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the laws of honest justice were the basis of their com-
monwealth; and therefore its foundations were lasting.
These humble emigrants invented an admirable system; for they were near to Nature, listened willingly to her voice, and easily copied her forms.
No ancient usages, no hereditary differences of rank, no established Interests, impeded the application of the principles of justice.
Freedom springs spontaneously into life; the artificial distinctions of society require centuries to ripen.
History has ever celebrated the heroes who have won laurels in scenes of carnage.
Has it no place for the founders of states; the wise legislators, who struck the rock in the wilderness, so that the waters of liberty gushed forth in copious and perennial fountains?
They who judge of men by their services to the human race, will never cease to honor the memory of
Hooker and of
Haynes.
In equal independence, a Puritan colony sprang up
at New Haven, under the guidance of
John Davenport as its pastor, and of the excellent
Theophilus Eaton, who was annually elected its governor for twenty years, till his death.
Its forms were austere, unmixed Calvinism; but the spirit of humanity had sheltered itself under the rough exterior.
The colonists held their
first gathering under a branching oak. It was a season of gloom.
Spring had not yet revived the verdure of nature; under the leafless tree the little flock were taught by
Davenport, that, like the Son of man, they were led into the wilderness to be tempted.
After a day of fasting and prayer, they rested their first frame of government on a simple plantation covenant, that ‘all of them would be ordered by the rules which the Scriptures held forth to them.’
A title to lands was obtained by a treaty with the natives, whom they protected against the Mohawks.
When, after more than a year,
