{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_68627/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_68627","id":"gutenberg_68627","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68627","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: History - American","Category: History - Religious","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Williams, Roger, 1604?-1683"],"text":"ROGER WILLIAMS\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Statue of Roger Williams in Roger Williams Park,\nProvidence, R. I.]\n\n\n\n\n                            ROGER WILLIAMS\n\n                  PROPHET AND PIONEER OF SOUL-LIBERTY\n\n\n                                 _By_\n                         ARTHUR B. STRICKLAND\n\n                            [Illustration]\n\n\n                           THE JUDSON PRESS\n\n       BOSTON           CHICAGO          ST. LOUIS      NEW YORK\n       LOS ANGELES      KANSAS CITY      SEATTLE        TORONTO\n\n\n\n\n                          Copyright, 1919, by\n                      GILBERT N. BRINK, SECRETARY\n\n                         Published June, 1919\n\n\n\n\n                                  TO\n\n                                My Wife\n\n                          SYMPATHETIC HELPER\n                                  AND\n                          INSPIRING COMPANION\n                            IN ALL MY WORK\n                         THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY\n\n                               INSCRIBED\n\n\n\n\nBAPTIST SPARKS FROM A HEBREW ANVIL\n\n\n \u201cEven the absence of a definite experiment must not deter him. He\n would create a society where the principles would be put to the\n test. He would fashion a State where the Church and the crown would\n be mutually helpful though independent. He would create a condition\n of humanity where the sovereignty of the soul before God would be\n respected, and where every man, believer or disbeliever, Gentile,\n Jew, or Turk, would have untrammeled opportunity for the display and\n exercise of the faith within him. Here lies the core of his heroism!\u201d\n\n\nCONCERNING THE MONUMENT AT ROGER WILLIAMS PARK\n\n\n \u201cThis one monument speaks the gratitude of one State. But the whole\n country has an eloquent voice of appreciation. Even as the tombstone\n of Sir Christopher Wren, the builder of St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral, intones\n the larger praise when it says, \u2018If you would see his monument, look\n around you,\u2019 so would we point to the great principles of equal and\n religious freedom, written into the Constitution of forty-eight\n States, and engraven on the minds of ninety millions of people in our\n country and making their moral and civic influence felt all over the\n civilized globe, as worthy tributes to the genius of Roger Williams.\u201d\n\n --_Extracts from Thanksgiving Address on \u201cRoger Williams,\u201d delivered\n by Rabbi Abram Simon, Ph. D., to Reformed Congregation Keneseth\n Israel, Philadelphia, November 24, 1912._\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe four years of the great war have witnessed two astounding facts,\nnamely, the recrudescence of an ancient barbarism and the world-wide\napplication of the ideals of Christianity. During these momentous times\nthe frontiers of barbarism and of civilization were clearly marked. The\ngreater part of the world declared its position and took sides with one\nor other of the contestants. The whole world was either for or against,\neither friend or foe to, the essential principles of a Christian\ncivilization.\n\nIt was no accident that the torch of the Hun and the Cross of the\nChrist should meet again on the old historic battle-ground between\nthe Somme and the Rhine, and especially at the Marne. We thank God in\nvictory\u2019s hour that the Cross of the Christ is again triumphant, and\nwe trust the torch of the Hun is extinguished forever. Autocracy\u2019s\nserpent head has been crushed beneath the heel of a militant democracy.\nThat bruised heel is our reminder of the cost of victory. It staggers\nthe imagination to state in terms of manhood, materials, and money the\nprice we have paid to make a world safe for democracy.\n\nThe eyes of a world have been opened. Men have thought of Calvary, the\nprice the Son of God paid to redeem the wayward, wicked world. Men\nthrough their Calvary have come to understand the message of Christ\u2019s\nCross--that all men are of equal value in the sight of humanity\u2019s\nGod, and therefore are entitled to equal privileges in the world he\nhas made for their happiness. Out from the shambles of these war-torn\nyears there has come forth, slowly and certainly, with ever-increasing\nclearness, the shining form of the ideal supreme, the truth triumphant,\nthe principle of full, free, absolute soul-liberty.\n\nAs the thirsty caravan turns to the springs, as the mariner turns to\nhis compass in the darkest night, so the war-weary world--all parts\nof it, both that of friend and that of foe--looks beseechingly to\nAmerica and to the ideal of which she is the great exemplar. From her\nshores there went forth an army which under God turned the tide against\nbarbarism and made possible the final victory for civilization.\nThat army was composed of men whose fathers represented every nation\nunder heaven. Some who received the highest honor for distinguished\nservice were born under the very flags they sought to overthrow. It was\nhumanity\u2019s army, dominated by ideals distinctly American, which fought,\nnot for military glory, not for hellish hatred, not for selfish gain,\nbut as the crusaders of a new order, of an international fraternity.\n\nThe distinctive feature of America\u2019s greatness is not her boundless\nwealth, not her limitless resources, not her inimitable versatility.\nIt is the ideal which she has inherited from her fathers. That ideal,\nin the forefront of the world\u2019s thought today, had its yesterday of\nsuffering and of sacrifice.\n\nIt is timely in the hour of democracy\u2019s triumph to turn our thoughts\ntoward the genesis of soul-liberty in America. Today millions of\nmen espouse her sacred cause. In the dawn of American history, in\nthe early colonial times, a misunderstood, maligned, and persecuted\nrefugee, Roger Williams, stood almost alone as her defender. Driven\nfrom motherland and from adopted home, he found among the savages\nof the wilderness a place where he could live out his principles of\nsoul-liberty and grant freely to others what he desired for himself. He\nhas been rightly called \u201cThe First American,\u201d because he was the first\nto actualize in a commonwealth the distinctively American principle of\nfreedom for mind and body and soul.\n\nRoger Williams was not the discoverer of the principle of soul-liberty.\nWhat Jesus did and said was the torch of truth destined to illumine the\nwhole world. His death on the cross was the voice of God in eloquent\nterms, telling us that all men were equal sharers in his love and\nentitled to equal opportunities and privileges in the world which he\nhad made for man\u2019s well-being. Christ taught clearly that men should\nnot force others to belief in him or to Christian conduct, nor destroy\nthose who failed to follow his teachings as they saw them.\n\nFor centuries faithful witnesses kept alive in the world these precious\ntruths. In fact, for a millennium the name Anabaptist or Baptist was\nsynonymous with soul-liberty. Baptists on the Continent and in England\nsowed broadcast these seeds which led to a glorious harvest in the new\nworld. After the death of Roger Williams the Baptists in the colonies\ncontinued the work so nobly begun by him. In the face of bitterest\npersecution they labored for a century before the much-desired\nprinciple of soul-liberty was interwoven into our National Constitution\nand protected by the First Amendment.\n\nOur Western Hemisphere represents two types of civilization. The Rio\nGrande is the dividing line between a civilization which is Baptist in\nits distinctive and essential character and one which is non-Baptist.\nTo the north we see what the democracy of the soul can do when\nassociated with the democracy of political rights. To the south we see\nbut the twilight of civilization, a place where there is political\ndemocracy in name, but where it is rendered powerless because the\nmind and soul do not enjoy full freedom. It is the difference between\nreligious democracy and religious autocracy. To the north the Bible is\nloved, it is studied freely, and its principles are followed. It is a\nland where the Bible is unchained and where the prevailing religions\nare of a church without a bishop in a land without a king. To the south\nthe Bible is practically suppressed, its study is discouraged, and its\ntruths go unheeded.\n\nEurope, thou art looking across the seas to America. Look to all three\nAmericas. Political democracy is universal in North, Central, and South\nAmerica. Ask thyself the question, Why is the civilization of the north\nso attractive? It is because Religious Liberty is married to Political\nLiberty. Dost thou want our blessedness? Then see to it that thy\nnew-born democracies and thine ancient ones have complete soul-liberty.\nGive the Bible a chance to bless thy stricken lands. Let the truths\nfrom God\u2019s book do their revolutionary work for thee as they have for\nGod\u2019s liberty land on this side of the sea.\n\nReligious liberty has unchained the Bible, scattered the darkness of\nsuperstition, flooded our continent with light and blessing. It has\ntoppled selfish autocrats from their thrones, it has unlocked the\nshackles from the feet of millions who were living in spiritual and\nphysical slavery. Religious liberty opens the doors and lets God\u2019s\nsunlight of truth enter to warm and bless the world.\n\nTo Roger Williams and the historic Baptist denomination we turn for\nthe story of the genesis and growth of this great blessing in America.\nThere is an effort, in evidence in the secular and religious press\nof America, and, in some sections, in many of our public schools, to\nrob both Williams and the Baptists of their crown of glory. In certain\nquarters both Protestants and Catholics are attributing the honor of\ngiving birth to religious liberty to communions which centuries ago\npersecuted our Baptist forefathers unto banishment and death.\n\nThe early American Colonies can be divided into three classes. One\nclass included those who sought for uniformity in religion. Exile and\ndeath were resorted to to make that religious uniformity possible.\nBaptists were martyred in Massachusetts and Virginia. Another class\nincluded those who granted a toleration to other Christian religions,\nbut who denied political privileges to Jews, infidels, or Unitarians.\nMaryland and Pennsylvania, although far advanced from the persecuting\nspirit of some of the colonies, belong to this second class. There was\nanother class, represented at first by the smallest of the colonies,\nlittle Baptist Rhode Island, which gave full, absolute, religious\nliberty. No political privilege was dependent on religious belief. The\nattitude of the early colonists to the Jews is the acid test of their\nclaim to priority as the advocates of soul-liberty in America.\n\nHebrew scholars and statesmen do not hesitate to give their tribute of\nhonor to Roger Williams and the Baptists. The Hon. Oscar S. Straus,\ntwice American Ambassador to Turkey, Secretary of Labor and Commerce\nin the late President Roosevelt\u2019s Cabinet, and President of the League\nto Enforce Peace, said on January 13, 1919, on the eve of sailing for\nEurope and the Peace Conference:\n\n If I were asked to select from all the great men who have left their\n impress upon this continent from the days that the Puritan Pilgrims\n set foot on Plymouth Rock, until the time when only a few days ago\n we laid to rest the greatest American in our generation--Theodore\n Roosevelt; if I were asked whom to hold before the American people\n and the world to typify the American spirit of fairness, of freedom,\n of liberty in Church and State, I would without any hesitation select\n that great prophet who established the first political community on\n the basis of a free Church in a free State, the great and immortal\n Roger Williams.... He became a Baptist, or as they were then called,\n Anabaptist, because to his spirit and ideals the Baptist faith\n approached nearer than any other--a community and a church which\n is famous for never having stained its hands with the blood of\n persecutors.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                       PAGE\n\n    I. THE APOSTLE OF SOUL-LIBERTY                        1\n\n   II. THE FOUNDING OF PROVIDENCE                        27\n\n  III. THE HISTORIC CUSTODIANS OF SOUL-LIBERTY           57\n\n   IV. SOUL-LIBERTY AT HOME IN A COMMONWEALTH            79\n\n    V. FROM SOUL-LIBERTY TO ABSOLUTE CIVIL LIBERTY      103\n\n   VI. THE TORCH-BEARERS OF THE IDEAL OF ROGER WILLIAMS\n       UNTIL LIBERTY ENLIGHTENED THE WORLD              119\n\n  VII. THE WORLD-WIDE INFLUENCE OF ROGER WILLIAMS\u2019\n       IDEAL                                            137\n\n       STUDY OUTLINE OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ROGER\n       WILLIAMS                                         145\n\n       A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY                          149\n\n       AN ITINERARY FOR A HISTORIC PILGRIMAGE           151\n\n\n\n\nACKNOWLEDGMENT\n\n\nThe author desires to express his indebtedness to the John Carter Brown\nLibrary, Providence, R. I., to the \u201cProvidence Magazine,\u201d to the Rhode\nIsland Historical Society, to the Roger Williams Park Museum, and to\nthe New York City Public Library, for valuable assistance rendered in\nsecuring illustrations for this book.\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n\n  _Statue of Roger Williams_                              _Frontispiece_\n\n  _Copy of Shorthand Found in Indian Bible_                            4\n\n  _Sir Edward Coke_                                                    5\n\n  _Charterhouse School_                                                9\n\n  \u201c_A Key into the Language of America_\u201d                              12\n\n  _Boston, 1632_                                                      13\n\n  _The Fort and Chapel on the Hill Where Roger Williams\n   Preached_                                                          13\n\n  _Pembroke College_                                                  17\n\n  _Fac-simile from Original Records of the Order for the\n   Banishment of Roger Williams_                                      20\n\n  _Original Church at Salem, Mass._                                   21\n\n  _Site of Home of Roger Williams in Providence, R. I._               21\n\n  _Sun-dial and Compass Used by Roger Williams in His Flight_         30\n\n  _Spring at the Seekonk Settlement_                                  31\n\n  _Tablet Marking Seekonk Site_                                       31\n\n  _What Cheer Rock. Landing-place of Roger Williams_                  31\n\n  _Original Deed of Providence from the Indians_                      35\n\n  _Williams\u2019 Letter of Transference to His Loving Friends_            39\n\n  _The Original Providence \u201cCompact\u201d_                                 41\n\n  _The First Division of Home Lots in Providence_                     45\n\n  \u201c_Simplicities Defence_\u201d                                            47\n\n  _The Arrival of Roger Williams with the Charter_                    49\n\n  \u201c_Mr. Cotton\u2019s Letter Lately Printed_\u201d                              52\n\n  \u201c_The Bloudy Tenent, ... discussed_\u201d                                53\n\n  _Roger Williams\u2019 Reference to \u201cAn Humble Supplication\u201d\n   in His \u201cBloudy Tenent\u201d_                                            54\n\n  \u201c_Christenings make not Christians_\u201d                                63\n\n  _First Baptist Church of Providence_                                65\n\n  _Roger Mowry\u2019s \u201cOrdinarie.\u201d Built 1653, Demolished 1900_            65\n\n  _Interior of First Baptist Church, Providence_                      69\n\n  _Bell of First Baptist Church, Providence_                          73\n\n  \u201c_The Fourth Paper, ... by Maior Butler_\u201d                           82\n\n  \u201c_The Bloudy Tenent, Washed_\u201d                                       84\n\n  \u201c_The Bloody Tenent yet More Bloody_\u201d                               85\n\n  \u201c_The Hireling Ministry_\u201d                                           87\n\n  \u201c_Experiments of Spiritual Life and Health_\u201d                        88\n\n  \u201c_George Fox Digg\u2019d out of his Burrowes_\u201d                           90\n\n  _Models of Indian Village in Roger Williams Park Museum_            91\n\n  \u201c_A New-England Fire-Brand Quenched_\u201d                               94\n\n  _Rhode Island Historical Society Museum_                            95\n\n  _Apple Tree Root from the Grave of Roger Williams_                  95\n\n  _Grave of Roger Williams_                                           95\n\n  _New Testament Title-page of Roger Williams\u2019 Indian Bible_          98\n\n  _Indian Bible Used by Roger Williams, the Pioneer Missionary\n   to the American Indians_                                           99\n\n  _Original Home of Brown University, in Providence, R. I._          109\n\n  _Brown University in Early Nineteenth Century_                     109\n\n  _Capitol Building in Providence, Where the Charter is Kept_        113\n\n  _City Hall, Providence, Where the Compact, Indian Deed, and\n   Letter of Transference Are Kept_                                  113\n\n  _Order Banishing the Founders of the First Baptist Church\n   in Boston_                                                        123\n\n  \u201c_Ill Newes from New-England_\u201d                                     125\n\n  _John Clarke Memorial, First Baptist Church of Newport, R. I._     127\n\n  _Grave of John Clarke_                                             127\n\n  _The Law in William Penn\u2019s Colony_                                 129\n\n  _The Law Concerning Religious Toleration in Maryland\n  Colony_                                                            130\n\n  _Puritan-Religious-Liberty!