美国语文第六册 第192期:新英格兰清教徒先辈的品格(4)
自由的原则和对专制势力奋起反抗，在清教徒心中深深扎根，
it was not more so than their piety and sense of religious obligation.
这与他们的虔诚和宗教责任感如出一辙。
They were emphatically a people whose God was the Lord.
他们都强调以上帝为君主的人。
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话，他们的政府体制严格符合犹太人的神权政治;
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，很难说在他们中间存在完全有别于教会裁判权的民权。
Whenever a few of them settled a town, they immediately gathered themselves into a church;
一旦他们中有些人在一座城镇定居下来，他们很快就会组建一个教堂;
and their elders were magistrates, and their code of laws was the Pentateuch.
其中年长者是地方法官，所依据的法典则是《摩西五书》。
These were forms, it is true, but forms which faithfully indicated principles and feelings;
这些虽然是一些组织形式，但实际上忠实于原则和情感，
for no people could have adopted such forms, who were not thoroughly imbued with the spirit, and bent on the practice, of religion.
因为没有谁会采纳这样没有完全激发基督教精神，而倾向于宗教常规的形式。
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.
上帝是他们的王;他们将上帝视为真正和真实的存在，仿佛他就住在他们国家一个能看得见的宫殿里似的。
They were his devoted, resolute, humble subjects; they undertook nothing which they did not beg of him to prosper;
他们是他虔敬、坚决且谦恭的臣民;他们只要祈求他保佑他们繁荣兴旺，什么都可以承担;
they accomplished nothing without rendering to him the praise;
他们不吝对他的赞美，任何事业都可以完成;
they suffered nothing without carrying their sorrows to his throne; they ate nothing which they did not implore him to bless.
只要向他倾诉衷肠，任何困苦都不在话下。
