Excerpt from Lives of the Chief Fathers of New England, Vol. 1 In different ages there have arisen men, too great or too good for the times in which they lived - men, like Israel's martyred prophets, Of whom the world was not worthy. They have strode so far in advance of their cotemporaries, that as Coleridge said of Mil ton, they dwarfed themselves in the distance. Bitter scorn and bitterer wrath was their portion while they lived. And after they are gone, other generations sweep by, till the same venerable worthies are again almost lost from view in the dim perspective of the past. Then are their names again decried, because they stopped where they did. The most distinguished of living British essayists has said with a just severity; It is too much that the benefactors of mankind, after having been reviled by the dunces of their own gener ation for going too far, are to be reviled by the dunces of the next generation for not going far enough. 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.