_                                       131\n\n  _William Rogers_                                                   133\n\n  _James Manning_                                                    133\n\n  _Isaac Backus_                                                     133\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE APOSTLE OF SOUL-LIBERTY\n\n That body-killing, soul-killing, state-killing doctrine of not\n permitting but persecuting all other consciences and ways of worship\n but his own in the civil state.... Whole nations and generations of\n men have been forced (though unregenerate and unrepentant) to pretend\n and assume the name of Jesus Christ, which only belongs, according to\n the institution of the Lord Jesus, to truly regenerate and repentant\n souls. Secondly, that all others dissenting from them, whether Jews or\n Gentiles, their countrymen especially (for strangers have a liberty),\n have not been permitted civil habitation in this world with them,\n but have been distressed and persecuted by them.--_Roger Williams\u2019\n Estimate of Religious Persecution._\n\n The principle of religious liberty did not assert itself, save in one\n instance, at once that American colonization was begun. For the most\n part, the founders of these colonies came to this country imbued with\n the ideas concerning the relations between government and religion,\n which had been universal in Europe.... This makes the attitude of our\n American exception, Roger Williams, the more striking and significant.\n More than one hundred years in advance of his time, he denied the\n entire theory and practice of the past.--_Sanford Cobb._\n\n Roger Williams advocated the complete separation of Church and\n State, at a time when there was no historical example of such\n separation.--_Newman._\n\n\n\n\nTHE APOSTLE OF SOUL-LIBERTY\n\n\nA government of the people, formed by the people for the people, with\nChurch and State completely separate, and with political privileges\nnot dependent on religious belief, was organized and maintained\nsuccessfully for the first time in Christendom in Rhode Island, the\nsmallest of the American Colonies. Its inspiration and founder was\nRoger Williams, the apostle of soul-liberty. Because he was the first\nasserter of the principle which has since been recognized as the\ndistinctive character of our national greatness, he has been called\n\u201cThe First American.\u201d\n\nLittle is known of the personal appearance of Roger Williams. His\ncontemporaries describe him as a man of \u201cno ordinary parts,\u201d with \u201ca\nnever-failing sweetness of temper and unquestioned piety.\u201d They also\nsaid he was a man of \u201cunyielding tenacity of purpose, a man who could\ngrasp a principle in all its bearings and who could incorporate it in\na social compact.\u201d \u201cHe was no crude, unlearned agitator, but a scholar\nand thinker.\u201d Governor Bradford speaks of him as \u201chaving many precious\nparts.\u201d Governor Winthrop refers to him as \u201ca godly minister.\u201d\n\nThe artist\u2019s conception, based upon these characteristics, is best\nexpressed by a monument in Roger Williams Park, Providence, R. I.\nIt is the work of Franklin Simmons, and was erected by the city of\nProvidence in 1877. In a beautiful park of over four hundred acres\nwith hills and drives and lakes, surrounded by trees and shrubbery,\nand on land originally purchased from the Indians by Williams, the\nillustrious pioneer of a new order is seen in heroic form. He seems to\nbe looking out over the very colony he formed. In his hand he holds a\nvolume, entitled \u201cSoul-Liberty, 1636,\u201d a title which has since become\nsynonymous with his name. History is seen writing \u201c1636,\u201d the birth\nyear of soul-liberty in America. She continues to write with increasing\nappreciation of the far-reaching influence of this illustrious hero of\nreligious and political democracy.\n\n[Illustration: Copy of Shorthand Found on Fly-leaf of Roger Williams\u2019\nIndian Bible]\n\nFor many years scholars thought that Roger Williams was born at the\nclose of the sixteenth century at Gwinear, Cornwall, England. Now it\nis generally believed that he was born in London, England, in the\nopening years of the seventeenth century. He had two brothers and a\nsister. His father was a tailor. About this time Timothy Bright and\nPeter Bales introduced into England a new method of writing which was\ncalled \u201cshorthand.\u201d The boy Roger Williams learned it and visited the\nfamous Star Chamber to put it into practice. The judge noticed the lad\nand inspected his work. To his amazement, the record was complete and\naccurate. This judge, Sir Edward Coke, the most distinguished lawyer\nand jurist of his day, immediately took an interest in the lad, and\nbecame his patron, securing for Williams admission to the Charterhouse\nSchool. This was the school where John Wesley, Thackeray, Addison, and\nothers were educated. He was admitted as a pensioner, in June, 1621.\nLater, through Coke\u2019s influence, he was admitted to Pembroke College,\nCambridge, in June, 1623. He was graduated with the degree of bachelor\nof arts in 1627, and the year following was admitted to holy orders.\nAbout this time he was disappointed in a love affair, the lady of his\nchoice being Jane Whalley. He sought permission of her aunt, Lady\nBarrington, to marry her. When refused, he wrote a striking letter\nin which he predicted for Lady Barrington a very unhappy hereafter\nunless she repented.\n\n[Illustration: Sir Edward Coke Courtesy of \u201cProvidence Magazine\u201d]\n\nIn 1629, we find him at High Laves, Essex, not far from Chelmesford,\nwhere Thomas Hooker, later the founder of Hartford Colony, was\nminister. Here he also met John Cotton. Men\u2019s views at that time were\nchanging. The people of the Established Church were divided into three\nclasses. One stood by the Established Order in all things; another\nclass of Puritans sought to stay by the Church, but aimed to purify the\nmovement; the third class was for absolute separation. Williams, with\nhundreds of others, was disturbed. The anger of Lady Barrington and the\nsuspicions of Archbishop Laud started a persecution which drove him out\nof England. He said:\n\n I was persecuted in and out of my father\u2019s house. Truly it was as\n bitter as death to me when Bishop Laud pursued me out of the land,\n and my conscience was persuaded against the national church, and\n ceremonies and bishops.... I say, it was as bitter as death to me when\n I rode Windsor way to take ship at Bristol.\n\nMany years later he wrote:\n\n He (God) knows what gains and preferments I have refused in\n universities, city, country, and court in old England, and something\n in New England, to keep my soul undefiled in this point and not to act\n with a doubting conscience.\n\nBefore leaving England, he was married. The only information we have\nin regard to his wife, up to that time, is that her name was Mary\nWarned. They sailed on the ship Lyon, from Bristol, England, December\n1, 1630. After a tempestuous journey of sixty-six days they arrived off\nNantasket, February 5, 1631. Judge Durfee speaks thus of this flight:\n\n He was obliged to fly or dissemble his convictions, and for him, as\n for all noblest natures, a life of transparent truthfulness was alone\n an instinct and a necessity. This absolute sincerity is the key to\n his character, as it was always the mainspring of his conduct. It was\n this which led him to reject indignantly the compromises with his\n conscience which from time to time were proposed to him. It was this\n which impelled him when he discovered a truth to proclaim it, when he\n detected an error to expose it, when he saw an evil, to try and remedy\n it, and when he could do a good, even to his enemies, to do it.\n\nUpon his arrival in Boston he was invited to become the teacher in\nthe Boston church, succeeding Mr. Wilson who was about to return to\nEngland. To his surprise, he discovered that the Boston church was a\nchurch _unseparated from_ the Established Church of England, and he\nfelt conscientiously bound to decline their invitation. The Boston\npeople, who believed their church to be the \u201cmost glorious on earth,\u201d\nwere astonished at his refusal. Williams would not act as their teacher\nunless they publicly repented of their relation to the Established\nOrder. It was perfectly natural that a soul with convictions, such as\nWilliams possessed, should desire to be absolutely separated from the\nEstablished Order. One incident from many will show the spirit of the\nEstablished Church in England toward those within its ranks who had\nbecome Puritan, let alone Separatist. Neal, in his \u201cHistory of the\nPuritans,\u201d tells, of Doctor Leighton\u2019s persecution in England. He was\narrested by Archbishop Laud and the following sentence was passed upon\nhim: That he be\n\n committed to the prison of the Fleet for life, and pay a fine of ten\n thousand pounds; that the High Commission should degrade him from his\n ministry, and that he should be brought to the pillory at Westminster,\n while the court was sitting and be publicly whipped; after whipping\n be set upon the pillory a convenient time, and have one of his ears\n cut off, one side of his nose split, and be branded in the face with a\n double S. S. for a sower of sedition: that then he should be carried\n back to prison, and after a few days be pilloryed a second time in\n Cheapside, and have the other side of his nose split, and his other\n ear cut off and then be shut up in close prison for the rest of his\n life.\n\nIn the district in which Roger Williams lived this sentence was carried\nout in all its hellish cruelty just prior to Williams\u2019 banishment from\nEngland. Do we blame the exile Williams for repudiating the movement\nwhich at that hour was so wicked in its persecutions? He meant to\nhave a sea between him and a thing so hateful. John Cotton said that\nWilliams looked upon himself as one who \u201chad received a clearer\nillumination and apprehension of the state of Christ\u2019s kingdom, and\nof the purity of church communion, than all Christendom besides.\u201d\nCotton Mather said that Williams had \u201ca windmill in his head.\u201d Well for\nAmerica that such a windmill was there and that he was a prophet with\nclear visions of truth.\n\n[Illustration: Charterhouse School Courtesy of \u201cProvidence Magazine\u201d]\n\nAfter refusing the Boston church, Roger Williams was invited by the\nSalem church to be assistant to Mr. Skelton, their aged teacher.\nHe accepted their invitation and became Teacher, April 12, 1631.\nThe General Court in Boston remonstrated with the Salem church. The\npersecution of this court led doubtless to his retirement from Salem at\nthe close of that summer.\n\nHe left the Massachusetts Bay Colony and became assistant to Ralph\nSmith, the pastor at Plymouth. The Plymouth people, being strict\nSeparatists, were more congenial company, since they had withdrawn\nfrom the Established Order to form a church after the pattern of the\nPrimitive Church model. Williams remained in Plymouth for about two\nyears. Governor Bradford soon detected his advanced positions, relative\nto separation of Church and State, but considered it \u201cquestionable\njudgment.\u201d He praised his qualities as a minister, writing thus of him:\n\n His teaching, well approved, for \u00fee benefit whereof I still bless\n God, and am thankful to him, even for his sharpest admonitions and\n reproofs, so far as they agreed with truth.\n\nGovernor Winthrop, with Mr. Wilson, teacher of the Boston church,\nvisited Plymouth at this time.\n\n They were very kindly treated and feasted every day at several houses.\n On the Lord\u2019s Day, there was a sacrament which they did partake in;\n and, in the afternoon, Mr. Roger Williams (according to their custom)\n propounded a question, to which the Pastor, Mr. Smith, spoke briefly;\n then Mr. Williams prophesied; and after the Governor of Plymouth spoke\n to the question. Then the elder (Mr. William Brewster) desired the\n Governor of Massachusetts and Mr. Wilson to speak to it, which they\n did. When this was ended, the deacon, Mr. Fuller, put the congregation\n in mind of their duty of contribution; whereupon the Governor and all\n the rest went down to the deacon\u2019s seat, and put into the box and then\n returned.\n\nWilliams came in contact with the Indians who visited Plymouth from\ntime to time, and gained the confidence of Massasoit, the father of\nthe famous Philip. He studied their language and cultivated their\nfriendship. He writes in one of his letters, \u201cMy soul\u2019s desire was\nto do the natives good!\u201d Near the close of his life he referred to\nthis early experience: \u201cGod was pleased to give me a painful patient\nspirit, to lodge with them in their filthy smoke, to gain their\ntongue.\u201d Surely the Providence of God was thus preparing the way for\nthe founding of a new colony, to be made possible through these very\nIndians who had implicit confidence in this man of God.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                            A KEY into the\n\n                               LANGUAGE\n\n                                 _OF_\n\n                               AMERICA:\n\n                                 _OR_,\n\n              An help to the _Language_ of the _Natives_\n                    in that part of AMERICA, called\n                            _NEW-ENGLAND_.\n\n         Together, with briefe _Observations_ of the Customes,\n                  Manners and Worships, _&c._ of the\n               aforesaid _Natives_, in Peace and Warre,\n                          in Life and Death.\n\n           On all which are added Spirituall _Observations_,\n             Generall and Particular by the _Authour_, of\n            chiefe and speciall use (upon all occasions,) to\n               all the _English_ Inhabiting those parts;\n                    yet pleasant and profitable to\n                         the view of all men:\n\n                          _BY_ ROGER WILLIAMS\n                   of _Providence_ in _New-England_.\n\n                               _LONDON_,\n                  Printed by _Gregory Dexter_, 1643.\n\n[Illustration: Boston, 1632 From an old print]\n\n[Illustration: The Fort and Chapel on the Hill Where Roger Williams\nPreached Used by permission of A. S. Burbank, Plymouth, Mass.]\n\nWilliams was Pauline in his self-supporting ministry. He wrote: \u201cAt\nPlymouth I spake on the Lord\u2019s Day and week days and worked hard at my\nhoe for my bread (and so afterward at Salem until I found them to be\nan unseparated people).\u201d His ministry made friends and foes. His foes\nfeared he would run the same course of Anabaptist behavior as did John\nSmith, the Se-Baptist, at Amsterdam. Early in August his first child\nwas born, and was named Mary after her mother. Later in the same month,\nhe became for a second time the assistant to Mr. Skelton, at Salem. A\nnumber of choice spirits, who had been attracted to his ministry, went\nwith him. He requested a letter of dismission from the Plymouth church\nto unite with the Salem church. This was granted, but with a caution\nas to his advanced views. To advocate the separation of Church and\nState placed a man at that time with the \u201cAnabaptists,\u201d as this was\nconsidered their great distinctive doctrine.\n\nHe commenced his labors at Salem under this cloud and also with the\nGeneral Court in Boston very suspicious of his work. Already there was\nthe distant rumbling of a storm which would eventually drive him into\nexile.\n\nThe ministers of the Bay Colony, from the churches of Boston, Newtowne\n(Cambridge), Watertown, Roxbury, Dorchester, Salem, and elsewhere, were\naccustomed to meet for discussion and common interest. Roger Williams\nfeared that this might lead to a presbytery or superintendency, to the\nprejudice of local church liberty. He loathed everything which might\nmake for intolerance.\n\nIn December, 1633, he forwarded to the governor and his assistants a\ndocument which he had prepared at Plymouth, in which he disputed their\nright to have the land by the king\u2019s grant. Williams claimed, \u201cthey\nhave no title except they compounded with the natives.\u201d He also accused\nKing James of telling a lie in claiming to be \u201cthe first Christian\nprince to discover this new land.\u201d This treatise had never been\npublished or made public. Its appearance now terrified the governor and\nthe assistants, for at that very time they were holding the possession\nto their colony on a charter originally given for a different purpose.\nIt had been granted in England to a trading company, and its transfer\nwas questionable. They feared the king might withdraw it. This treatise\nof Williams would be considered treason by the king. They met on\nDecember twenty-seventh and counseled with Williams. Seeing the grave\ndanger to the colony, he agreed to give evidence of loyalty. Today we\ndo not question the ethical correctness of the advanced position held\nby Williams.\n\nIt was not long before this pioneer of soul-liberty raised a new\nquestion concerning \u201cthe propriety of administering an oath, which\nis an act of worship, to either the unwilling or the unregenerate.\u201d\nWilliams\u2019 position was peculiarly obnoxious to the magistrates who\nwere then on the point of testing the loyalty of the colonists by\nadministering an oath of allegiance which was to be, in reality,\nallegiance to the colony instead of to the king. The Court was called\nto discuss the new objection to its policy. Mr. Cotton informs us that\nthe position was so well defended by Williams that \u201cit threatened the\ncourt with serious embarrassment.\u201d The people supported Williams\u2019\nposition, and the court was compelled to desist. On the death of\nSkelton, in August, 1634, the Salem church installed Roger Williams\nas their teacher. This act gave great offense to the General Court in\nBoston. Williams commenced anew his agitation against the right to own\nland by the king\u2019s patent. The Salem church and Williams were both\ncited to appear before the General Court, July 18, 1635, to answer\ncomplaints made against them.\n\nThe elders gave their opinion:\n\n He who would obstinately maintain such opinions (whereby a church\n might run into heresy, apostasy, or tyranny, and yet the civil\n Magistrates may not intermeddle) ought to be removed, and that the\n other churches ought to request the Magistrates so to do.