Anton began, 'Jeremy Fletcher very smart guy. This,' he pointed to the laptop, ' Grandiozno. Genius. Words in, formula out. But explain to me what's here.' He pointed to the notes Benjamin had made. 'Maybe it make my job little easier.'
'Well.' Benjamin rubbed his eyes. 'You have to understand, much of the diary was too fragile, or too illegible, to read. So I had to piece all this,' he waved at the yellow pages, 'together, fill in some gaps from what I already know about the period. And make some guesses, which might not-'
'Don't excuse,' Anton said, 'just say 'maybe.' '
Anton's impatience reminded Benjamin of when Wolfe would interrupt him when he got too 'lecturey.' He experienced another twinge of sadness over Wolfe's disappearance. He shook it off, realizing he'd have to save such feelings for later, when, hopefully, there would be time for them.
Where to begin? Probably, he thought, at the beginning.
'What you have to understand, Anton, is that the Puritans weren't all the same. As I explained to Samuel, there were sects, factions, rivalries.'
'Is always so,' said Anton. 'Why Puritans any different?'
'Well, one of the strongest rivalries was between the strict Puritans and a group known as the Antinomians. My father had always assumed that Hessiah Bainbridge-Harlan's father-was part of this radical group, because, when Anne Hutchinson and the other Antinomians were banished from Massachusetts in 1638, Hessiah went with them to Rhode Island. And he took his young son and wife.'
'Banished?' said Anton. 'Sounds like Tsar times, with dissidents and Siberia. And why you say 'assumed'? Your father not right?'
'I'll get to that,' Benjamin said. 'Anyway, the stricter Puritans considered the Antinomians blasphemers because they believed that each individual was capable of receiving God's grace all by him or herself, without the 'guidance' of the Church fathers.'
'Bad for monopoly,' said Anton, smiling.
'Exactly. But there was another reason the Antinomians were banished. You see, Harlan's father had been one of the so-called Radicals calling for better relations with the Native Americans. His dream was to build a Prayer Town that could serve as a kind of cultural embassy, where the Natives could learn English and European customs-and of course religion. According to everything my father and other scholars knew about Hessiah Bainbridge, this dream was his driving passion.
'But according to the diary, there was another group among the Puritan conservatives, a group I'd never heard of; a group Harlan names as the 'Congregation of the Eye of Providence.' They were the most doctrinaire of all the Puritans, the most fanatically devoted to the idea that the New World had been given to them by God to create a pure society, free from the corruption of Europe.
'This group considered any plans for peaceful relations with the Indians to be a dangerous threat to their vision of this new society, this New Jerusalem. According to Harlan, they didn't want the Natives converted; they wanted them gone.'
'How is it so,' Anton asked, 'you never heard of these eye guys before?'
Benjamin smiled. 'Well, not by that name. There are vague references to the 'Guardians of Purity,' and similar descriptions,' Benjamin replied. 'No one's ever discovered any declaration of their principles, no sermons that mention them directly, no tracts or stories. Most Colonial scholars thought these references were a joke, a nickname to make fun of the humorless fanatics among the Puritans.'
'But now?' Anton prodded.
'These,' Benjamin pointed at the notes, 'are excerpts from Harlan's diary. And he knew these 'Eye of Providence' Puritans were not a joke. He knew they were well organized, absolutely dedicated, and mortally dangerous to anyone they considered a threat. And that they were dead set against any plans to establish better relations with the Native Americans. He knew in fact that they planned to use the Natives as a bogeyman to scare the increasingly secular Puritans back into line.'
'And how he know all this?' asked Anton skeptically.
'Because his father, Hessiah, was one.'
For the first time, Anton looked surprised. 'But you said he was be-friends-with-Indians guy?'
'He was what I guess you would call a double agent,' Benjamin said. 'At first, Harlan was too young to understand. But eventually he came to realize that the Congregation of the Eye of Providence had planted Hessiah with the Antinomians to keep watch on them, to sabotage their plans. The irony was, by the time Hessiah died in Rhode Island, Harlan himself had become someone who truly did believe in Prayer Towns. He writes about an 'epiphany' he had, wherein God revealed to him that their true calling was to live peacefully with the Natives. To convert them, yes; but also to learn from them and thus build the sort of tolerant new society appropriate to a New World. By then, Harlan had come to hate the Eye of Providence fanatics and everything they stood for, which as far as he could see was merely the maintenance of absolute power by creating false enemies.'
Anton snorted. 'Very old story.'
Now Benjamin was surprised. 'You mean, you understand them?'
'For seventy-five years,' Anton said, looking suddenly serious, 'Party keeps power by telling people enemies everywhere: counter-revolutionaries, wreckers, secret conspiracies. Stalin says Trotsky main bad guy, makes everything bad happen in USSR. Trotsky says, if I'm so powerful, how come Stalin's in Kremlin, and I'm in exile?' He laughed. 'But nobody listens. People needed enemies. Stalin's propaganda tell them what they already believe. Is how good propaganda works, yes?' Anton smiled. ' Maybe even in America.'
Benjamin thought about that, gave a reluctant, 'Too true.' Then went on.
'Harlan did finally get financing for his Prayer Town, from Henry Coddington, a wealthy merchant. Sometime around 1665 the community of the Bainbridge Plantation was established in western Massachusetts. On the very spot where the Foundation sits today.'
'And this not make Eye guys happy, right?'
'Well, at first they didn't seem to bother about the plantation. Perhaps it was too far removed from civilization. And at first the plantation thrived. Harlan writes proudly about one of the first converts-a Native called Wounded Bear, whom they re-christened John Sassamon.'
'This name important?'
'Well, it comes up ten years later, in King Philip's War. And though Harlan doesn't come right out and say so, it's clear he came to not completely trust this Sassamon. But by this point Harlan doesn't have time to worry overmuch about that. It seems that the Eye of Providence Puritans finally took notice of the Bainbridge Plantation, decided it posed a threat to their control of the central colonies, and set about to sabotage it.'
'How?' asked Anton.
'Food stores burned, hunting parties ambushed, threatening symbols left carved in trees. Some of the plantation's people thought it was the Wampanoags, angry about the plantation's proximity to their burial grounds. But Harlan was convinced it was all due to the 'perfidy of the Puramists.' '
'Pur-who?' asked Anton.
'Puramists,' Benjamin said. 'It's another name Harlan uses for the Congregation of the Eye of Providence. And sometimes he just calls them 'Triangle Puritans.' '
'Ah,' said Anton, ' puramis is pyramid, yes? But triangle…?'
'From their habit of drawing a little triangle in their Bibles, with an eye at the apex.'
'The eye of God,' said Anton.
'Exactly. Just as they believed God was watching and judging their every move, they believed they had the divine authority to watch over the colonies. Here, look at this.'
Benjamin picked up one of the yellow sheets and turned it around so Anton could read it. 'It's an entry from the diary. I copied it down verbatim.'
Anton leaned over the table and read what Benjamin had written: -Receiving our Guidance from the true Geneva Bible and as Bradford's example a lesson to us all-he that might have possesed himself of the entire Plymouth Plantation, as did Penn or Weldon, and withe his denial sacrificed a greater and reall worthinesse-seek a vertue to sever the serpent of Commerce from Civitas. But that the Civill selfe is the true self, 'good with bad,' and not the cross of usurpry as well to beare, for that is too much. -As for Mr. Childham, the new Governor, what passe for his Piety governes the designe whereof Principall is fastned to an artificiall Church, the Church of Businesse-for against this Rule the wheeles of fortune grind out a Soveraignty like dust, filling all the aire, onely to
