美國語文第六冊 第192期:新英格蘭清教徒先輩的品格(4)
自由的原則和對專制勢力奮起反抗，在清教徒心中深深扎根，
it was not more so than their piety and sense of religious obligation.
這與他們的虔誠和宗教責任感如出一轍。
They were emphatically a people whose God was the Lord.
他們都強調以上帝為君主的人。
Their form of government was as strictly theocratical, if direct communication be excepted, as was that of the Jews;
如果接受直接交流的話，他們的政府體制嚴格符合猶太人的神權政治;
insomuch that it would be difficult to say where there was any civil authority among them entirely distinct from ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
就此程度而言，很難說在他們中間存在完全有別于教會裁判權的民權。
Whenever a few of them settled a town, they immediately gathered themselves into a church;
一旦他們中有些人在一座城鎮(zhèn)定居下來，他們很快就會組建一個教堂;
and their elders were magistrates, and their code of laws was the Pentateuch.
其中年長者是地方法官，所依據的法典則是《摩西五書》。
These were forms, it is true, but forms which faithfully indicated principles and feelings;
這些雖然是一些組織形式，但實際上忠實于原則和情感，
for no people could have adopted such forms, who were not thoroughly imbued with the spirit, and bent on the practice, of religion.
因為沒有誰會采納這樣沒有完全激發(fā)基督教精神，而傾向于宗教常規(guī)的形式。
God was their King; and they regarded him as truly and literally so, as if he had dwelt in a visible palace in the midst of their state.
上帝是他們的王;他們將上帝視為真正和真實的存在，仿佛他就住在他們國家一個能看得見的宮殿里似的。
They were his devoted, resolute, humble subjects; they undertook nothing which they did not beg of him to prosper;
他們是他虔敬、堅決且謙恭的臣民;他們只要祈求他保佑他們繁榮興旺，什么都可以承擔;
they accomplished nothing without rendering to him the praise;
他們不吝對他的贊美，任何事業(yè)都可以完成;
they suffered nothing without carrying their sorrows to his throne; they ate nothing which they did not implore him to bless.
只要向他傾訴衷腸，任何困苦都不在話下。