\n\nThe church and the pastor were notified \u201cto consider the matter until\nthe next General Court, and then to recant, or expect the court to take\nsome final action.\u201d At this same court, the Salem people petitioned\nfor a title to some land at Marblehead Neck, which was theirs, as they\nbelieved, by a just claim. The court refused even to consider this\nclaim, \u201cuntil there shall be time to test more fully the quality of\nyour allegiance to the power which you desire should be interposed on\nyour behalf.\u201d Professor Knowles says:\n\n Here is a candid avowal that justice was refused to Salem, on the\n question of civil right, as a punishment for the conduct of church and\n pastor. A volume could not more forcibly illustrate the danger of a\n connection between the civil and ecclesiastical power.\n\n[Illustration: Pembroke College Reduced from Loggan\u2019s print, taken\nabout 1688]\n\nTeacher and people at Salem were indignant, and a letter was addressed\nto the churches of the colony in protest against such injustice. The\nchurches were asked to admonish the magistrates and deputies within\ntheir membership. These churches refused or neglected to do this. In\nsome cases the letters never came before the church. Williams then\ncalled on his own church to withdraw communion with such churches. It\ndeclined to do this, and he withdrew from the Salem church, preaching\nhis last sermon, August 19, 1635. Here was a repetition of the first\nconflict. Straus writes:\n\n Here stood the one church already condemned, with sentence\n suspended over it. Against it were arrayed the aggregate power of\n the colony--its nine churches, the priests, and the magistrates.\n What could the Salem church and community do, threatened with\n disfranchisement, its deputies excluded from the General Court, and\n its petition for land to which it was entitled, denied? Dragooned into\n submission it had to abandon its persecuted minister to struggle alone\n against the united power of Church and State. To deny Williams the\n merit of devotion to a principle in this contest, wherein there was\n no alternative but retraction or banishment, is to belie history in\n order to justify bigotry, and to convert martyrdom into wrong-headed\n obstinacy. This is exactly what Cotton sought to do in his version of\n the controversy given ten years later in order to vindicate himself\n and his church brethren from the stigma of their acts in the eyes of\n a more enlightened public opinion in England. Williams pursued no\n half-hearted or half-way measures. He stood unshaken upon the firm\n ground of his convictions, and declared to the Salem church that he\n could no longer commune with them, thereby entirely separating himself\n from them and them from him.\n\nHe went so far as to refuse to commune with his own wife in the new\ncommunion which he formed in his own home, until she would completely\nwithdraw from the Salem church.\n\nThe time for the next General Court drew near. The Salem church letter\nand Williams\u2019 withdrawal from his church made his foes determined to\ncrush him. They had thoughts of putting him to death.\n\n[Illustration: Fac-simile from Original Records of the Order for the\nBanishment of Roger Williams.]\n\n [Sidenote: 1635. 3rd Sept.]\n\n Whereas Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of the church of Salem,\n hath broached and divulged dyvers newe and dangerous opinions against\n the aucthorite of magistrates, as also with others of defamcon,\n both of the magistrates and churches here, and that before any\n conviccon, and yet maintaineth the same without retraccon, it is\n therefore ordered, that the said Mr. Williams shall depte out of\n this jurisdiccon within sixe weekes nowe nexte ensueing, wch if hee\n neglect to pforme, it shall be lawfull for the Gouv\u2019r and two of the\n magistrates to send him to some place out of this jurisdiccon, not to\n returne any more without licence from the Court.\n\nThe General Court convened in the rude meeting-house of the church\nin Newtowne (Cambridge), on the corner of Dunster and Mill Streets.\nWilliams maintained his positions. He was asked if he desired a month\nto reflect and then come and argue the matter before them. He declined,\nchoosing \u201cto dispute presently.\u201d Thomas Hooker, minister at Newtowne,\nwas appointed to argue with him on the spot, to make him see his\nerrors. Williams\u2019 positions had a \u201crockie strength\u201d and he was ready,\n\u201cnot only to be bound and banished, but to die also in New England; as\nfor the most holy truths of God in Christ Jesus.\u201d He would not recant.\nSo the Court met the following day, Friday, October 9, 1635, and passed\nthe following sentence:\n\n Whereas Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of the church of Salem,\n hath broached and divulged dyvers newe and dangerous opinions against\n the aucthorite of magistrates, as also with letters of defamcon,\n both of the magistrates and churches here, and that before any\n conviccon, and yet maintaineth the same without retraccon, it is\n therefore ordered, that the said Mr. Williams shall depte out of\n this jurisdiccon within sixe weekes nowe nexte ensueing, wch if hee\n neglect to pforme, it shall be lawfull for the Gouv\u2019r and two of the\n magistrates to send him to some place out of this jurisdiccon, not to\n returne any more without licence from the Court.\n\n[Illustration: Original Church at Salem, Mass.]\n\n[Illustration: Site of Home of Roger Williams in Providence, R. I.]\n\nAlthough Williams had withdrawn from the church at Salem, yet his\ncharacter was such that the town was indignant at this decree of the\ncourt. About this time, his second child was born. Like the prophets\nof old, he gave the child a significant name, calling her \u201cFreeborn.\u201d\nMr. Williams\u2019 health at this time was far from being robust. A stay\nof sentence was therefore granted, and he was to be allowed to remain\nuntil the following spring. He did not refrain from advocating his\nopinions, and soon the authorities heard of meetings in his house at\nSalem and of twenty who were prepared to go with him to found a new\ncolony at the head of the Narragansett Bay. At its January meeting,\nthe Court decided to send him to England at once in a ship then about\nto return. He was cited to appear in Boston, but reported inability\ndue to his impaired health. They then sent a pinnace for him by sea.\nBeing forewarned, he fled to the wilderness in the depths of which, for\nfourteen weeks, he suffered the hardships of a New England winter.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe original Roger Williams Church is still preserved at Salem. The\nfirst church in the first town of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was at\nthe corner of Washington and Essex Streets. There is a brick structure\nthere now and a marble tablet marks it as the site of the first church\nin the Massachusetts Bay Colony. On another tablet, is the inscription:\n\n The frame of the first Meeting House in which the civil affairs of the\n Colony were transacted, is preserved and now stands in the rear of\n Plummer Hall.\n\nPlummer Hall is on Essex Street not very far from the First Church.\nIn the rear is the Roger Williams Church, a small building, measuring\ntwenty feet long by seventeen wide by twelve high at its posts.\nOriginally it had a gallery over the door at the entrance and a\nminister\u2019s seat in the opposite corner. On the wall opposite to the\nentrance is a list of its succession of pastors and the years of their\nservice:\n\n  Francis Higginson                 1629-1630\n  Samuel Skelton                    1629-1634\n  Roger Williams                    1631-1635\n  Hugh Peters                       1636-1641 etc., etc.\n\nIt could accommodate about one hundred people. There were only forty\nfamilies in Salem in 1632. There were only six houses, besides that\nof Governor Endicott, when Higginson arrived in 1629. Here in this\nancient meeting-house Roger Williams preached those truths which led to\nhis banishment. From its pulpit came, clearly stated, the ideals that\nmillions have since accepted. The glory of the Sistine Chapel in Rome,\nor the Royal Sancte Chapella, of Paris, can never equal the glory of\nthis crude edifice, the cradle of religious liberty in the New World.\n\nThe Roger Williams Home at Salem is still preserved. It is better known\nas \u201cthe Witch House\u201d because it was occupied by Judge Carwin, one of\nthe judges connected with the tragedy of 1692. It stands at the western\ncorner of Essex and North Streets. It was built by the founder of Rhode\nIsland and was at that time second only to the Governor\u2019s home. Though\nit has been altered and repaired, the original rooms in this building\nare as follows: The eastern room on the first floor, 18 \u00d7 21\u00bd, and\nthe room directly over it, 20 \u00d7 21\u00bd; the western room on the first\nfloor, 16\u00bd \u00d7 18, and the room over it, 16\u00bd \u00d7 20. The chimney is 8 \u00d7\n12. The part of the house which retains its original appearance is the\nprojecting corner of the western part, fronting on Essex Street. Roger\nWilliams mortgaged this house, \u201cfor supplies,\u201d to establish the colony\nat Providence.\n\nMr. Upham, in his report to the Essex Institution, says of this\nwonderful house:\n\n Here, within these very walls, lived, two hundred and fifty years\n ago, that remarkable and truly heroic man, who, in his devotion to\n the principle of free conscience, and liberty of belief, untrammeled\n by civil power, penetrated in midwinter in the depths of an unknown\n wilderness to seek a new home, a home which he could find only among\n savages, whose respect for the benevolence and truthfulness of his\n character made them, then and ever afterward, his constant friends.\n From this spacious and pleasant mansion, he fled through the deep\n snows of a New England forest, leaving his wife and young children to\n the care of Providence, whose silent \u201cvoice\u201d through the conscience,\n was his only support and guide. The State which he founded may ever\n look back with a just pride upon the history of Roger Williams.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE FOUNDING OF PROVIDENCE\n\n A community on the unheard-of principles of absolute religious liberty\n combined with perfect civil democracy.--_Professor Mason._\n\n Thus for the first time in history a form of government was adopted\n which drew a clear and unmistakable line between the temporal and the\n spiritual power, and a community came into being which was an anomaly\n among the nations.--_Prof. J. L. Diman._\n\n No one principle of political or social or religious policy lies\n nearer the base of American institutions and has done more to shape\n our career than this principle inherited from Rhode Island, and it\n may be asserted that the future of America was in a large measure\n determined by that General Court which summoned Roger Williams to\n answer for \u201cdivers new and dangerous opinions,\u201d and his banishment\n became a pivotal act in universal history.--_Prof. Alonzo Williams._\n\n In summing up the history of the struggle for religious liberty it\n may be said that papal bulls and Protestant creeds have favored\n tyranny. Theologians of the sixteenth century and philosophers of\n the seventeenth, Descartes, Spinoza, and Hobbes, favored the State\n churches. It was bitter experience of persecution that led jurists,\n and statesmen of Holland and France, in face of the opposition of\n theologians and philosophers, to enforce the toleration of dissent.\n While there was toleration in Holland and France, there was, for the\n first time, in the history of the world in any commonwealth, liberty\n and equality and separation of Church and State in Rhode Island.--_W.\n W. Evarts, in \u201cThe Long Road to Freedom of Worship.\u201d_\n\n In the code of laws established by them, we read for the first time\n since Christianity ascended the throne of the C\u00e6sars, the declaration\n that conscience should be free and men should not be punished for\n worshiping God in the way they were persuaded he requires.--_Judge\n Story._\n\n\n\n\nTHE FOUNDING OF PROVIDENCE\n\n\nRoger Williams left Salem on or about January 15, 1636, making the\njourney alone through the forests. With a pocket compass, and a\nsun-dial to tell the hours, he set out, probably taking the road to\nBoston for some distance. Nearing Boston, presumably at Saugus, he went\nwest for a while and then straight south until he reached the home\nof Massasoit, the Wampanoag sachem, at Mount Hope, near Bristol. The\nground was covered with snow, and he must have suffered sorely on this\njourney of eighty or ninety miles. Thirty-five years later in a letter\nto Major Mason, he refers to this experience:\n\n First, when I was unkindly and unchristianly, as I believe, driven\n from my house and land, and wife and children (in the midst of a New\n England winter, now about thirty-five years past), at Salem, that\n ever-honored Governor, Mr. Winthrop, privately wrote me to steer my\n course to Narragansett Bay and the Indians, for many high and public\n ends, encouraging me, from the freeness of the place from any English\n claims or patents. I took his prudent notion as a hint and voice from\n God, and waving all other thoughts and notions, I steered my course\n from Salem (though in winter snow, which I feel yet) unto those parts\n wherein I may say \u201cPeniel\u201d; that is, I have seen the face of God.\n\nHe also wrote: \u201cI was sorely tossed for one fourteen weeks, in a bitter\nwinter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean!\u201d In his old\nage he exclaimed, \u201cI bear to this day in my body the effects of that\nwinter\u2019s exposure.\u201d In one of his books he refers to \u201chardships of sea\nand land in a banished condition.\u201d\n\nThe precious relics of this flight are the sun-dial and compass, now in\nthe possession of the Rhode Island Historical Society.\n\nWilliams finally reached Seekonk Cove, about the twenty-third of\nApril. The spot was at Manton\u2019s Neck, near the cove, where there was\na good spring of water. Here he was joined by four companions, his\nwife, and two children. \u201cI gave leave to William Harris, then poor and\ndestitute,\u201d said Williams, \u201cto come along in my company. I consented to\nJohn Smith, miller at Dorchester (banished also), to go with me, and,\nat John Smith\u2019s desire, to a poor young fellow, Francis Wickes, as also\na lad of Richard Waterman\u2019s.\u201d The latter was doubtless Thomas Angell.\nJoshua Verein came later. Some historians think that others joined them\nat the Seekonk before they were compelled to leave. Here they remained\nfor two months. After providing rude shelters and sowing seeds, they\nreceived a warning to move on. \u201cI received a letter,\u201d said Williams,\n\n from my ancient friend, Mr. Winslow, the Governor of Plymouth,\n professing his own and others\u2019 love for me, yet lovingly advising me,\n since I was fallen into the edge of their bounds, and they were loathe\n to displease the Bay, to remove to the other side of the water, and\n there, he said, I had the country free before me, and might be free as\n themselves, and we should be loving neighbors together.\n\n[Illustration: Sun-dial and Compass Used by Roger Williams in His\nFlight Courtesy of \u201cProvidence Magazine\u201d]\n\nHis removal cost him the \u201closs of a harvest that year.\u201d Historians are\nagreed that about the end of June he left Seekonk. The two hundred and\nfiftieth anniversary was celebrated, June 23 and 24, 1886. Embarking\nin a crude Indian canoe, Williams and his companions, six in all,\ncrossed over the river to a little cove on the west side, where they\nwere halted by a party of Indians, with the friendly interrogation,\n\u201cWhat cheer?\u201d Here the party landed on a rock which has been known ever\nsince as \u201cWhat Cheer Rock.\u201d The cove is now filled and the rock covered\nfrom sight. A suitable monument has been erected over the rock. It\nis in an open park space at the corner of Roger and Williams Streets,\nProvidence. A piece of this rock is preserved at the First Baptist\nChurch of Providence, and another has recently been placed in cross\nform in the lobby floor of the new Central Baptist Church of the same\ncity. It is hoped that a piece of this rock will be worked into the\nNational Baptist Memorial in our country\u2019s capital.\n\n[Illustration: Spring at the Seekonk Settlement]\n\n[Illustration: Tablet Marking Seekonk Site]\n\n[Illustration: What Cheer Rock. Landing-place of Roger Williams]\n\nAfter friendly salutations with the Indians, they reembarked and made\ntheir way down the river around the headland of Tockwotten and past\nIndian and Fox points, where they reached the mouth of the Moshassuck\nRiver. Rowing up this beautiful stream, then bordered on either side\nwith a dense forest, they landed on the east side of the river,\nwhere there was an inviting spring. Here, on the ascending slopes\nof the hill, they commenced a new settlement, which Williams called\n\u201cProvidence,\u201d in gratitude to God\u2019s merciful Providence to them in\ntheir distress. Later, when they spread out in larger numbers and in\nall directions from this place, it was called \u201cProvidence Plantations.\u201d\nThey prepared shelters for their families, probably wigwams made\nof poles covered with hemlock boughs and forest leaves. We can in\nimagination see them climb the hill to a point where Prospect Street\nnow runs, to enjoy a wider view of their new territory.\n\nFrom that height of almost two hundred feet they saw to the westward,\nthrough openings in the forest, the cove at the head of the great salt\nriver with broad sandy beaches on the eastern and northern shores\nand salt marshes bordering the western and southern. From the north\nthe sparkling waters of the Moshassuck River came leaping over the\nfalls as it emptied itself into the estuary at its mouth. Bordering\nthis stream was a valley of beauty and fertility. The clear waters\nof the Woonasquatucket threaded their way from the west through\nanother fertile valley. Between these rivers and also southward (of\nthe Woonasquatucket) was a sandy plateau, covered with pine forests\nstretching to the Indian town of Mashapaug on the southwest and\nPawtuxet Valley to the south. Between the edge of the tidal flow and\nthe open waters of the great salt river there was a salt marsh dotted\nwith islands, beyond which rose the bold peak of Weybosset Hill.