He was arrested and examined as a
heretic. The magistrates referred the case to Cotton, who reported that
"he found him corrupt in judgment," but "had good hope to reclaim him."
[Footnote: Winthrop, ii. 251.] An instant recantation was demanded; it was
of course refused, and, in spite of all remonstrance, the family was
banished in the snow. Winthrop's sad words were: "But sure, the rule of
hospitality to strangers, and of seeking to pluck out of the fire such as
there may be hope of, ... do seem to require more moderation and
indulgence of human infirmity where there appears not obstinacy against
the clear truth." [Footnote: Winthrop, ii. 251.]
But in the savage and bloody struggle that was now at hand there was no
place for leaders capable of pity or remorse, and the theocracy found
supremely gifted chieftains in John Norton and John Endicott.
Norton approaches the ideal of the sterner orders of the priesthood. A
gentleman by birth and breeding, a ripe scholar, with a keen though
polished wit, his sombre temper was deeply tinged with fanaticism. Unlike
so many of his brethren, temporal concerns were to him of but little
moment, for every passion of his gloomy soul was intensely concentrated on
the warfare he believed himself waging with the fiend. Doubt or compassion
was impossible, for he was commissioned by the Lord.
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