Nor were the men whose influence was
greatest in shaping the framework and the policy of the Colony, in any
true sense of the word, fanatics. Enthusiasts, perhaps, they were, but
with then the fermentation had never gone further than the ripeness of
the vinous stage. Disappointment had never made it acetous, nor had it
ever putrefied into the turbid zeal of Fifth Monarchism and sectarian
whimsey. There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its
keel, and saving it from all risk of _crankiness_, than business. And
they were business men, men of facts and figures no less than of
religious earnestness. The sum of two hundred thousand pounds had been
invested in their undertaking,--a sum, for that time, truly enormous as
the result of private combination for a doubtful experiment. That their
enterprise might succeed, they must show a balance on the right side of
the countinghouse ledger, as well as in their private accounts with their
own souls. The liberty of praying when and how they would, must be
balanced with an ability of paying when and as they ought. Nor is the
resulting fact in this case at variance with the _a priori_ theory. They
succeeded in making their thought the life and soul of a body politic,
still powerful, still benignly operative, after two centuries; a thing
which no mere fanatic ever did or ever will accomplish.
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