\nDown the river to the south they saw the steep hills of Sassafras\nand Field\u2019s Point, beyond which could be seen the lower bay and its\nforest-covered shores and islands. The eastern slope of the hill\nstretched a mile toward the shore of the Seekonk. To the northeast\nthe view was cut off by a higher eminence covered with oak and pine.\nIn all directions, save that of the bay itself, the farther distances\nwere lost in an indistinguishable maze of forest-crowned heights. At\nthe feet of the spectators was the place of their immediate settlement,\nwhere the western slope of the hill gradually diminished in height\ntoward the south. At its lowest extremity, Fox Point projected into the\nbay. This slope was covered with a growth of oak and hickory.\n\n\nA PURCHASED POSSESSION\n\nRoger Williams differed from the ordinary colonists of his age, who\nheld that the Indian, being heathen, had no real ownership of the\nland. It belonged to the Christians who might first claim it by right\nof discovery. Williams, who \u201calways aimed to do the Indians only\ngood,\u201d recognized Indian ownership and secured his colony from them\nby purchase. Here among them he first sought to apply his doctrine of\nsoul-liberty. To him they were humans with equal rights and privileges.\nHe bitterly fought the Puritan position that the pagan heathen had\nno property rights which the Christian, with his superior culture,\nwas bound to respect. Roger Williams insisted that the land should be\npurchased from the Indians, the original owners. He gained the lasting\nrespect of the Indian and the undying animosity of the Puritan for\nholding to ideals which have since come to be recognized as American.\nHe thus laid the foundation for the belief in America that the weaker\nand smaller powers have rights which the greater powers must respect,\na belief which led us into the recent great war. While this principle\nis receiving world-wide application, let us not forget that Roger\nWilliams was the pioneer of international justice in America, if not\nin the world. The land viewed from the top of the hill was owned by\nfive distinct Indian tribes. The Narragansetts dominated over all the\nlands now occupied by Rhode Island, and ruled over all other lesser\ntribes in this territory. In the northern part of this State, the\nNipmucs lived in the place now occupied by Smithfield, Glocester, and\nBurrilville. On the southern seacoast border dwelt the Niantics. Part\nof the Wampanoag tribe dwelt in Cumberland and extended to the western\nside of the river which we now call the Blackstone. The Pequots lived\nin Connecticut Colony. Indian government was monarchial, and became\nextinct with the slaughter of the last of the line of rulers or sachems\nin the massacre of July 2, 1676. Canonicus was the ruling sachem when\nthe English first came. As he grew old he needed an assistant and his\nnephew, Miantonomo, was appointed. Miantonomo worked well with the\nelder chief. He never succeeded to the position of ruling chief, being\nmurdered in 1643. Roger Williams secured his land from these sachems.\nWilliams wrote in 1661 as follows:\n\n I was the procurer of the purchase, not by monies, nor payments, the\n natives being so shy and jealous, that monies could not do it, but\n by that language, acquaintance, and favor with the natives and other\n advantages which it pleased God to give me, and also bore the charges\n and venture of all the gratuities which I gave to the great Sachems\n and natives round about us, and lay engaged for a loving and peaceable\n neighborhood with, to my great charge and travel.\n\n[Illustration: Original Deed of Providence from the Indians]\n\nHe found Indian gifts very costly. Presents were made frequently.\nHe allowed the Indians to use his pinnace and shallop at command,\ntransporting and lodging fifty at his home at a time. He never denied\nthem any lawful thing. Canonicus had freely what he desired from Roger\nWilliams\u2019 trading-post at Narragansett. William Harris stated in 1677\nthat Roger Williams had paid thus one hundred and sixty pounds ($800)\nfor Providence and Pawtucket.\n\nMr. Williams generously admitted the first twelve proprietors of the\nProvidence Purchase to an equal share with himself, without exacting\nany remuneration. The thirty pounds which he received were paid by\nsucceeding settlers, at the rate of thirty shillings each. This was not\na payment for the land but what he called \u201ca loving gratuity.\u201d Straus\nsays:\n\n He might have been like William Penn, the proprietor of his colony,\n after having secured it by patent from the rulers in England, and thus\n have exercised a control over its government and enriched himself and\n family. But this was not his purpose, nor was it directly or remotely\n the cause for which he suffered banishment and misery. Principle--not\n profit; liberty--not power; conviction--not ambition, were his\n impelling motives which he consistently maintained, theoretically and\n practically then, and at all times.\n\nWilliams\u2019 own words were:\n\n I desired it might be for a shelter for persons distressed for\n conscience. I then considering the conditions of divers of my\n distressed countrymen, I communicated my said purchase unto my loving\n friends (whom he names) who desired to take shelter with me.\n\nHe afterward purchased, jointly with Governor Winthrop, the Island of\nPrudence from Canonicus. He also purchased, a little later, the small\nislands of Patience and Hope, afterward selling his interest in them to\nhelp pay his expenses to England on business for the colony.\n\nFollowing is a true copy of the Original Deed of Land for Providence\nfrom _Canonicus_ and _Miantonomo_:\n\n At Nanhiggansick, the 24th of the first month, commonly called March,\n in the second year of the Plantations of Plantings at Mooshausick or\n Providence. Memorandum that we Caunaunicus and Meauntunomo, the two\n chief sachems of Nanhiggansick, having two years since sold unto Roger\n Williams, the lands and meadows upon the two fresh rivers, called\n Mooshausick and Wanasquatucket, do now by these presents, establish\n and confirm the bounds of those lands, from the river and fields at\n Pawtucket, the great hill of Neotackonkonutt, on the northwest, and\n the town of Mashapauge on the west. As also in consideration of the\n many kindnesses and services he hath continually done for us, both\n with our friends of Massachusetts, as also at Quinickicutt and Apaum,\n or Plymouth, we do now freely give unto him all the land from those\n rivers reaching to Pawtuxet River, as also the grass and meadows upon\n the said Pawtuxet River. In witness whereof we have hereunto set our\n hands.\n\n In the presence of\n\n  The Mark * of Setash,\n  The Mark * of Assotenewit,\n  The Mark * of Caunaunicus,\n  The Mark * of Meauntunomo.\n\nThis original deed is preserved, as a precious relic, in the City Hall\nat Providence.\n\n[Illustration: Williams\u2019 Letter of Transference to His Loving Friends]\n\n\nEARLY EXPERIENCES IN PROVIDENCE\n\nThe Providence planters soon built their crude homes. The Indian\nname of the plantation was Notaquonchanet. In their early records of\nProvidence this name is spelt in at least forty-two different forms.\nOther settlers came and swelled their numbers. The original six were\nbound together by a compact. It was verbal, or if written, the copy has\nbeen lost. When new settlers came and Wickes and Angell had reached\nmajority, a copy of the original agreement was drawn up and signed by\nthose not included in the first compact. Williams was familiar with the\ngreat compact signed in the Mayflower by the Pilgrims and probably it\nsuggested to his mind the need of one in Providence. This Providence\nCompact is as follows:\n\n We, whose names are hereunder written, being desirous to inhabit in\n the town of Providence, do promise to submit ourselves in active or\n passive obedience, to all such orders or agreements as shall be made\n for the public good of the body, in an orderly way, by the major\n consent of the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated\n together into a township, and such others whom they shall admit unto\n the same, ONLY IN CIVIL THINGS.\n\nEdmund J. Carpenter says of this Compact:\n\n A compact of government, which in its terms, must be regarded as\n the most remarkable political document theretofore executed, not\n even excepting the Magna Charta. It was a document which placed a\n government, formed by the people, solely in the control of the civil\n arm. It gave the first example of a pure democracy, from which all\n ecclesiastical power was eliminated. It was the first enunciation\n of a great principle, which years later, formed the corner-stone of\n the great republic. It was the act of a statesman fully a century in\n advance of his time.\n\nAt the west entrance to the street railroad tunnel in Providence a\nbronze tablet commemorates the fact that there in the open air the\nfirst town meetings were held.\n\nRoger Williams\u2019 house was opposite the spring, forty-eight feet to the\neast of the present Main Street and four feet north of Howland Street.\nNext, to the north of his residence, was the house and lot of Joshua\nVerein. North of this was Richard Scott\u2019s. The first house south of\nWilliams\u2019 was that of John Throckmorton and, beyond, that of William\nHarris. At first the struggle for existence was hard, more so because\nof the loss of the crops planted at Seekonk. Governor Winslow, of\nPlymouth, conscious of the wrong Plymouth Colony had done to Williams,\nvisited the little settlement that first summer and left a gift of gold\nwith Mrs. Williams. In the spring and summer of the following year, new\nhouses were built along the street. The new settlers brought money with\nthem, and Williams enlisted outside capital to help develop the colony.\n\n[Illustration: The Original Providence \u201cCompact\u201d]\n\n Drawn up by the men of Providence, August 20, 1638, and now contained\n in the City Hall. One of the most valuable documents in existence,\n under which Williams and his companions promised to subject themselves\n in active and passive obedience, but \u201cOnly in Civil Things.\u201d\n\n \u201cYou must look to the Magna Charta, for another such epoch-making\n decree, for these, with the Declaration and the Emancipation\n Proclamation, are the four great dynamic forces of American\n Freedom.\u201d--R. B. BURCHARD.\n\n Courtesy of \u201cProvidence Magazine,\u201d October, 1915\n\nThe number of town lots increased. The land lay between the present\nMain Street and Hope Street. Each lot was of equal width and ran\neastward. Eventually there were one hundred and two of these lots\nextending from Mile End Brook, which enters the river a little north\nof Fox Point, to Harrington\u2019s Lane, now the dividing line between\nProvidence and North Providence. Meeting and Power Streets were the\ndividing streets in those early days. In addition to the home lot, each\nproprietor had an \u201cout six-acre lot\u201d assigned to him. Williams\u2019 \u201cout\nlot\u201d was at \u201cWhat Cheer Rock.\u201d\n\n\nTHE THREATENED INDIAN TROUBLE\n\nWilliams, although suffering from Puritan persecution, had an\nopportunity that first year of doing good to his persecutors. He became\nthe savior of all the New England Colonies. The Pequot Indians planned\nthe annihilation of the English. Williams, hearing of this, did his\nutmost to break up an Indian league, and kept the Narragansetts from\njoining the Pequots and Mohicans. He describes this experience in the\nfollowing statement:\n\n The Lord helped me immediately to put my life into my hands, and\n scarce acquainting my wife, to ship alone, in a poor canoe, and to\n cut through a stormy wind, with great seas, every minute in hazard of\n life, to the sachem\u2019s house. Three days and nights my business forced\n me to lodge and mix with the bloody Pequod ambassadors, whose hands\n and arms, methought, reeked with the blood of my countrymen, murdered\n and massacred by them on the Connecticut River, and from whom I could\n not but nightly look for their bloody knives at my own throat also.\n God wondrously preserved me, and helped me to break the Pequod\u2019s\n negotiation and design; and to make and finish, by many travels and\n charges, the English league with the Narragansetts and Mohegans\n against the Pequods.\n\nAs a result of this, the tribe of Pequots was obliterated completely\nand a danger hanging over all the colonies was removed.\n\nThe Indian villages of southern New England were composed at times of\nas many as fifty houses or wigwams. Most of these wigwams were shaped\nlike the half of an orange, with the flat or cut surface down. They\nwere ten to twelve feet in diameter and could accommodate two families.\nOther houses were like the half of a stovepipe cut lengthwise, twenty\nto thirty feet long, and accommodated from two families in the\nsummertime to fifty in the winter, when the people crowded together\nfor the sake of warmth. The council-chamber was often as long as\none hundred feet with a width of thirty feet. It was used only for\ncouncils. A fortified stockade in the center of the village was made\nof logs set into the ground. Such was the shelter afforded Williams\nwhen he fled from Salem, and such was the place when he met the Indian\nsachems in council seeking to avert the massacre of the whites. In\nthese villages he preached the everlasting gospel of the Son of God.\nHe had the constant confidence of Indian sachems because he applied to\nthem the principle of soul-liberty which he sought to practise among\nthe whites.\n\nIn the autumn of 1638, Roger Williams\u2019 third child and first son was\nborn and named \u201cProvidence.\u201d He was the first white male child born\nin this colony. In the year 1639-1640 the town grew and felt the need\nof a system of town government. On July 23, 1640, an organization was\ndecided upon in which they vested the care of the general interests of\nthe town in five \u201cdisposers\u201d or arbitrators. The people retained the\nright to appeal from the \u201cdisposers\u201d to the general town meeting. They\nwere careful to provide that as \u201cformerly hath been the liberties of\nthe town, so still to hold for the liberty of conscience.\u201d\n\nIn 1638 a settlement had been made at Portsmouth on Rhode Island.\nJohn Clarke and Mrs. Ann Hutchinson were the leaders of this new band\nwho were looking for a place where they might have religious freedom,\nwhich was denied them at Boston. They went first to New Hampshire,\nbut, finding it too cold there, turned to the south. By the friendly\nassistance of Mr. Williams, they secured from Canonicus and Miantonomo,\nfor a consideration of forty fathoms of white beads, Aquidneck and\nother islands in Narragansett Bay. The natives residing on the island\nitself were induced to remove for a consideration of ten coats and\ntwenty hoes. The new settlers chose Mr. Coddington to be their judge\nand united in a covenant with each other and with their God. They made\nMr. Coddington their governor in 1640.\n\n[Illustration: PLAN SHOWING THE FIRST DIVISION OF HOME LOTS IN\nProvidence, R.I.]\n\nAbout this same time a number of Providence people settled in Pawtuxet,\nfour miles south of Providence in territory ceded to Williams. Warwick\nand Shawomet were settled by Samuel Gorton and his friends. Gorton\nwas a strange character who did not find things congenial for him at\nBoston, Plymouth, and Newport in turn. Roger Williams, however, gave\nhim shelter in Providence. Finally he went to Pawtuxet and later to\nShawomet, for which he paid four fathoms of wampum to the Indians. At\nonce Boston Colony claimed that Shawomet was under their jurisdiction.\nGorton and his associates refused to come to Boston at the bidding of\nthe authorities. Forty soldiers came to Shawomet and seized Gorton and\nten of his friends and imprisoned them in Boston. They were tried for\ntheir lives, escaping only by two votes. They were then imprisoned in\nthe various towns. Each one was compelled to wear a chain fast bolted\naround his legs. If they spoke to any person, other than an officer of\nthe Church or of the State, they were to be put to death. They were\nkept at labor that winter and then banished in the spring. Gorton\nescaped to England and secured an order from the Earl of Warwick and\nthe Commissioners of the Colonies requiring Massachusetts not to molest\nthe settlers at Shawomet. Thereafter Gorton and his friends occupied\ntheir lands in peace.\n\nGorton wrote his side of the question in \u201cSimplicities Defence,\u201d in\nwhich he referred to his persecutors as \u201cThat Servant so Imperious in\nhis Master\u2019s Absence Revived.\u201d This is another indictment against the\npersecuting Puritans by one who found shelter in the Baptist colony of\nRhode Island.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                        _SIMPLICITIES DEFENCE_\n\n                                against\n\n                         SEVEN-HEADED POLICY.\n\n                                  OR\n\n             Innocency Vindicated, being unjustly Accused,\n\n                     and sorely Censured, by that\n\n                   _Seven-headed Church-Government_\n\n                               United in\n\n                             NEW-ENGLAND:\n\n                                  OR\n\n           That Servant so Imperious in his Masters Absence\n\n            Revived, and now thus re-acting in NEW-ENGLAND.\n\n                                  OR\n\n   The combate of the United Colonies, not onely against some of the\n  Natives and Subjects, but against the Authority also of the Kingdme of\n  _England_, with their execution of Laws, in the name and Authority of\n  the servant, (or of themselves) and not in the Name and Authority of\n               the Lord, or fountain of the Government.\n\n    Wherein is declared an Act of a great people and Country of the\n  _Indians_ in those parts, both Princes and People (unanimously) in\n   their voluntary Submission and Subjection unto the Protection and\n  Government of Old England (from the Fame they hear thereof) together\n  with the true manner and forme of it, as it appears under their own\n    hands and seals, being stirred up, and provoked thereto, by the\n                    Combate and courses above-said.\n\n    Throughout which Treatise is secretly intermingled, that great\n  Opposition, which is in the goings forth of those two grand Spirits,\n  that are and ever have been, extant in the World (through the sons of\n            men) from the beginning and foundation thereof.