The Emancipation of Massachusetts by Adams, Brooks, 1848-1927

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Chapter Ii.

Chapter Iii.

The Emancipation Of Massachusetts. Chapter I. The Commonwealth.

Chapter Ii. The Antinomians.

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Chapter Iii. The Cambridge Platform.

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Chapter Iv. The Anabaptists.

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Chapter V. The Quakers.

Chronology. Turbulent Quakers.

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* * * * * Friends,

Chapter Vi. The Scire Facias.

Chapter Vii. The Witchcraft.

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Chapter Viii. Brattle Church.

* * * * * Mr. Colman:

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Chapter Ix. Harvard College.

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* * * * * * * * * * J. Dudley. Chapter X. The Lawyers.

Charter. Constitution. Charter. Constitution. * * * * *

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Josiah Quincy. * * * * * * * * * *

Chapter Xi. The Revolution.

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Whether these particular words of Leviticus, or any similar phrases, were ever used by Moses is immaterial. No one can doubt that, in substance, they contained the gist of his moral doctrine and that he enforced the moral duty which they convey to the best of his power. And here the burden lay, which crushed this man, from which he never thenceforward could, even for an instant, free himself, and which Saint Paul avers to be the heaviest burden man can bear. Moses, to fulfil what he conceived to be his destiny and which at least certainly was his ambition, was condemned to lead a life of deceit and to utter no word during his long subsequent march which was not positively or inferentially a lie. And the bitterest of his trials must have been the agony of anxiety in which he must have lived lest some error in judgment on his part, some slackness in measuring the exact credulity of his audience, should cause his exposure and lead to his being cast out of the camp as an impostor and hunted to death as a false prophet: a fate which more than once nearly overtook him. Indeed, as he aged and his nerves lost their elasticity under the tension, he became obsessed with the fixed idea that God had renounced him and that some horror would overtake him should he attempt to cross the Jordan and enter the "Promised Land." Defeated at Hormah, he dared not face another such check and, therefore, dawdled away his time in the wilderness until further dawdling became impossible. Then followed his mental collapse which is told in Deuteronomy, together with his suicide on Mount Nebo. And thus he died because he could not gratify at once his lust for power and his instinct to live an honest man.

CHAPTER II.

The interval during which Moses led the exodus falls, naturally, into three parts of unequal length. The first consists of the months which elapsed between the departure from Ramses and the arrival at Sinai. The second comprises the halt at Sinai, while the third contains the story of the rest of his life, ending with Mount Nebo.