even the best men across the water. It was to
be expected. As far as New England is con-
cerned, there is no denying the oft quoted as-
sertion of Stoughton that God sifted a whole
nation to procure the seed out of which the
people was to be developed. The colonists
were picked men and women, and the circum-
stances under which they were placed on, their
arrival on these shores forced upon them a re-
viral of institutions which in England had long
been overlaid. The folk-mote had reappeared
in all its old vigor, and wrought in the society
its natural beneficent effect. Together with
intelligence and self-reliance in every direction,
it had especially trained in the people the polit-
ical sense. In utter blindness the Englishman
of our revolutionary period looked down upon
the colonist as wanting in reason and courage.
Really the colonist was a superior being, both
as compared with the ordinary British citizen
and with the noble. Originally of the best
English strain, a century and a half of training
under the institution best adapted of all human
institutions to quicken manhood had had its
effect. What influences had surrounded lord
or commoner across the water to develop in
them a capacity to cope with the child of the
Puritan, schooled thoroughly in the town-meet-
ing?

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