\n\n    _Imprimatur, Aug. 3\u1d48. 1646._ Diligently perused, approved, and\n   Licensed to the Presse, according to Order by publike Authority.\n\n                               _LONDON_,\n\n  Printed by _John Macock_, and are to be sold by LUKE FAVVNE, at his\n    shop in _Pauls Church-yard_, at the sign of the _Parrot_. 1646.\n\n\nTHE STORY OF THE FIRST CHARTER\n\nAs the colony grew, it was found necessary that there should be some\nvested authority which would command respect from the neighbors.\nNotwithstanding what Williams had done for the Plymouth and\nMassachusetts Bay colonies in connection with the Pequot War, and the\npersonal friendships he had with the governors, they would not consider\nthat he or his had any separate colony rights whatever. He had been\ntheir Joseph driven from home and country by hostile brethren. In\nexile, he became the savior of his brethren from a dreadful massacre\nby the Indians. Nevertheless, Plymouth claimed jurisdiction over all\nthe plantations in Narragansett Bay, and Massachusetts claimed it over\nProvidence, Pawtuxet, and Shawomet. The Dutch had formed a trading-post\nat Dutch Island and elsewhere and could strike a blow at the colony\nat any time. Out of these conditions grew the demand for a charter.\nRoger Williams, at a great personal sacrifice, went to England from\nManhattan, now New York City, because the two colonies to the north\nforbade his departure from their ports.\n\nArriving in England, he found the country in the midst of the great\nCivil War. King Charles was powerless because Parliament controlled the\nrealm. Parliament had placed colonial interest in charge of a committee\nof which the Earl of Warwick was chairman or \u201cGovernor in Chief, and\nLord High Admiral of the Colonies.\u201d From this council a charter was\ngranted, March 17, 1644. The colony was incorporated as \u201cProvidence\nPlantations\u201d and embraced the territory now covered by the State of\nRhode Island. There was granted to the inhabitants of Providence,\nPortsmouth, and Newport, a\n\n free and absolute charter of incorporation ... together with full\n power and authority to govern themselves and such others as shall\n hereafter inhabit within any part of said tract of land by such form\n of civil government as by the voluntary consent of all or the greatest\n part of them shall be found most serviceable to their estate and\n condition, etc.\n\nUpon the return of Williams, the inhabitants of Providence, learning of\nhis approach, came out in fourteen canoes to meet him at the Seekonk.\nThey traveled over the historic course which he had traveled six years\nbefore when he was an exile. Now in triumph they escorted their beloved\nleader to home and native town. A picture of his return with the\ncharter, by Grant, is on the walls of the Court House at Providence.\n\n[Illustration: The Arrival of Roger Williams with the Charter]\n\nThe earliest published work of Mr. Williams is entitled,\n\n A KEY INTO THE LANGUAGE OF AMERICA: or, an help to the Language of\n the Natives in that part of America, called New-England. Together,\n with briefe Observations of the Customes, Manners and Worships, etc.\n of the aforesaid Natives, in Peace and Warre, in Life and Death. On\n all which are added Spirituall Observations, Generall and Particular\n by the Authour, of chiefe and speciall use (upon all occasions) to all\n the English Inhabiting those parts; yet pleasant and profitable to\n the view of all men: By Roger Williams of Providence in New-England.\n London, Printed by Gregory Dexter, 1643.\n\nIt was written at sea, en route to England, in the summer of 1643.\nCopies of the original edition are in the Bodleian Library, at\nOxford, the British Museum, also in the Library of the Massachusetts\nHistorical Society, Harvard College, Brown University, and the American\nAntiquarian Society at Worcester. It comprises two hundred and sixteen\nsmall duodecimo pages, including preface and table.\n\nThe second published work of Roger Williams is entitled, \u201cMr. Cottons\nLetter Lately Printed, Examined and Answered. By Roger Williams of\nProvidence, in New-England. London, Imprinted in the Yeere 1644.\u201d Mr.\nCotton had sought to \u201ctake off the edge of Censure from himself\u201d--that\nhe was no procurer of the sorrow which came to Williams in his flight\nand exile. It is a small quarto of forty-seven pages, preceded by\nan address of two pages. The letter referred to was written by John\nCotton, and was published in London, 1643. The author vindicated the\nact of the magistrates in banishing Roger Williams from Massachusetts.\nHe denies that he himself had any agency in it. It consists of thirteen\nsmall quarto pages. Good copies of both the Letter and the reply are\nin the Library of Brown University. Two copies of the reply are in\nEngland, one in the British Museum, the other in Bodleian Library. A\nmutilated copy of the reply is also in the Library of Yale College.\n\nRoger Williams wrote also, when in England, securing the Charter for\nRhode Island, a work entitled, \u201cThe Bloudy Tenent, of Persecution for\ncause of Conscience, discussed.\u201d It is considered the best written of\nall his works. These discussions were prepared in London,\n\n for publike view, in charge of roomes and corners, yea, sometimes in\n variety of strange houses, sometimes in the fields, in the midst of\n travel, where he hath been forced to gather and scatter his loose\n thoughts and papers.\n\nIt is written in an animated style and has the adornment of beautiful\nimagery. Original copies are rare, eight only are known to exist, one\nin the British Museum, one in Bodleian Library, one in Brown University\nLibrary, one in Harvard College Library.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                              M\u02b3 Cottons\n\n                                LETTER\n\n                            Lately Printed,\n\n                               EXAMINED\n\n                                  AND\n\n                               ANSVVERED:\n\n                  By _Roger Williams_ of _Providence_\n                                  In\n                            _New\u00b7England_.\n\n                            [Illustration]\n\n                                LONDON,\n                     Imprinted in the yeere 1644.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                                  THE\n\n                            BLOVDY TENENT,\n\n                     of PERSECUTION, for cause of\n                       CONSCIENCE, discussed, in\n\n                       _A_ Conference _betweene_\n                           TRVTH and PEACE.\n\n                                 WHO,\n\n             In all tender Affection, present to the High\n              Court of _Parliament_, (as the _Result_ of\n               their _Discourse_) these, (amongst other\n                _Passages_) of _highest consideration_.\n\n                            [Illustration]\n\n                       Printed in the Year 1644.\n\nThis work is based on a Baptist publication, entitled \u201cAn Humble\nSupplication to the King\u2019s Majesty, as it was presented 1620.\u201d This\nlatter was a clear and concise argument against persecution and\nfor liberty of conscience. It was written by Murton, or some other\nLondon Baptist, who was imprisoned in Newgate for conscience sake.\nHis confinement was so rigid that he was denied pen, paper, and ink.\nA friend in London sent him sheets of paper, as stoppers for the\nbottles containing his daily allowance of milk. He wrote his thoughts\non these sheets with milk, returning them to his friends as stoppers\nfor the empty bottles. They were held to the fire and thus became\nlegible. Roger Williams based his book on the argument of this \u201cHumble\nSupplication.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: Roger Williams\u2019 Reference to \u201cAn Humble Supplication\u201d\nin His \u201cBloudy Tenent\u201d]\n\n In such Paper written with _Milk_ nothing will appeare, but the way\n of reading it by _fire_ being knowne to this _friend_ who received\n the Papers, he transcribed and kept together the Papers, although\n the _Author_ himselfe could not correct, nor view what himselfe had\n written.\n\n It was in _milke_, tending to soule _nourishment_, even for _Babes_\n and Sucklings in _Christ_.\n\n It was in _milke_, spiritually _white_, pure and innocent, like\n those _white horses_ of the _Word_ of _truth_ and _meeknesse_, and\n the _white Linnen_ or _Armour_ of _rightousnesse_, in the _Army_ of\n _Jesus_. _Rev._ 6. & 19.\n\n It was in _milke_, soft, meeke, peaceable and gentle, tending both to\n the _peace_ of _soules_, and the _peace_ of _States_ and Kingdomes.\n\n [Sidenote: The Answer writ in Bloud.]\n\n _Peace._ The _Answer_ (though I hope out of milkie pure intentions) is\n returned in _bloud_: _bloudy_ & slaughterous _conclusions_; _bloudy_\n to the _souls_ of all men, forc\u2019d to the _Religion_ and _Worship_\n which every civil State or Common-weale agrees on, and compells all\n subjects to in a dissembled _uniformitie_.\n\n Bloudy to the _bodies_, first of the holy _witnesses_ of _Christ\n Jesus_, who testifie against such invented worships.\n\n Secondly, of the _Nations_ and Peoples slaughtering each other for\n their severall respective Religions and Consciences.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe little band which settled Providence on that June day, 1636,\nhad grown into a large town. With other towns they suffered the\nsame injustice from neighboring colonies. The assembly in Newport,\nSeptember 19, 1642, which intrusted the work of securing a charter to\nWilliams, was in reality fusing together these separate groups, which\nhad a common enemy and common principles, into a State. The Town of\nProvidence, a great monument to Roger Williams, must now give way to\nthe State of Rhode Island, which was destined to become a still larger\nmonument to the ideals of this great exponent of civil and religious\nliberty, \u201ca liberty which does not permit license in civil matters in\ncontempt of law and order.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE HISTORIC CUSTODIANS OF SOUL-LIBERTY\n\n Roger Williams must forever rank as one of the great epoch-makers\n of the world, and to him impartial historians accord the honor of\n being the first democrat. It was not until his expulsion from Salem\n Colony that he became a Baptist, but the evidence is indisputable\n that he had long been a Baptist at heart. He had spent much time\n among the Baptists in England and was familiar with their doctrines\n and writings. No sooner had Williams set foot in America than he\n found himself in conflict with the authorities, both civil and\n religious.--_S. Z. Batten, in \u201cThe Christian State.\u201d_\n\n There is not a confession of faith, nor a creed, framed by any of the\n Reformers, which does not give the magistrate a coercive power in\n religion, and almost every one at the same time curses the resisting\n Baptists.--_E. B. Underhill, in \u201cStruggles and Triumphs.\u201d_\n\n Godly princes may lawfully issue edicts for compelling obstinate and\n rebellious persons to worship the true God and to maintain the unity\n of the faith.--_Calvin._\n\n Democracy, I do not conceyve that ever God did ordeyne as a fit\n government eyther for Church or Commonwealth.... As for monarchy and\n aristocracy, they are both of them clearly approved, and directed in\n Scripture.--_John Cotton._\n\n It is said that Men ought to have Liberty of their Conscience, and\n that it is Persecution to debar them of it; I can stand amazed than\n reply to this: It is an astonishment to think that the brains of\n men should be parboiled in such impious ignorance.--_Rev. Nathaniel\n Ward, Lawyer Divine, of Ipswich, who drew up the first legal code for\n Massachusetts Bay Colony._\n\n\n\n\nTHE HISTORIC CUSTODIANS OF SOUL-LIBERTY\n\n\nRoger Williams, both minister and citizen, probably led the Providence\nplanters in their religious activities. He was neither identified with\nthe Established Church of England, nor in sympathy with the intolerance\nof the new established order at Boston and Salem, or even the one at\nPlymouth. He was a Separatist of the most pronounced type, and that was\nexactly the accredited Baptist position. He was one with the Baptists\nin his ideas concerning a complete separation from the State Church\nof England, one with them in the absolute separation of Church and\nState, one with them in insisting upon a regenerate church-membership.\nSo according to the logic of the situation he turned to the Baptist\nmovement. He may have been instructed as to their position by Mrs.\nScott (the sister of the Antinomian, Mrs. Ann Hutchinson), who came to\nProvidence shortly before the baptism of Williams. Roger Williams had\nbeen accused of tendencies toward the Anabaptists while in Plymouth,\nSalem, and Boston. Before he met Mrs. Scott, however, he held the\nBaptist positions of the time. It is not unlikely that she, being an\nintelligent Baptist, showed Williams the remarkable similarity between\nhis position and that of the Baptists. Some time before March, 1639,\nWilliams was baptized. In the absence of a Baptist minister, Ezekiel\nHolliman, an exile from Salem, baptized Roger Williams, who in turn\nbaptized Mr. Holliman and some ten others. Like the disciple band of\nold the Baptist movement in Providence and America commenced with a\nband of twelve disciples. Their names are as follows: Roger Williams,\nEzekiel Holliman, William Arnold (?),[1] William Harris, Stukely\nWestcott, John Green, Richard Waterman, Thomas James, Robert Cole,\nWilliam Carpenter (?), Francis Weston, and Thomas Olney. Thus was\norganized the First Baptist Church in America.\n\n[1] The \u201c?\u201d is after Arnold\u2019s name in First Baptist Church Register.\n\nGreat was the consternation in Salem when news reached there of the\nbaptism of Williams and others who had been members of their church.\nThe Puritan church took action at once. The letter announcing to the\nchurch at Dorchester the exclusion of the offenders is interesting:\n\n REVEREND AND DEARLY BELOVED IN THE LORD:\n\n We thought it our bounden duty to acquaint you with the names of such\n persons, as have had the great censure passed upon them, in this our\n church, with the reasons thereof, beseeching you in the Lord, not\n only to read their names in public to yours, but also to give us the\n like notice of any dealt with in like manner by you, so that we may\n walk toward them accordingly, for some of us here have had communion\n ignorantly with some of other churches. 2 Thess. 3:14. We can do no\n less than have such noted as disobey the truth.\n\n Roger Williams and his wife, John Throckmorton and his wife, Thomas\n Olney and his wife, Stukely Westcott and his wife, Mary Holliman,\n Widow Reeves.\n\n These wholly refused to hear the church, denying it, and all the\n churches in the Bay, to be true churches, and (except two) are all\n rebaptized.\n\nAfter some time Roger Williams left the Baptist church he had organized\nin Providence. Because of this fact many have asked the question,\n\u201cWas Roger Williams after all a Baptist?\u201d His life-story reveals the\nfact that he held the Baptist views before he left Plymouth. Elder\nBrewster detected the Baptist heresy in his teaching to the people of\nthe Pilgrim colony and warned the leaders of the Bay Colony of this\ntendency to \u201cAnabaptistery.\u201d Williams\u2019 ministry in the Bay Colony\nreveals the fact that he was against everything which was related to\nthe Episcopacy or that might even lead to a \u201cpresbytery.\u201d He refused to\nminister to the Boston church because it was related to the Episcopal\nState Church of England. He also questioned the propriety of the\nministers\u2019 conference in New England, for fear they might establish\na presbytery which would rob the local church of its congregational\nprivileges. His whole life in America was universally true to the\naccepted Baptist position relative to church polity.\n\nAt the time of Williams\u2019 baptism, English Baptists were agitated\nin regard to the proper administrators of Christian baptism. Many\ncrossed to the Continent and were baptized by ministers in Holland.\nWilliams was soon troubled also in regard to the same question. Was\nhe properly baptized? That was the question which confronted him. He\nwould not juggle with his conscience. He knew of no Baptist minister\nor baptized believer ordained to the ministry in America when he was\nbaptized. His own baptism was by an unbaptized person. He made diligent\nstudy of the question and could not satisfy his mind that there was a\nreal succession of proper administrators. In the awful decline of the\nchurch he was convinced that the sacred succession had been broken.\nHe believed that either that succession must be in existence, or\nGod must raise up a new \u201capostolate,\u201d to commence again the sacred\nsuccession. True to principle, he felt he must withdraw from the church\nat Providence. In the years which followed nothing which he said or\ndid ever changed the facts that he was the first recognized pastor\nof the first Baptist church that was organized in America, that he\nwas the first known case in America of a believer being immersed upon\nprofession of faith into the fellowship of a local Baptist church, and\nthat he was the organizer of the first Baptist church in America.\n\nIn the years which followed his separation from the church at\nProvidence, he left no uncertainty as to his Baptist views on every\nquestion save that of the proper administrator of baptism and its\nkindred subject of ordination. In all other views he was a loyal\nBaptist until his death. In his day, the Baptists were divided into\ntwo recognized divisions, namely, Particular and General Baptists. Dr.\nHenry M. King, of Providence, one of the successors of Roger Williams\nin the pastorate of the Providence church, describes Roger Williams as\na \u201cHigh-church Baptist.\u201d\n\nThe late Reuben A. Guild, for many years librarian of Brown University\nLibrary, and a thorough student of the original sources of information,\nwrites thus of Roger Williams in his history of Brown University:\n\n In regard to the other great doctrines held by the Baptists, liberty\n of conscience, or soul-liberty, the entire separation of Church and\n State, the supreme headship of Christ in all spiritual matters,\n regeneration through the agency of the Holy Spirit, and a hearty\n belief in the Bible as God\u2019s divinely inspired and miraculously\n preserved word and the all-sufficient rule for faith and practice,\n he was throughout life a sincere believer in them all and an earnest\n advocate of them, as his letters and published works abundantly show.