He read it with many smiles, and with a pleasant compli-
ment to its excessive kindness and toleration. The manner
in which he treated this new order may be judged from the
fact that it is the very last mention of the case to be found
on the records of the court.
Thus ended, so far as legal measures were concerned, the
persecution which befell one of the noblest men and truest
Christians in the Massachusetts colony. It is impossible to
learn now what controlling cause operated in the withdrawal
of legal measures against him. The General Court, before
which he had been ordered to appear, may have been of a
more hberal character than its predecessor, and may have
dropped the case from lack of sympathy with the end sought.
This however is hardly probable, imless there had been a
popular reaction, of which there is no evidence. The real
cause was probably the fact that he had determined upon
returning to England. They doubtless neither wished him
to return, nor if he should return, to make his case notorious
at home.
