stone, the Charles, and the Merrimac. The Worcester-county affluents to these streams are all insignificant on the map, but sufficient to drive the wheels of the most varied manufactures. Indeed, Mr. Slater, the father of New-England cotton manufacture, said to the late Judge Merrick, that he would live to see the time when all the water of the town-brook in the town of Worcester would be needed to furnish steam for its factories; and Judge Merrick did live to see the poetical prophecy made well-nigh literally true. It has been said, that a circle of twenty miles drawn around the town of Worcester would inclose a greater variety of workshops, and of the varied forms of human industry, than any other circle of the same size in the world. We cannot verify the remark, but it seems probable. Railroads from every part of New England converge at two centres of travel,-one within this county, and the other close upon its frontier. A Catholic College, a Technological Institute or Scientific School, a number of endowed academies, and the unique library of the American Antiquarian Society, call to different parts of this county students of different grades of scholarship from all parts of New England. Its central geographical position has given to the range of its highlands the familiar name of the "Backbone of Massachusetts;" while the shire-town, Worcester, which gave the name to the county, bears on its seal the device of a heart, glad to assume the title of the "Heart of the Commonwealth."

The earliest settlements of the English in Worcester County were made in 1645, in Lancaster. The county was established by an act of the General Court of Massachusetts, passed April 2, 1731. The name of Worcester had been given to the township of Worcester as early as 1684. No tradition is preserved as to the cause of the selection of that name; but we suppose there can be little doubt that it was chosen as an insult to that royal government in England, which, at that very time, was striking its last blow at the Charter of the Colony. Judgment was entered in the English Court of Chancery for the vacating of the Charter of Massachusetts on the 23d of October in the same year.

"Massachusetts, as a body politic, was now no more," says Dr. Palfrey, describing this transaction in London. It is almost precisely contemporary with the act by which the Legisla ture of Massachusetts gave the name of Worcester, the name of Cromwell's "crowning mercy," to a district in Massachusetts which as yet had not one white inhabitant. No town-meeting was ever held in that town until the year 1722.

The law of the intellectual and moral culture of New England may be stated thus. Boundaries having been given to a particular town, which, as in the case of Worcester, may be named before it has an inhabitant, the people of that town, under the New-England system, become, for almost all the purposes of civilized life, an independent community. So much historical support of the very best kind can be given to General Cass's theory of "squatter sovereignty." The State assigns the place of residence, and names the first "freemen," and gives them a right to vote in the organization of their affairs. These "freemen" in practice admitted all other residents to the same franchise. The little community, thus established, made its own roads, receiving from the officers of the county directions for making those of them that were essential to the general interest; established its own schools; impounded its own stray cattle; and did any thing else which might be necessary for the welfare of a town. Such towns, for instance, when they saw the time coming when it might be necessary for them to engage in war against the British empire, each bought with its own money its own supply of powder and ball, and stored them in its own magazines by way of preparation for the exigency.

These were the civic or social functions of the New-England township, and they are such still. But these details of administration are inspired by ideas; and these ideas, involv ing the whole spiritual and moral education of such communities, were, in every instance, provided for in the beginning. The measure or standard prescribed as sufficient for a new plantation, was, that a number of people, enough to maintain a minister, should be ready to unite under the proposed

incorporation. If there were people enough in a given locality, or ready to go into it, to sustain a minister, the Legislature would give them incorporation; and incorporation could not be had otherwise. When incorporated, they taxed themselves for the support of this minister in the same townmeetings, and by the same assessment, which provided for the other purposes of government which we have named. Not unfrequently, indeed, the modest charge for the expenses of the church was the largest single item in the town's expenses for the year. The Church and State were, in government, completely interfused or united.