\n\nIn Williams\u2019 book, \u201cChristenings make not Christians,\u201d we have the most\nradical Baptist teaching in regard to the errors of infant sprinkling.\nHe attacked the very foundation of the pedobaptists. He insisted that\nonly the regeneration of the heart, through the ministry of the Holy\nSpirit, could make any person a Christian.\n\nHe believed that believers\u2019 immersion is the New Testament baptism. In\na letter to Governor Winthrop, dated December 10, 1649, he writes:\n\n Mr. John Clarke hath been here lately and hath dipped them. I believe\n their practice comes nearer the practice of our great Founder, Jesus\n Christ, than any other practices of religion do.\n\nIn his debate with Fox, he writes thus, eleven years prior to his death:\n\n That gallant and heavenly and fundamental principle of the true\n matter of a Christian congregation, flock or society, namely, actual\n believers, true disciples and converts, such as can give an account of\n how the grace of God hath appeared unto them.\n\nWe should think of Roger Williams as a man chosen of God to be champion\nof a great distinctive Baptist doctrine held by the Baptists centuries\nprior to his day and taught by the Baptists after his time until it\nwas made an essential part of our national Constitution. Released from\npastoral duties, Roger Williams gave himself completely to the task of\nestablishing and guarding the sacred fires of soul-liberty which he\nhad kindled in Rhode Island. For this sacred cause he sacrificed his\ncomfortable home at Salem and devoted the earnings of a lifetime in\ntrips to England to secure parliamentary protection for the colony when\nenvious neighbors on all sides were coveting his purchased possessions.\nHe sacrificed his opportunity to become wealthy and died a poor man.\nAll honor to John Clarke, physician and pastor at Newport, for the\nsplendid cooperation which he gave to Williams. They were comrades, not\nrivals for fame in those days. They were happy in life and should not\nbe made enemies in death. Their names should be linked together as\nthe pioneers and perfecters of soul-liberty in Rhode Island.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                             Christenings\n\n                               make not\n\n                              CHRISTIANS,\n\n                                  OR\n\n                  A Briefe Discourse concerning that\n                   name _Heathen_, commonly given to\n                             the INDIANS.\n\n             _As also concerning that great point of their\n                             CONVERSION._\n\n                            [Illustration]\n\n                    _Published according to Order._\n\n           _London_, Printed by _Iane Coe_, for I. H. 1645.\n\n\nTHE HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH\n\nThe early Providence Baptists met at first in a grove under the trees.\nIn inclement weather they would meet in private homes. They adopted no\narticles of faith, and to this day the First Church of Providence has\nbeen without a formal creed or covenant. For sixty years the church\nfounded by Roger Williams had no house of worship. Pardon Tillinghast,\nits sixth pastor, built them a house of worship in 1700 and deeded it\nto the Society in 1711. It stood on the corner of North Main and Smith\nStreets. A larger church, forty feet square, built in 1726, succeeded\nthis first edifice. The present edifice was built in 1775, and was\ndedicated \u201cfor the worship of Almighty God and to hold commencements\nin.\u201d It cost $35,000, a part of which was raised by a lottery,\nauthorized by the State. The building was designed by Joseph Brown\nand James Sumner, who used as a model Gibb\u2019s church in London, _St.\nMartin-in-the-Fields_. It is recognized as one of the finest examples\nof colonial architecture in America.\n\nIt has a beautiful interior. The upper gallery at the west end was\noriginally set apart for slaves and colored people. It was removed to\ngive place for the pipe-organ in 1832. The same year the old-fashioned\nsquare pews were exchanged for the present ones; the lofty pulpit and\nsounding-board were taken down. The beautiful crystal chandelier,\nimported from England in 1792 was lighted for the first time when Hope\nBrown, daughter of Nicholas Brown, was married to Thomas Poynton Ives.\nIt was the bride\u2019s gift to the church.\n\nThe bell in the tower weighs two thousand five hundred pounds, and bore\noriginally this inscription:\n\n  For freedom of conscience the town was first planted;\n    Persuasion, not force, was used by the people;\n  This church is the eldest, and has not recanted,\n    Enjoying and granting bell, temple, and steeple.\n\nIt has been cracked three times and recast in this country. It now\nbears the date of the origin of the church, and the name of Roger\nWilliams, \u201cits first pastor and the first asserter of liberty of\nconscience.\u201d The bell is rung at sunrise, at midday, and at nine\no\u2019clock as in the days of old.\n\n[Illustration: First Baptist Church of Providence]\n\n[Illustration: Roger Mowry\u2019s \u201cOrdinarie.\u201d Built 1653, Demolished 1900]\n\nIn the vestries are pictures of many of the former leaders of this\nhistoric church. In the hallway, in a glass case, is a piece of the\noriginal \u201cWhat Cheer Rock,\u201d the landing-place of Williams. At the\nentrance to the church a bronze tablet commemorates the fact that\nthe First Baptist Church of Providence was the first Baptist church\nestablished in America and that Roger Williams was its first pastor.\n\nThe present organization, known as the First Baptist Church of\nProvidence, has every valid reason for claiming to be the true\nsuccessor of the original church, organized before 1639, by Roger\nWilliams. In the Rhode Island Baptist State Annual the date of the\nchurch\u2019s organization is given as 1638. A committee appointed by the\nchurch, when reporting, on March 16, 1899, the reasons for claiming\nthat the present organization is the true successor of the first\nBaptist church organized in America, quoted in defense of this position\nthe following writers: Arnold, \u201cHistory of Rhode Island\u201d; Caldwell,\n\u201cHistory of the First Baptist Church\u201d; Guild, \u201cHistory of Brown\nUniversity and Manning\u201d; Prof. Geo. P. Fisher, of Yale, \u201cIn Colonial\nEra\u201d; Cramp, \u201cBaptist History\u201d; Dexter, \u201cAs to Roger Williams\u201d; Morgan\nEdwards, \u201cMaterials for a History of Baptists in Rhode Island.\u201d In the\nfollowing fall this report was also presented to the Warren Association\nand was ordered printed in the Minutes of the Association.\n\nIn the \u201cHistorical Catalogue\u201d of this church, a book prepared by a\ncommittee consisting of Rev. H. M. King, D. D., Pres. W. H. P. Faunce,\nProf. Wm. C. Poland, and others, a committee familiar with the original\nsources of information, we find Roger Williams listed as the first\nmember in its list of members and as the first pastor in its list of\npastors. The bronze tablet in front of the present meeting-house and\nthe inscription on the bell both state that Roger Williams was the\nfirst pastor.\n\n\nROGER WILLIAMS\u2019 IDEAL, A DISTINCTIVE BAPTIST PRINCIPLE\n\nWe have already noted the fact that Roger Williams was accused of\nAnabaptist tendencies. The Baptists, or Anabaptists, throughout the\nages have stood for the most advanced principles of Protestantism.\nThey existed long before Luther. Many historians claim for them a\nhistoric continuity from the days of the early Christians. Their\nprinciples--democracy of the local church, sovereignty of the\nLord Jesus Christ, and the authority of the Scriptures--have been\nperpetuated by local distinct bodies rather than by the historic\ncontinuity of a general denomination with a common name and a common\ngoverning body.\n\nThe Master, in the parable of the Tares, taught the principle advocated\nby the Baptists and by Roger Williams. The field is the world; the good\nseed, the children of the kingdom; the tares are the evil-doers. Wheat\nand tares should be allowed to grow together in the world (not in the\nchurch) until the end of the age, when the angels, the reapers of God,\nwill gather them together for reward or punishment. Force must never be\nused to make disciples for Christ.\n\nIn the early Christian centuries, the church longed for liberty to live\nfor Christ and preach his gospel. Ten great general persecutions were\nlaunched by the Roman emperors to crush the church. The promise that\nthe gates of hell would not prevail against it was realized. The Edict\nof Milan, issued in 313, by Constantine and Licinius, joint emperors,\ngave the church an opportunity to grow and prosper and it was soon in\nthe lead throughout the Roman Empire. Then the church turned persecutor\nand put to death those who differed from the ruling order, which now\nhad lost its democratic ideals. When the Montanists, the Donatists, the\nPaulicians, the Albigenses, and the Waldenses in turn resisted the evil\ntendencies and assumptions of a corrupt church, they were persecuted\nwith a fierceness greater than that formerly waged by the pagans\nagainst the church. The principle of religious liberty was almost\nlost. It became the far-off dream of idealists. These dreamers were\nusually called Anabaptists. At first they were dissenters from Roman\nCatholicism, but afterward they were also dissenters from the dominant\nforms of Protestantism.\n\n[Illustration: Interior of First Baptist Church, Providence]\n\nThe Protestant Reformation was a case of arrested development. It was\nlike the exodus from the Egyptian bondage. There was a long lingering\nin the wilderness before the day dawned with full religious liberty.\nHenry Melville King says:\n\n The absolute supremacy of the word of God, the spiritual nature of the\n Christian church, the Christian ordinances for believing souls, the\n divorce of Church and State, full, unrestricted religious freedom for\n every man, these essential truths of the gospel of Christ found no\n room at the inn of the sixteenth century, and were thrust aside into\n the manger ... the inn was not open for it, but the manger was. The\n principle of religious liberty did not fail to get born.\n\nThe Anabaptists of Europe kept alive the ideals of religious liberty.\nThey sought to carry out the principles of the Protestant Reformation\nto its scriptural and logical conclusion. Many, called by this name,\nhad little in common with the movement which now bears the Baptist\nname. The actions of the fanatics under M\u00fcnzer have been cited since\nWilliams\u2019 day as an argument against his principles. M\u00fcnzer, who\n\u201cnever submitted to, nor administered rebaptism, who persisted in\nbaptizing infants, and who sought to set up the kingdom of Christ by\ncarnal warfare, was not correctly classed.\u201d Cornelius, Roman Catholic\nhistorian of the M\u00fcnzer uprising, shows that the Anabaptists repudiated\nthe actions of this fanatic.\n\n The only crime of which they (the Baptists) were accused as a body\n by their contemporaries, and which is substantiated by evidence,\n the crime for which they were inhumanly persecuted by Catholics and\n Protestants alike, and for which they went cheerfully and in large\n numbers to death by drowning or the stake, was the crime of advocating\n soul-liberty. They claimed the right to interpret the Scriptures for\n themselves. They demanded freedom of faith and worship for all men.\n They apprehended the sublime doctrine of civil and religious liberty,\n and they were _the only_ men who did apprehend it.\n\nMost of the creeds and confessions of the Reformation gave to the\nmagistrate a coercive power in religion, and included a curse for the\ndespised Baptists. Luther, in the early years of his Reformation work,\nsaid:\n\n No one can command or ought to command the soul except God, who alone\n can show it the way to heaven. It is futile and impossible to command,\n or by force to compel any man\u2019s belief. Heresy is a spiritual thing,\n which no iron can hew down, no fire burn, no water drown... Whenever\n the temporal power presumes to legislate for the soul, it encroaches.\n\nLuther, when he was successful, turned his back upon this noble\nutterance and compromised with error. He stopped short of full victory\nand failed to secure the \u201cfull splendor of a complete triumph.\u201d He\nwrote differently in after days:\n\n Since it is not good that in one parish the people should be exposed\n to contradictory preaching, he (the magistrate) should order to be\n silent whatever does not consist with the Scriptures.\n\nThus the civil ruler was made the final judge of truth and given power\nto suppress what he would condemn. This was a case of tyranny changing\nhands. Luther wrote to Menius and Myconius in 1530:\n\n I am pleased that you intend to publish a book against the Anabaptists\n as soon as possible. Since they are not only blasphemous but also\n seditious men, let the sword exercise its rights over them, for it is\n the will of God, that he shall have judgment who resisteth the power.\n\nMelanchthon, in a letter to the Diet at Hamburg, in 1537, advised\ndeath by the sword to all who professed Anabaptist views. Zwingli, the\nSwiss Reformer, whose statue in Zurich pictures him with a Bible in\nhis right hand and a sword in his left, also persecuted the Baptists.\nOn January 5, 1527, Felix Mantz became the first Swiss Anabaptist\nmartyr by drowning at Zurich. This was a hideous parody of his belief\nin believers\u2019 baptism by immersion. Heinrich Bullinger, in his book\nagainst the Anabaptists, specifies thirteen distinct sects among the\nAnabaptists. He mentions twenty-five points of agreement among them,\nincluding the following:\n\n That secular authority has no concern with religious belief; that\n the Christian resists no evil and therefore needs no law-courts; nor\n should ever make use of the tribunals; that Christians do not kill\n or punish with imprisonment or the sword, but only with exclusion\n from the body of believers; that no man should be compelled by\n force to believe, nor should any be slain on account of his faith;\n that Christians do _not_ resist, and hence do not go to war; that\n Christians may not swear; that all oaths are sinful; that infant\n baptism is of the pope and devil; that rebaptism, or better, adult\n baptism, is the only true Christian baptism.\n\nIn 1527, the Swiss Anabaptists issued a confession of faith at\nSchaffhausen. Its writer was Michael Sattler, an ex-monk who was\nmartyred that same year. It was the first confession \u201cin which\nChristian men claimed absolute religious freedom for themselves, and\nguaranteed absolute religious freedom to others.\u201d This Baptist movement\nwas the target of Protestant and Catholic persecution alike and its\nbrave, spiritual men and women were driven to the martyr\u2019s crown or to\nexile. Many fled to Holland. The torch of truth, the advanced ideas\nwhich they had received from the Waldensians and other pre-Reformation\nmovements, were handed over to the Anabaptists of Holland. These\nincreased in number rapidly under the toleration afforded them in\nthat country. Menno Simons, a Roman priest, set to thinking by the\nmartyrdoms about him, espoused their cause and doctrines. Baptized at\nthe age of forty-four, he fled to Holland, where he became the leader\nof a host, which afterward bore his name, being called Mennonites.\nCharles V persecuted these Baptists, and fully fifty thousand were\nmartyred. They were not exterminated, however, for God, as in other\ndays, preserved a remnant to pass the torch of religious liberty on to\nothers.\n\n[Illustration: Bell of First Baptist Church, Providence]\n\nBaptist refugees from Holland crossed over to England. Henry VIII, when\nhe made himself head of the Church, ordered their arrest and banishment\nfrom the kingdom, \u201con pain to suffer death, if they abide, and be\napprehended and taken.\u201d The fires of Smithfield and the inquisition\nof the Protestants could not crush this movement destined of God, at\na later date, to change the world. Considered an obnoxious sect in\nthe reigns of Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, they carried on their\nmeetings secretly. They were an industrious class of skilled mechanics\nand introduced into England that which afterward gave that nation its\ncommercial and manufacturing supremacy. The English passed a law that\neach foreign workman should take and train one English apprentice.\nAs a result, fifty thousand English lads were trained, not only\nmechanically, but also in the principles of these Dutch Anabaptists.\nThis spiritual training led to the Puritan revolution in England and\nto the greater movement across the seas. Each of these Dutch Baptist\nchurches was a republic in itself, independent with its popularly\nelected officers, deacons, and elders. They held, as a cardinal\ndoctrine, the separation of Church and State. From the sections in\nwhich these Dutch Anabaptists lived came fully fifty per cent of the\nearly colonists to the New World. Fourteen English towns, in which\nthey formed a large proportion of the population, are duplicated by\nNew England towns of the same name. From the same district Cromwell\nrecruited his invincible Ironsides. Back of all that was good and noble\nin the settlements at Plymouth and Boston and in Connecticut was the\nleaven of the Dutch Baptists in that part of England from which these\nearly colonists came.\n\nRobert Browne, who is the reputed founder of English Congregationalism,\nadvocated his peculiar views after dwelling for some time in a Dutch\nAnabaptist community. Here he promulgated his ideas. A part of his\ncongregation fled to Middleburg, a Baptist stronghold. After two years\nhe quarreled with these folks and returned to England, where he became\nreconciled to the Established Church and for forty years afterward\nadministered to an Established Church parish. The Baptist principle,\nhowever, had been stamped upon the few years of his ministry when he\nstarted a new order.