Excerpt from The Puritan Republic of the Massachusetts Bay: In New England No period in the history of this country is more interesting than that covered by the Puritan commonwealth of Massachusetts Bay. About no other, not even the revolutionary period, has so much been written. That interest in it does not flag is evidenced by the great number of books and magazine articles relating to that period which have been published in recent times. Every phase of life in the Puritan age has received minute investigation and critical discussion. Old records and documents have been searched, and a vast flood of light has been turned upon the religious, the political, the economic, the industrial, and the social life of the early Puritans. Merely to indicate the bibliography relating to that period would require much space. The so-called Theocracy of the Massachusetts commonwealth has been a fruitful theme, and the discussion of its religious intolerance seems to be as earnest, and almost as rancorous, today as it was at any former period. Up to the year 1856, there had been a great deal written by the historians designated by Mr. Fiske as "ancestor-worshipers," who found little to condemn in the Puritans of the commonwealth period. In that year Mr. Peter Oliver published a volume entitled "The Puritan Commonwealth." It is written in keen, vigorous and classic language, but no attempt is made by the author to conceal his prejudices. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.