The colonial period of American history by Andrews Charles McLean 1863-1943

Author:Andrews, Charles McLean, 1863-1943
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Haven, Yale University Press
Published: 1964-03-28T16:00:00+00:00

276 COLONIAL PERIOD OF AMERICAN HISTORY

primitive models, which according to their own ideas o£ ecclesiastical polity was separatist and independent and a law unto itself. They were seekers after religious opportunity and permanent homes in an uncontaminated environment. The maintenance of their religious faith was their first thought, all else was secondary, and during the early years of their life in America they stood apart from the majority of the inhabitants of the colony, a church by themselves that admitted of no ordained ministry and made no provision for the religious welfare of those who were not of their own membership. As they were very unwilling to allow anyone not of their own choosing to exercise religious functions, it was inevitable that many of the settlers were deprived of the religious comforts and ministrations to which they had been accustomed at home and were destitute, from their point of view, of the means of salvation. When, therefore, in 1624, at a time when there was no pastor among them, even of the Separatist Church itself, there arrived the Rev. John Lyford, a clergyman of the Church of England sent over by the merchant adventurers, to whom complaints may have come from those in the colony religiously disfranchised, a peculiar situation developed. As Elder Brewster was not permitted to administer the sacraments, marriages had been performed by the civil authorities and baptisms had been omitted entirely. Such deficiencies were felt to be a great hardship by those to whom the sacraments of marriage and baptism were an essential part of their religious life and Lyford braved the wrath of Bradford and others by administering the communion, baptizing at least one child, and conducting service according to the Book of Common Prayer. For this he was driven from the colony and afterward maligned by Bradford in his History as "a vile man and an enemy to the plantation." Lyford may not have been a commendable character and probably was not, but there is nothing in his later career at Nantasket, Cape Ann, and Virginia to bear out Bradford's charges, which were manifestly based on hearsay. 1 The treatment the Pilgrim authorities accorded

I. Bradford, History, I, 380-405, 414-419; Banks, "Bradford on a Religious Rival," Proceedings, Massachusetts Historical Society, 62, pp. 34-53. Dr. Banks says "Of [Bradford's] right fto expel Lyford] there may be serious doubts . . . Lyford had a competent legal status in a plantation owned by the Merchant Adventurers as principal stockholders," p. 48. Both the Pilgrims and the Puritans were inclined to be credulous when it was their interest to be so, as in the charge of murder brought against Thomas Morton, a charge now disproved.

It must be remembered that Oldham, Hilton, Conant, and other early settlers,

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