\n\nAt the close of the sixteenth century most of the Anabaptists in\nEngland were Dutch. Slowly, however, English Baptists were coming into\nexistence, and they soon formed themselves into small groups. Browne\ndid not go so far as the Baptists, but in church government he took\ntheir New Testament position. As far as is known, the first definite\nEnglish Baptist church was organized in London in 1611, with Thomas\nHelwys as pastor. The members had been exiles in Holland and were\nbaptized there by Rev. John Smith, the famous Se-Baptist, formerly a\nChurch of England clergyman.\n\nThis English Baptist church formulated a confession which contains the\nfirst declaration of faith to include, as the teaching of Christ, the\nabsolute separation of Church and State.\n\n The magistrate by virtue of his office, is not to meddle with religion\n or matters of conscience, nor to compel men to this or that form of\n religion or doctrine; but to leave the Christian religion free to\n every man\u2019s conscience.\n\nProf. Mason says:\n\n It was, in short, from their little dingy meeting-house, somewhere in\n old London, that there flashed out, first in England, the absolute\n doctrine of religious liberty.\n\nThese of whom mention has just been made, were called General Baptists.\n\nIn 1644, the Particular Baptists issued a confession, equally\nexplicit and clear. Religious liberty to them was the right, and\ngood citizenship the duty, of every Christian man. Their historic\nconfession, a confession of seven associated churches, was the first\ndeclaration, in England or in Christendom, by a body of associated\nchurches on the question of absolute religious liberty. Many of these\nBaptists were imprisoned.\n\nMany denominations which today favor religious liberty, were opposed to\nit in those days of Baptist persecution. For example, the Presbyterian\nministers of Lancashire declared, \u201cA toleration would be putting a\nsword in a madman\u2019s hands, a cup of poison into the hand of a child,\na letting loose of madmen with firebrands in their hands, etc.\u201d The\nPresbyterians, then, would gladly have been a national church. The\nPuritans of the Bay Colony had no higher thought than a theocracy\nfor themselves. To insure uniformity of worship in their colony they\nresorted to whippings, banishments, fines, and hangings. The Pilgrim\nFathers were farther advanced, but historians fail to find that\nthey had a higher ideal than to secure a freedom to worship God for\nthemselves. They certainly never dreamed of extending an equal freedom\nto all who differed from them in religious opinions. John Robinson,\nthe renowned pastor of the Pilgrims, defended earnestly the use of the\nmagistrate\u2019s power \u201cto punish religious actions, he (the magistrate)\nbeing the preserver of both tables, and so to punish all breaches of\nboth.\u201d\n\nBy Protestants, with the exception of the Baptists, full religious\ntoleration and liberty was feared and hated. The most advanced were\nfar from the Baptist position. This explains the bitterness of the\npersecution against Roger Williams and the Baptists. In fact, Roger\nWilliams was so far in advance of his age, and that in common with\nthe noble host of martyred Baptists, that he seemed dwarfed in the\ndistance. The future even more than the present time will enable us to\nvalue his and their worth.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nSOUL-LIBERTY AT HOME IN A COMMONWEALTH\n\n It is his unique title to preeminence and fame that he was the first\n to found an absolutely free church in an absolutely free State, and\n Rhode Island and Providence Plantations remain a monument of his\n sagacity and daring and penetration, a center from which the light of\n soul-liberty has radiated far and wide till it has flooded a whole\n continent, and shines with concentrated splendor in the constellation\n of States which now form the great Western Republic.--_J. Gregory, a\n British writer on Puritanism._\n\n Against the somber background of early New England, two figures\n stand above the rest--John Winthrop and Roger Williams. The\n first--astute, reactionary, stern--represented Moses and the law. The\n second--spontaneous, adaptable, forgiving--represented Christ and the\n individual. It is needless to say with which lay the promise and the\n dawn.--_I. B. Richman._\n\n He was the first man in modern Christendom to establish civil\n government on the doctrine of the liberty of conscience, the equality\n of opinions before the law, and in its defence he was the harbinger\n of Milton, the precursor and the superior of Jeremy Taylor.... Let\n then the name of Roger Williams be preserved in universal history\n as one who advanced moral and political science, and made himself a\n benefactor of his race.--_George Bancroft, in \u201cHistory of the United\n States.\u201d_\n\n In the seventeenth century there was no place but the wilderness for\n such a John the Baptist of the distant future as Roger Williams.\n He did not belong among the diplomatic builders of churches, like\n Cotton, or the political founders of States, like Winthrop. He was but\n a babbler to his own time, but the prophetic voice rings clear and\n far, and ever clearer as the ages go on.--_Edward Eggleston, in \u201cThe\n Beginners of a Nation.\u201d_\n\n\n\n\nSOUL-LIBERTY AT HOME IN A COMMONWEALTH\n\n\nPortsmouth, Newport, and Rhode Island, with common interests and\nideals, were protected and throve under the original charter granted in\n1644. Charles I was surrendered to the Parliamentary forces in January,\n1647. The colony, therefore, felt strong to act under the Parliamentary\ncharter granted them. A general assembly of the people was called,\nand the charter was adopted. Shawomet, settled by the Gortonists, had\nalso received a charter from the same source and, in honor of Warwick,\ntheir protector, they changed the name of their town to Warwick.\nThey were admitted also to the General Assembly. The first meeting\nof the Assembly declared that the form of government in Providence\nPlantations was \u201cdemocratical,\u201d that is to say, \u201cgovernment held by\nthe free and voluntary consent of all or of the greater part of the\nfree inhabitants.\u201d The seal of the colony was an anchor. The executive\nbranch of the government was vested in a president of the colony and\nfour assistants, one from each town. These officers, elected by the\nGeneral Assembly, had no part in legislation. The Assembly at that time\nwas not composed of delegates, but included all the freemen of the\ncolony. Each town had a court of commissioners composed of six members.\nThese four town courts combined became a General Court of Trials,\nhaving to do with the weightier offenses, and also acted as a Court of\nAppeals from the town courts. There was also a general treasurer, a\ngeneral recorder, a general sergeant, and later a general solicitor.\n\nA code of laws was drawn up. One, the Statute of Archery, shows the\nisolation of this colony. It required that every man between seventeen\nand seventy should keep a bow and four arrows. Fathers should furnish\neach of their sons, between the ages of seven and seventeen, with \u201ca\nbow, two arrows, and a shaft, and to bring them up to shooting.\u201d This\nwas done because the colony could not get gunpowder for firearms,\nsince the other colonies refused to sell them any, or allow it to be\nexported through their posts to them.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                           The Fourth Paper,\n\n                             Presented by\n\n                             Maior Butler,\n\n                    To the Honourable Committee of\n                  Parliament, for the Propagating the\n                       Gospel of _Christ_ JESUS.\n\n                  VVhich Paper was humbly owned, and\n                 was, and is attended to be made good\n\n                { Major _Butler_.     } { Mr. _Jackson_.\n             By { Mr. _Charles Vane_. } { Mr. _VVall_. And\n                { Col. _Danvers_.     } { Mr. _Turner_.\n\n                                 ALSO\n\n                  A Letter from Mr. _Goad_, to Major\n                   BUTLER, upon occasion of the said\n                         PAPER and PROPOSALS.\n\n                            _Together with_\n\n                 A Testimony to the said fourth Paper,\n                  By way or Explanation upon the four\n                           PROPOSALS of it.\n\n                              _BY_ R. W.\n\n             Unto which is subjoyned the Fifteen Proposals\n                           of the MINISTERS.\n\n_London_, Printed for _Giles Calvert_, at the Black-spred-Eagle at the\n                   West-end of _Pauls_. _M DC LII._\n\n\nROGER WILLIAMS\u2019 SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND\n\nThe ambitious designs of Coddington in seeking to divide the colony\nwere such that Williams and Clarke were obliged to go to England in\n1651. Coddington had secured a charter making him governor for life\nof Rhode Island, then the richest portion of the State. Williams and\nClarke in 1652 secured an order-in-council nullifying Coddington\u2019s\ncommission. Williams remained in England until the summer of 1654 and\nlabored there for the interests of the colony and also for the general\nbenefit of all oppressed people, including the Jews. In his appeal to\nthe Parliament, found as a comment in the tract entitled \u201cButler\u2019s\nFourth Paper,\u201d an original copy of which is in the John Carter Brown\nLibrary, at Providence, he says:\n\n Oh, that it would please the Father of Spirits to affect the heart\n of Parliament with such a merciful sense of the Soul-Bars and Yokes\n which our fathers have laid upon the neck of this nation, and at last\n to proclaim a true and absolute Soul-Freedom to all the people of\n the land impartially, so that no person be forced to pray nor pay,\n otherwise than as his Soul believeth and consenteth.\n\nHe plead especially that permission be granted the Jews \u201cto live freely\nand peaceably amongst them.\u201d\n\nHe was on intimate terms with Milton, to whom he read and from whom he\nreceived instruction in certain languages. He also was associated with\nSir Henry Vane. Returning to his colony in 1654, he at once exercised\nhis influence in smoothing out its many and varied difficulties.\n\nDuring this second visit to England he issued three publications. John\nCotton had written a reply to the \u201cBloody Tenent,\u201d publishing it in\nLondon, in 1647. It had the following title:\n\n The Bloudy Tenent, washed, and made white in the bloud of the Lambe:\n being discussed and discharged of bloud-guiltinesse by just Defence.\n\nRoger Williams in 1652 printed his rejoinder to Cotton\u2019s book. Its\ntitle is descriptive of its contents:\n\n The Bloody Tenent yet More Bloody: by Mr Cottons endevour to wash\n it white in the Blood of the Lambe; of whose precious Blood, spilt\n in the Blood of his Servants; and of the blood of Millions spilt in\n former and later Wars for Conscience sake, that Most Bloody Tenent of\n Persecution for cause of Conscience, upon a second Tryal, is found now\n more apparently and more notoriously guilty, etc., etc. By R. Williams\n of Providence in New-England. London, Printed for Giles Calvert, and\n are to be sold at the black-spread-Eagle, at the West-end of Pauls,\n 1652.\n\nIt is a small quarto of three hundred and seventy-three pages. Two\ncopies are in the Library of Brown University, one, a presentation copy\nfrom Williams to his friend, Dr. John Clarke, of Newport.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                                  THE\n\n                            BLOUDY TENENT,\n\n                               _WASHED_,\n\n                  And made white in the bloud of the\n               Lambe: being discussed and discharged of\n                  bloud-guiltinesse by just Defence.\n\n                                WHEREIN\n\n             The great Questions of this present time are\n            handled, _viz._ How farre Liberty of Conscience\n    ought to be given to those that truly feare God? And how farre\n     restrained to turbulent and pestilent persons, that not onely\n       raze the foundation of Godlinesse, but disturb the Civill\n   Peace where they live? Also how farre the Magistrate may proceed\n      in the duties of the first Table? And that all Magistrates\n     ought to study the word and will of God, that they may frame\n                   their Government according to it.\n\n                              DISCUSSED.\n\n          As they are alledged from divers Scriptures, out of\n        the Old and New Testament. Wherein also the practise of\n      Princes is debated, together with the Judgement of Ancient\n              and late Writers of most precious esteeme.\n\n             _Whereunto is added a Reply to Mr._ WILLIAMS\n                    Answer, to Mr. COTTONS Letter.\n\n              _BY_ JOHN COTTON Batchelor in Divinity, and\n     Teacher of the Church of Christ at _Boston_ in _New-England_.\n\n                               _LONDON_,\n  Printed by _Matthew Symmons_ for _Hannah Allen_, at the _Crowne_ in\n                       _Popes-Head_-Alley. 1647.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                                  THE\n\n                             BLOODY TENENT\n\n                                  YET\n\n                             More Bloody:\n\n                                  BY\n\n             Mr _Cottons_ endevour to wash it white in the\n                         BLOOD of the _LAMBE_;\n\n                 Of whose precious Blood, spilt in the\n                      Blood of his Servants; and\n\n             Of the blood of Millions spilt in former and\n                    later Wars for Conscience sake,\n\n                                 THAT\n\n            Most Bloody Tenent of Persecution for cause of\n          Conscience, upon a second Tryal, is found now more\n                apparently and more notoriously guilty.\n\n           In this Rejoynder to Mr _Cotton_, are principally\n\n                 I.   _The Nature of Persecution_,   }\n                                                     } Examined;\n                 II.  _The Power of the Civill Sword }\n                      in Spirituals_            }\n\n            III. _The Parliaments permission of_ } Justified.\n                      _Dissenting Consciences_   }\n\n        Also (as a Testimony to M\u02b3 _Clarks_ Narrative) is added\n  a Letter to Mr _Endicot_ Governor of the _Massachusets_ in _N. E._\n\n           By R. WILLIAMS of _Providence_ in _New-England_.\n\n     _London_, Printed for _Giles Calvert_, and are to be sold at\n       the black-spread-Eagle at the West-end of _Pauls_, 1652.\n\nRoger Williams published his fifth work in 1652. It was a pamphlet of\nforty-four small quarto pages, entitled:\n\n The Hireling Ministry None of Christs, or A Discourse touching the\n Propagating the Gospel of Christ Jesus. Humbly Presented to such Pious\n and Honourable Hands, whom the present Debate thereof concerns. By\n Roger Williams, of Providence, in New England. London Printed in the\n second Moneth, 1652.\n\nThe purpose of this work was to oppose a legal establishment of\nreligion, and the compulsory support of the clergy. An original copy\nis in the Library of Brown University, two copies are in the American\nAntiquarian Society Library at Worcester, and one in the John Carter\nBrown Library, Providence, R. I.\n\nThe same year he issued a pamphlet entitled:\n\n Experiments of Spiritual Life & Health, And their Preservatives, In\n which the weakest Child of God may get Assurance of his Spirituall\n Life and Blessednesse, and the Strongest may finde proportionable\n Discoveries of his Christian Growth, and the means of it. By Roger\n Williams of Providence in New-England. London, Printed, in the Second\n Month, 1652.\n\nThis book is in the form of a letter addressed to his wife, upon her\nrecovery from a dangerous sickness. A limited edition was published,\ncomprising sixty small quarto pages. For years no original copy has\nbeen found. There is an original copy now in the John Carter Brown\nLibrary at Providence, R. I.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                                  The\n\n                           Hireling Ministry\n\n                               _None of_\n\n                               CHRISTS,\n\n                                  OR\n\n                 A Discourse touching the Propagating\n                         the Gospel of CHRIST\n                                JESUS.\n\n                    _Humbly Presented to such Pious\n                      and Honourable Hands, whom\n                 the present Debate thereof concerns._\n\n                 _By_ ROGER WILLIAMS, _of_ Providence\n                            in New England.\n\n                    _London_ Printed in the second\n                             Moneth, 1652.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                              EXPERIMENTS\n\n                                  OF\n\n                       Spiritual Life & Health,\n\n                               And their\n\n                             PRESERVATIVES\n\n               In which the _Weakest_ Child of _God_ may\n               get _Assurance_ of his Spirituall _Life_\n                          and _Blessednesse_\n\n      And the _Strongest_ may finde proportionable _Discoveries_\n           of his _Christian Growth_, and the _means_ of it.\n\n                By _Roger Williams_ of _Providence_ in\n                            _New-England_.\n\n                            [Illustration]\n\n                 London, Printed, in the Second Month,\n                                 1652.\n\nFrom time to time local difficulties arose in the various towns.\nAmbitious men, seeking their personal welfare, rather than the\npublic weal, disturbed the serenity of the colony. Certain settlers\nat Pawtuxet sought to be part of the Bay Colony; Coddington, at\nNewport, desired to be governor for life of the Islands of Rhode Island\nand Conanicut. Two rival assemblies were organized at Newport and\nProvidence. Roger Williams used his influence and greatly helped to\nsolve the vexing problems. A new colony, with a new and revolutionary\nideal, was being born, and the birth-throes were great, owing to the\nfact that they were pioneers in this work of building a democracy.\nThey had no illustrious precedent to follow. It is a marvel that their\ndifficulties were not more and greater.