The sad fate of this woman has tinged with romance her whole history. She was not so bad as her enemies have painted her, nor was she, on the other hand, the mild and blameless saint, some recent historians have imagined. But she was a religious ' enthusiast ; a female theological polemic, armed with a tongue and a temper which made her no unequal match even for the stern and unyielding fathers of New England. In fact, the controversies which she I raised, engendered such divisions among them as to threaten the safety of l)oth church and State. Wherefore, by a decree of the General Court, she was banished from the colony. She went to Connecticut, and afterwards to New York, where we find her in the j summer of 1642, permission having been given to her I by the Dutch authorities to settle at Pelham, in 1 connection with other English families. Her portrait [ is thus drawn by an impartial historian. "She was a woman of superior intelligence, bright, witty, good I at a fencing match of tongues, versed in Scripture and theological literature; never so happy as when descanting on her own views. Her temper was resolute ; she ruled her weak husband, and had a taste for ruling: To be an influential centre of opinion was her ambition, which she took no trouble to conceal. She claimed to be " inspired," and that

PELHAM.

it had been " revealed to her" that she would come to New England to be persecuted, but that God would ruin the colony for her sake. She narrowly escaped procuring the verification of her own prediction." '