And these thoughts were darted in with some
impression, and left a strange confusion and sickliness upon my spirit.
Yet, methought, it was not hard to discern that they were from the _Evil
One_; ... And it made me fearful to go needlessly to Mr. D.; for methought
I found a venom and poison in his insinuations and discourses against
Paedobaptism." [Footnote: _Magnalia_, bk. 4, ch. iv. Section 10.]
Henry Dunster was an uncommon man. Famed for piety in an age of
fanaticism, learned, modest, and brave, by the unremitting toil of
thirteen years he raised Harvard from a school to the position which it
has since held; and though very poor, and starving on a wretched and ill-
paid pittance, he gave his beloved college one hundred acres of land at
the moment of its sorest need. [Footnote: Quincy's _History of Harvard_,
i. 15.] Yet he was a criminal, for he would not baptize infants, and he
met with the "lenity and patience" which the elders were not unwilling
should be used toward the erring.
He was indicted and convicted of disturbing church ordinances, and
deprived of his office in October, 1654. He asked for leave to stay in the
house he had built for a few months, and his petition in November ought to
be read to understand how heretics were made to suffer:--
"1st. The time of the year is unseasonable, being now very near the
shortest day, and the depth of winter.
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