cannot now, I suppose, be ascertained. It does not even appear that they were all in favor of the report. It may be admitted, however, that they were; and that they had, in some way or other, been led to believe that such a measure would be right and wise; but if so, there is no doubt they afterwards changed their opinion; for the Council, of which they were leading members, though it voted at first to accept the report, yet afterwards, upon a hearing of the Corporation, gave a different vote; whereas the House of Representatives, actuated by some feeling in which the other branch did not sympathize, refused to give a hearing and adhered obstinately to its former vote. To what is this difference in the conduct of those two bodies to be attributed? Do not the facts related furnish a satisfactory clue?

I am aware that an able writer (Mr. Lowell) has presented a different solution of this affair, from that which I have ventured to give. In his "Remarks" on the Memorial of the Resident Instructors of Harvard University, in 1824, he observes;-"The conduct of that legislature, so contrary to that of all preceding and all subsequent legislatures, in their conduct towards the College, led me to suspect that there must have been some temporary excitement tending to warp their judgment, and I think I have discovered it.

"In 1717, the Corporation had elected the Rev. Benjamin Colman, pastor of Brattle-Street Church, a fellow. His principles of church-government were very offensive to the Mathers, and to the rulers of the Church and State generally. They were desirous of ousting him from the Corporation. Hence the reservation of the Governor, though moderate and just, saving the rights of the incumbents, defeated their great

object. Tutors Sever and Welsteed were but the tools, with which this unholy and illiberal work was to be accomplished. We are confirmed in this opinion by the fact, that when in 1725 Colman was legally elected President, the government refused to grant him his salary, and his election was opposed on the ground, that it was dangerous to entrust the presidency of the College to a man, who denied the supremacy of the associated clergy, — who was an avowed of consociations." 1

opponent

Various considerations oblige me to dissent from this explanation.

Dr. Colman took charge of the new Church in Brattle Street as early as the year 1700. It is true, the principles, on which that Church was founded, gave great offence to other churches; but a reconciliation took place; and Dr. Colman was in habits of communion and fellowship with his brethren, not excepting either of the Mathers. But the conduct of the Overseers of the College, towards Dr. Colman, appears to me to be decisive upon this point. Who were these Overseers? The Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Council, and ministers of the six adjoining towns; the very men, surely, if any, to have been influenced by the consideration in question. Now, what did these men, to whom Dr. Colman is supposed to be still so obnoxious for what took place more than twenty years before, do in the present case? Not petition the General Court, to pass such an order as would oust him from the Corporation; but merely to enlarge that body, so as to admit the Tutors; and they, in fact, requested Governor Shute to make the "proviso,"

1 Remarks on a Pamphlet printed by the Professors and Tutors of Harvard University. Boston. 1824. p. 29.

which had for its object the retaining of him and the other non-resident Fellows in the Corporation.

To this testimony in favor of Dr. Colman, they soon afterwards added the most positive and conclusive evidence of their regard for him; for after the death of President Leverett, in 1724, these bigoted opposers of the Doctor unanimously approved of the choice, which the Corporation had made of him for President of the College!

It cannot be necessary to add any thing further to demonstrate, that, if the religious motive, assigned as the mainspring of this affair, had any operation at all, it must have been very inconsiderable. Had it been felt to any extent, it would certainly have shown itself among the Overseers.

The very able writer, from whom the above quotation is made, offers his solution, indeed, merely as a conjecture, or rather, in his own language merely "suspects" that there must have been some temporary excitement as above stated by him. But, I think, he had not given this point a minute examination; for he speaks of Dr. Colman's being "an avowed opponent of consociations." Now, distinguished as Dr. Colman certainly was for the candor and liberality of his sentiments, it was not in this way that he manifested it. On the contrary, he was an avowed advocate of consociations. In a letter to one of his Reverend brethren, he says, "In short, the consociation of churches is the very soul and life of the congregational scheme, necessary to the very esse as well as benè of it; without which we must be independent, and with which all the good of Presbyterianism is attainable." 1

1 Turell's Life of Colman, p. 107.

It is evident, also, that Dr. Colman himself was not aware that his election to the Presidency was opposed in the House on religious grounds; for in his letter before alluded to, he merely says, "I am not well in the opinion of our House of Representatives of late years;" an expression which could have had no reference to an affair of so long standing as one which was coë val with his settlement in the ministry.

CHAPTER XV.

DR. COTTON MATHER, who during the whole of Mr. Leverett's presidency met but once with the Overseers, which was in 1714, when the choice of Mr. White as Treasurer was acted upon, now makes his appearance for a short time again among the Curators of the College. We find him again at two meetings of the Overseers, one of which was August 6, 1724, the first at which the question of electing a President was brought forward, and when, in consequence of a proposal from the Corporation, it was voted "that the Corporation be advised and directed speedily to proceed to the election of a suitable person to be President of the College, to fill up the vacancy made by the death of the late Rev. Mr. Leverett."

"Twice," says Dr. Eliot, "he thought himself a candidate for the President's chair, and kept days of fasting, that he might be directed how to act upon the occasion; but he was disappointed. Governor Dudley persuaded his friend Leverett to accept the place in 1707; and when that great man died, in 1724, and the voice of the people cried aloud for Dr. Mather, and it was declared, even in the General Court, that he ought to be President, it was decided otherwise by the members of the Corporation. The chair was