And, moreover, is it not probable that the universality of the
custom, which certainly cleared it from anything like odium or reproach,
would naturally tend to preclude, in a degree, any improper ideas in the
minds of those who practiced it? Such, then, we consider the _status_ of
the custom in the earlier history of the colonies, and among the _first
generation_ of settlers.
"But," if the reader will allow us to quote from a previous work, "the
emigration from a civilized to a new country,[31] is necessarily a step
backward into barbarism. The _second generation_ did not fill the place
of the fathers. Reared amid the trials and dangers of a new settlement,
they were in a great measure deprived of the advantages, both social and
educational, which their parents had enjoyed. Nearly all of the former
could write, which cannot be said of their children. Neither did the
latter possess that depth of religious feeling, or earnest practical
piety which distinguished the first comers. Religion was to them less a
matter of the heart than of social privilege, and in the _half way
covenant_ controversy we behold the gradual _letting down of bars_
between a pure church and a grasping world.
"The _third_ generation followed in the footsteps of their predecessors.
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