In practice, the result of this simple system was this: that no one of these squatter sovereignties was ever established, with the forms and privileges of a town government, unless there were in it at least one man of liberal education, of religious faith, and of the breadth and courage which are expected to accompany a liberal education and religious faith, and unless there were adequate provision for maintaining him there as the religious and moral instructor of that community. There are even instances on record where the government threatened to take away the corporate privileges of a township, unless the people kept up the support of the ministry. We do not recollect that it was ever necessary to enforce the threat. But the theory of the incorporation of these little towns was such, that it would have been perfectly fair of the government to do so. The people incorporated were held to support a minister by just the same tenure which held them to maintain their share of the roads of the county.

Whatever the towns of Massachusetts, "the nurseries of freedom," have contributed to the world, has been due, in a large degree, to the steady and faithful work of the quiet men who have been engaged in the Christian ministry thus estab lished. They have held before each generation the best ideal they knew for education, for worship, for charity, and, in general, for the public good. They have been the preachers, often the teachers in other walks than those purely ecclesiastical, sometimes the physicians, always the directors of the schools; in short, they have inculcated ideas into the work

of the material interests of the towns for which they ministered. Very few of them, in carrying out this work, have attained for themselves any reputation beyond the local circle of their ministerial duty. Probably very few have cared to. But they live in their work, though their names are forgotten. The men whose first impulses they did much to guide, whose first thirst for science or learning they were first to feed, have been among the leaders of their times.

The careful reader of the very curious book before us will take the impression, which we are sure is true, that Worcester County is an admirable representation of the success of this system for the culture of a community. It has grown to be what it is without the ascendency of any large town or metropolis. It illustrates all the more purely the value of the separate town organizations, and the thoroughly independent system of congregational church government. Rev. Dr.

Allen, of Northborough, himself one of the most distinguished of the clergy of this county, has, with assiduous and loving care, brought together a series of short biographical sketches of almost all the ministers who have been engaged in the ministry of the towns of the eastern part of the county. He has done this in connection with well-wrought histories of the "Ministerial Associations," so called, which have united these ministers in friendly clubs for mutual improvement since the year 1725, when the "Marlborough Association" was formed, years before the county of Worcester was incorporated.

Let no student of church order, inoculated with Presbyterian or other hierarchical views, flatter himself that in the history of the Ministerial Associations of New England he finds a germ of synodical or presbyterian order. Not a shred of it! The Congregational churches of New England, whether of the more severe or of the cheerful folds, would resent even advice given from one of these clubs of their clergy; and the Associations are too wise to enter into any line of advice, far less upon any course of direction. Even those conferences for missionary purposes, or for the improvement of Sunday schools, which have grown up in the

modern facilities of travel, do not claim a hair's weight of authority over the churches which are represented in them. Woe to them, indeed, the hour when they do! As well might the colonel of a regiment enlisted in Boston, serving against the rebels, send back official directions to Ward 9 and 10, what should be done in their schools, as the officers of one of these missionary boards interfere in the least with the local concerns of the Congregational churches uniting in them. The colonel may send back to tell how the fight goes on against the enemy, how his own enlistments stand, and what new recruits he needs, and his suggestions will be accepted; and such suggestions, as every Congregationalist knows, are all that any of these unions of Congregational churches ever propose toward their constituents.

The Ministerial Associations do not even go so far. They have been, from the beginning, what we styled them, friendly clubs of the ministers, who, from the very nature of the sys tem which appointed them, were apt to feel the need, in their own homes, of the sympathy and counsel of others trained in their pursuits and accustomed to their studies.

In the opening of the history before us, it appears, that, following an example given at Charlestown a generation before, seven ministers met by appointment at the house of Rev. Robert Breck, the minister of Marlborough, and formed an Association of Ministers, who were to meet four times a year at that place. Their object was "to advance the interest of Christ, the service of our respective charges, and our mutual edification in our great work." An address, or, in their own language, a concio ad clerum, was to be delivered at each meeting; or, in place of the address, some question was to be discussed by such members as had been desig nated.

Several questions of ecclesiastical order and of theological opinion are quoted by Dr. Allen from the records of this body, as having been brought before it for the advice of the assembled brethren. Almost all of them, however, perhaps all of them, were presented by the ministers themselves, asking the advice of their brethren, advice which they were