[Footnote: Hutch.
_Hist._ ii. 15, 16] The governor, lieutenant-governor, and secretary
were appointed by the crown; the governor had a veto, and the king
reserved the right to disallow legislation within three years of the date
of its enactment. Thus the theocracy fell at a single blow; and it is
worthy of remark that thenceforward prosecutions for sedition became
unknown among the people of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Yet, though
the clerical oligarchy was no longer absolute, the ministers still exerted
a prodigious influence upon opinion. Not only did they speak with all the
authority inherited with the traditions of the past; not only had they or
their predecessors trained the vast majority of the people from their
cradles to reverence them more than anything on earth, but their compact
organization was as yet unimpaired, and at its head stood the two Mathers,
the pastors of the Old North Church. Thus venerated and thus led, the
elders were still able to appeal to the popular superstition and
fanaticism with terrible effect.
Widely differing judgments have been formed of these two celebrated
divines; the ecclesiastical view is perhaps well summed up by the Rev.
John Eliot, who thus describes the President of Harvard: "He was the
father of the New England clergy, and his name and character were held in
veneration, not only by those, who knew him, but by succeeding
generations.
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