Thus is the memory of their grievance held sacred by the descendants of their adversaries after the lapse of a century, and the local self-government for which they pleaded has become the immutable policy of the empire. The principles they laid down have been equally enduring, for they proclaimed the equality of men before the law, the corner-stone of modern civilization, and the Constitution they wrote still remains the fundamental charter of the liberties of the republic of the United States. Nevertheless it remains true that secular liberalism alone could never have produced the peculiarly acrimonious hostility to Great Britain wherein Massachusetts stood preeminent, whose causes, if traced, will be found imbedded at the very foundation of her social organization, and to have been steadily in action ever since the settlement. Too little study is given to ecclesiastical history, for probably nothing throws so much light on certain phases of development; and particularly in the case of this Commonwealth the impulses which moulded her destiny cannot be understood unless the events that stimulated the passions of her clergy are steadily kept in view. The early aggrandizement of her priests has been described; the inevitable conflict with the law into which their ambition plunged them, and the overthrow of the theocracy which resulted therefrom, have been related; but the causes that kept alive the old exasperation with England throughout the eighteenth century have not yet been told. The influence of men like Leverett and Colman tended to broaden the church, but necessarily the process was slow; and there is no lack of evidence that the majority of the ministers had little relish for the toleration forced upon them by the second charter. It is not surprising, therefore, to find the sectaries soon again driven to invoke the protection of the king.