Women of America: Woman: In all ages and in all countries Vol. 10 (of 10)Larus, John Ruse
History
Women of America: Woman: In all ages and in all countries Vol. 10 (of 10)
Larus, John Ruse
Women -- America -- History; Women -- United States -- History
It is in Mary Dyer, however, that we find the true type of the New
England Quakeress--a type which persists in more than one aspect of the
American woman. Believing that she was sent by God with His words to
mankind, she would not be hushed from uttering them. Sent away from
Boston on her first appearance there, she soon returned and preached the
"infamous" doctrines of her sect--"peace and goodwill toward men." In
the interval between her visits the offence of which she was guilty in
preaching the creed of the Quakers had been made capital--one of the
deepest blots that rest upon even this speckled period of New England
history. Mary Dyer felt that in returning to Boston to preach she was
going to her death; but she held it her duty, and she did not shrink. On
September 14, 1659, she was condemned to banishment or death, if she did
not leave within two days; but it was no desire to escape the ultimate
penalty that led her on this occasion to return to her Rhode Island
home, for on October 8th she once more appeared in Boston. She was at
once arrested and with two other Friends was condemned by the Court "to
suffer the poenalty of the lawe (the just reward of their transgression)
on the morrow." One sees a twinge of conscience in the clause in
parentheses, as excusatory of themselves to posterity. Mary Dyer,
however, though included in the original sentence, was, on the
intercession of her son, reprieved from death and her sentence commuted
to banishment, "to be forthwith executed if she returned. In the
meanwhile she was to go with the other two condemned to the place of
execution, and to stand upon the gallows with a rope about her neck till
her companions were executed." She went to her ignominious punishment
"as to a Wedding Day" and heartened her companions for their
trial--though they needed no encouragement. Moreover, she did not wish
to accept her own life at the hands of those who had made the unjust law
under which her companions suffered, she probably believing that the
already large number of Quaker sympathizers would be enlarged by the
spectacle of a woman put to death for her faith. Probably, too, she was
of the same enthusiastic spirit as Anne Hutchinson, that rejoiced in
martyrdom. At all events, though once more banished, she reappeared in
Boston, and in little more than six months from the date of her last
sentence she was once more before the Court upon the charge of
"rebelliously returning into this jurisdiction, notwithstanding the
favour of this Court towards her," and she was sentenced to die on June
1st. On that day she accordingly went to her death, as calmly and
triumphantly as to the crown of her life, as indeed the moment probably
seemed to her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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