the patent had passed the seals. [Footnote: Palfrey, iv. 85.] The proximity of these events is interesting as bearing on the methods of ecclesiastical statesmen, and it is also instructive to observe how thorough a master of the situation this eminent divine proved himself to be. He not only appointed all his favorite henchmen to office, but he rigidly excluded his colleagues at London, who had continued their opposition, and every one else who had any disposition to be independent. His creature, Sir William Phips, was made governor; William Stoughton, who was bred for the church, and whose savage bigotry endeared him to the clergy, was lieutenant-governor; and the council was so packed that his excellent son broke into a shout of triumph when he heard the news:--