[1066] The half century which succeeded this act of union was singularly checkered. In this time four momentous events occurred. The first of these, in point of time, was the persecution of the Quakers. The early advocates of this sect in New England displayed little of the mild philosophy and statesmanlike benevolence of Penn and his modern disciples; and, indeed, “the first and most noisy exponents of any popular sect are apt to be men of little consideration.” To this rule the first Quakers of Massachusetts were no exception. They knew the public opinion of the province; they knew the laws which were put into the statute-book to curb heresy; yet they broke through the restraints of sentiment, and contemned the laws—not mildly, but with harsh, violent, and often indecent obstinacy. Persecution, under any circumstances, is wrong, and the theocratic principles of the Massachusetts colonists were far from being either just or necessary. Yet granting all this, and it has still been well said that, “if the essential guilt of persecution would be aggravated when aimed against the quiet, patient philanthropist of to-day, it does not follow that it would be attended with like aggravation, however wicked else, when the subject was the mischievous madman of two centuries ago, who went raving through the city reviling authority, inveighing against the law and order of the time, running naked in the streets, and rudely interrupting divine service in the churches, as many called Quakers, of both sexes, did in 1656 and onwards. The duty of toleration stops short of the permission of such indecency; nor does it suffer men, for conscience’ sake, or to gain a name like Abraham, to sacrifice their sons, as one of these Friends was proceeding to do in 1658, when the neighbors, alarmed by the boy’s cries, broke into the house in time to balk the fanatic.” Still, it must be confessed that there was a better way than the magistrates of Massachusetts took, and one more efficient in curbing this fanaticism, than the pillory, mutilation statutes, and the death penalty; and this Roger Williams proved in Rhode Island, and the younger Winthrop demonstrated in Connecticut—in both of which colonies there was freedom of religious opinion, and yet there were few Quakers.