\n\nIn 1656, the United Colonies urged the Providence Colony to banish all\nQuakers from their realm. They replied that \u201c_FREEDOM of Conscience is\nthe ground of our charter, and it shall be maintained_.\u201d In 1658, the\nUnited Colonies threatened the Providence Colony with exclusion from\nall intercourse or trade with all the rest of the colonies, if they did\nnot banish the Quakers. Meanwhile the Bay Colony was unrelenting in its\npersecution of the Quakers. Some were banished, and a few were put to\ndeath.\n\nIn September, 1658, Cromwell died. His son Richard succeeded him,\nand after a short time retired. Charles II ascended the English\nthrone in June, 1660. Immediately all acts of the Parliament under\nCromwell were repealed, and Providence Plantations lost its charter.\nThe Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut colonies immediately asserted\nanew their claims for the territory about the Narragansett Bay. Dr.\nJohn Clarke, of Newport, was in England representing the claims of\nthe Providence Colony, and, in 1663, secured for it a new royal\ncharter. The old Colony of Providence Plantations ceased to exist.\nThe new colony was called \u201cRhode Island and Providence Plantations.\u201d\nThe charter defined the bounds of the colony, gave it freedom in all\nreligious matters, a system of government, a power to organize courts\nand to enforce their decisions, power to raise a standing army of\ndefense, and other essential things. The new seal of the colony was\n\u201cRhode Island and Providence Plantations\u201d with an anchor and the word,\n\u201cHope,\u201d above it.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                              George Fox\n\n                           Digg\u2019d out of his\n\n                              Burrovves,\n\n                            Or an Offer of\n\n                              DISPUTATION\n\n    On fourteen _Proposalls_ made this last Summer 1672 (so call\u2019d)\n              unto _G. Fox_ then present on _Rode-Island_\n                      in _New-England_, by _R.W._\n\n    As also how (_G. Fox_ slily departing) the Disputation went on\n     being managed three dayes at _Newport_ on _Rode-Island_, and\n    one day at _Providence_, between _John Stubs, John Burnet, and\n     William Edmundson_ on the one part, and _R.W._ on the other.\n\n   In which many _Quotations_ out of _G. Fox_ & _Ed. Barrowes_ Book\n                       in _Folio_ are alleadged.\n\n                                WITH AN\n\n                                APENDIX\n\n  Of some scores of _G. F._ his simple lame Answers to his Opposites\n                  in that Book, quoted and replyed to\n                   By R. W. of _Providence_ in N.E.\n                           _Roger Williams_\n\n                                BOSTON\n                    Printed by _John Foster_, 1676.\n\n[Illustration: Models of Indian Village in Roger Williams Park Museum\nCourtesy of \u201cProvidence Magazine\u201d]\n\nThe Model of a Southern New England Indian Village\n\nOval House of Birch Bark and Mats Corn-field\n\nWomen Smoking Fish\n\nRound House of Grass Long Council Chamber Making a Long House\n\nIndian Men Feeding Dogs\n\nRoger Williams protected the Quakers by granting them in his colony a\nshelter from persecutions. However, he was never friendly to their\npeculiar tenets and assailed them in debates and pamphlets. When George\nFox, their founder, was in America in 1672, Williams challenged him\nto a debate. A delay in getting the challenge to Fox, who had sailed\nfor England, did not leave the debate unaccepted. Three Rhode Island\nQuakers undertook the task. Roger Williams rowed the thirty miles\nto Newport and for three days debated with all the characteristic\nbitterness of debates of that period. They adjourned to complete the\ndebate at Providence. Williams is seen in the worst light here and has\nbeen greatly criticized for the strong language he used in opposing\nthese Quakers. We should never forget that the Puritans went far beyond\nstrong language, in persecuting some to death and in exiling others.\nBoth sides claimed a victory in the debate, which was perpetuated in\npamphlets, issued at its completion. Williams wrote one, entitled,\n\u201cGeorge Fox Digg\u2019d out of his Burrowes.\u201d Fox replied with one,\nentitled, \u201cA New-England Fire-Brand Quenched.\u201d Fox\u2019s book is a quarto\nof 489 pages. Williams\u2019 book, a small quarto of 327 pages, was printed\nin Boston, 1676. The only original copy known to exist is the one in\nthe Library of Harvard College.\n\nRoger Williams wrote many letters, the originals of which were widely\nscattered. Many of these have been collected and printed in a volume\nby the Rhode Island Historical Society. In one of these letters, to\nGovernor Bradford, of Boston, he refers to a collection of discourses\nwhich he had reduced to writing. These sermons, with treatises written\nprior to his banishment, are probably lost forever.\n\n\nKING PHILIP\u2019S WAR\n\nCanonicus died, June 4, 1647. Massasoit died in 1660, leaving two\nsons, Wamsutta and Metacon, or as they were nicknamed by the English,\nAlexander and Philip. The former succeeded his father. On a return from\nPlymouth Alexander died suddenly, and Philip suspected that he was\npoisoned. This, however, was not the fact. The Narragansetts had not\nforgotten the death or murder of Miantonomo, and the Indians generally\nfelt that the English were gradually crowding them out of their own\ndomains. Philip took advantage of this feeling and organized a war\nwhich had for its object the complete extermination of all the\nEnglish settlements. This war, opening in Plymouth, 1675, lasted more\nthan a year. Twelve out of the ninety New England towns were completely\ndestroyed and forty others were the scene of fire and slaughter. A\nthousand strong men lost their lives in addition to a large number of\nhelpless women and children who were tomahawked. Rhode Island, for the\nfirst time, was exposed to the hostile attacks of the Indians. Many of\nthe inhabitants, fearing the impending disaster, had joined the army\nof attack against the Indians. In retaliation for this, Providence was\nattacked, and twenty-nine houses were burned. One of them contained the\ntown records, part of which were saved by being thrown into a pond,\nfrom which they were afterward recovered. When the Indians appeared\non the heights above Providence, Roger Williams, unarmed, went out to\ncounsel with them. He urged them to stop the warfare, telling them that\nthe English king would come to the assistance of the colonists and,\nwith greater numbers, overpower the Indians. They replied:\n\n Let them come, we are ready for them. But as for you, Brother\n Williams, you are a good man, you have been kind to us many years, not\n a hair of your head shall be touched.\n\nHe returned to a house which had been converted into a fort. It was not\ntouched, but the town otherwise was destroyed. Most of the citizens of\nthe mainland fled to Rhode Island and Newport. The doom of the Indians\nwas sounded, the war was put down, and the leaders were captured or\nslain. Immediately after the war the work of rebuilding commenced.\nHouses were built larger and more substantially.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                           A _NEW-ENGLAND_-\n\n                         Fire-Brand Quenched,\n\n                               Being an\n\n                                ANSWER\n\n                                UNTO A\n\n                Slanderous Book, Entituled; _GEORGE FOX\n    Digged out of his Burrows_, &c. Printed at _Boston_ in the Year\n      1676, by _Roger Williams_ of _Providence_ in _New-England_.\n\n     Which he _Dedicateth_ to the _KING_, with Desires, _That, if_\n   the Most-High _please_, Old _and_ New-England _may Flourish, when\n   the_ Pope & Mahomet, Rome & Constantinople _are in their Ashes_.\n\n     Of a _DISPUTE_ upon XIV. of his _Proposals_ held and debated\n     betwixt him, the said _Roger Williams_, on the one part, and\n  _John Stubs_, _William Edmundson_ and _John Burnyeat_ on the other.\n   At _Providence_ and _Newport_ in _Rode-Island_, in the Year 1672.\n   IN which his _Cavils_ are Refuted, & his _Reflections_ Reproved.\n\n                             In Two Parts.\n\n                               AS ALSO,\n\n                 An _ANSWER_ to _R. W\u2019s APPENDIX_, &c.\n\n                                WITH A\n\n          _POST-SCRIPT_ Confuting his Blasphemous Assertions,\n     _viz._ _Of the Blood of_ Christ, _that was Shed, its being_\n   Corruptible _and_ Corrupted; _and that_ Salvation _was by a Man,\n                        that was_ Corruptible,\n                      &_c._ Where-unto is added a\n\n  _CATALOGUE_ of his _Railery_, _Lies_, _Scorn_ & _Blasphemies_: And\n           His _TEMPORIZING SPIRIT_ made manifest. Also, The\n    _LETTERS_ of _W. Coddington_ of _Rode-Island_, and _R. Scot_ of\n  _Providence_ in _New-England_ concerning _R.W._ And _Lastly_, Some\n       _TESTIMONIES_ of _Antient_ & _Modern Authors_ concerning\n       the _LIGHT_, _SCRIPTURES_, _RULE_ &, the _SOUL_ of _Man_.\n\n                 By _GEORGE FOX_ and _JOHN BURNYEAT_.\n\n                    Printed in the Year MDC. LXXIX.\n\n[Illustration: Rhode Island Historical Society Museum]\n\n[Illustration: Apple Tree Root from the Grave of Roger Williams]\n\n[Illustration: Grave of Roger Williams]\n\nRoger Williams for many years had a trading-place, where he did\nbusiness with the Indians. This store was near the present village of\nWickford. His profits, he tells us, were five hundred dollars a year.\nThe foundations of this old building are still intact, with a new\nsuperstructure over them. Late in life he made monthly preaching visits\nto this place. When too old to do this, he planned the publication of\nhis sermons for the natives. Roger Williams was the original missionary\nto the North American Indians, antedating the illustrious Eliot by\nthirteen years. Williams\u2019 Indian Bible is in the John Hay Library,\nProvidence, R. I.\n\n[Illustration: New Testament Title-page of Roger Williams\u2019 Indian Bible]\n\n                                 WUSKU\n\n                            WUTTESTAMENTUM\n\n                              NULLORDUMUN\n\n                             JESUS CHRIST\n\n                        Nuppoquohwussuaeneumun.\n\n                            [Illustration]\n\n                             _CAMBRIDGE_:\n\n          Printed by _Samuel Green_ and _Marmaduke Johnson_,\n\n                                MDCLXI.\n\n[Illustration: Indian Bible Used by Roger Williams, the Pioneer\nMissionary to the American Indians]\n\n                                  THE\n\n                              HOLY BIBLE:\n\n                            CONTAINING THE\n\n                             OLD TESTAMENT\n\n                            AND THE _NEW_.\n\n                          Translated into the\n\n                            INDIAN LANGUAGE\n\n                                 _AND_\n\n    Ordered to be Printed by Commissioners of the _United Colonies_\n                           in _NEW-ENGLAND_,\n\n              At the Charge, and with the Consent of the\n\n                       CORPORATION IN _ENGLAND_\n\n        _For the Propagation of the Gospel amongst the_ Indians\n                           _in New_-England.\n\n                             _CAMBRIDGE._\n\n          Printed by _Samuel Green_ and _Marmaduke Johnson_.\n\n                               MDCLXIII.\n\nIn 1683, Roger Williams died. All the inhabitants of Providence turned\nout to honor his memory. The coffin was carried on the shoulders of his\nfriends, and his earthly remains were laid to rest on his own property,\non the slope of the hill east of his residence and the spring. An\napple tree grew above the grave. The roots drew from the remains their\nnourishment and followed the shape of the skeleton and the legs. Today\nthese same roots are preserved in the Rhode Island Historical Society\u2019s\ncollection. Reuben A. Guild describes this in the following manner:\n\n Still further up the hill among the trees of his orchard, was the\n family burial ground. Crossing Benefit Street and passing into the\n rear of the house of the late Sullivan Dorr, a few feet from the\n stable door, is the original grave of Roger Williams. It is covered\n by a finished cap of a heavy stone pillar. Here for nearly two\n hundred years slept the remains of the Apostle of Religious Liberty.\n In March, 1860, the grave was opened, and the dust, for that was all\n that remained of the mortal body, was carefully placed in an urn and\n deposited in Mr. Randall\u2019s family tomb in the North Burial Ground.\n Mrs. Williams\u2019 grave was also visited, and a lock of braided hair was\n all that was discovered. At the bottom of Roger Williams\u2019 grave the\n root of an apple tree had turned out of its way to enter in at the\n head. Following the position of the body to the thighs, it had turned,\n now divided, to follow each leg to the feet, tender fibers shooting\n out in various directions.\n\nRoger Williams died a poor man. His interest in the needy and\ndistressed had kept him constantly poor. Ambition formed no part\nof his personal life. His ambitions were for the larger group of\ndistressed souls. A prophet is rarely appreciated in his own age by\nhis contemporaries. Posterity, in later days, usually discovers the\ngreatness and genius of the man and the ideal he realized. Today that\nideal is the secret of America\u2019s greatness and one that has given her\ndistinction among the nations. Shortly before Williams\u2019 death there was\na discussion relative to dividing up the common lands. Williams wrote\nto the Town of Providence a plea, which is characteristic of the spirit\nof the man:\n\n For all experience tells us that public peace and love is better than\n abundance of corn and cattle. I have only one motion and petition\n which I earnestly pray the town to lay to heart, as ever they look for\n a blessing from God upon the town, on your families, your corn and\n cattle, and your children after you; it is this, that after you have\n got over the black brook of some soul bondage yourself, you tear not\n down the bridge after you, by leaving no small pittance for distressed\n souls that may come after you.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nFROM SOUL-LIBERTY TO ABSOLUTE CIVIL LIBERTY\n\n\nRHODE ISLAND\u2019S GIFT\n\n  Last of the thirteen, smallest of them all,\n  What canst thou bring to this world\u2019s festival,\n  Where all thy sisters come with pride and power,\n  And bring each one a princess\u2019 generous dower\n  Of gold and gems, and fruits and precious woods,\n  And joyous tribute of their costly goods?\n  What can we bring? No outward show of gain,\n  No pomp of state; we bring the sons of men!\n\n  Bring gold, fair sisters, yellow gold,\n  And gems, and all that\u2019s fair and fine,\n  And heap them all, the new, the old,\n  Before our country\u2019s stately shrine.\n  Bring hardihood from north and east,\n  Bring beauty from the south and west,\n  Bring valor to adorn the feast,\n  Bring all that has withstood time\u2019s test.\n  We grudge you not the riches rare,\n  We grudge you not your acres broad,\n  We bring you for our noble share\n  THE LIBERTY TO WORSHIP GOD.\n\n--_Caroline Hazard, Poem read on \u201cRhode Island Day\u201d at World\u2019s\nColumbian Exposition, Chicago, October 5, 1893._\n\n\n\n\nFROM SOUL-LIBERTY TO ABSOLUTE CIVIL LIBERTY\n\n\nThe ideal of democracy grew in all the New England colonies and led\neventually to the American Revolution and the establishment of the\nUnited States of America. Rhode Island, however, in the century prior\nto the Revolution, had never given up her advocacy of soul-liberty, and\nthus the Revolution was to her a greater struggle than to the other\ncolonies. This distinct feature will be seen in a study of the real\nsuccessors of Roger Williams, in the struggle for religious liberty.\nTherefore it is interesting to note some of the outstanding events in\nthe history of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, previous to the\nRevolutionary War.\n\nIn June, 1700, a lot was set aside for a training-ground, a\nburial-ground, and other public uses. Thus originated the North Burial\nGround, the first public burial-ground in the colony. Before this each\nfamily had buried on its own land. Not until 1760, when Benefit Street\nwas laid through the burial-grounds of many of the citizens, including\nthe land where Roger Williams first settled, did they come to use in a\ngeneral way this North Burial Ground. Then many bodies were removed to\nthe new place for burial.\n\nThe second house of worship to be erected in the colony, in 1704,\nwas the Friends\u2019 Meeting House, in what is now Lincoln. It is still\nstanding, although with an extensive addition. The Friends\u2019 Meeting\nHouse in Providence was erected about the same time. The First\nCongregational Church was organized in 1720, a meeting-house being\nerected in 1723. It was on the site of the present county court-house.\nIn 1722, the Episcopalians erected their first church building. It was\ncalled King\u2019s Church, and was on the site of the present St. John\u2019s\nChurch on North Main Street. In 1798, the Methodists organized their\nfirst church, building their first meeting-house in 1816 at the corner\nof Aborn and Washington Streets. The Roman Catholics commenced their\nwork in 1827, meeting in Mechanics\u2019 Hall, afterward in the old Town\nHouse. From the very start no discouragement was given to any church to\norganize in Rhode Island. During this same period of time Baptists were\nhindered in other colonies.\n\nIn 1660, the proprietors of the colony ordered the setting aside of\none hundred acres of upland and six of meadows to be reserved for the\nmaintenance of a school. In 1696, a piece of land on Dexter Lane,\nor Stamper\u2019s Hill, was set apart for a school. This schoolhouse was\nbuilt about the year 1697, about fifty feet north of Olney Street, on\nthe east side of Stamper\u2019s Street. It was used for about fifty years.\nThe schoolmaster probably received all of his compensation from the\nscholars. A lot on the end of the Court House Parade was left for a\nschool building. The first reference to a school house on this lot is\nfound in the town records for 1752. The town leased this schoolhouse\nto a schoolmaster. In 1769, the first free school was established on\nKing\u2019s Street, now Meeting Street. This building is used now as a\nfresh-air school.\n\n\nBROWN UNIVERSITY\n\nAs early as 1762 a movement was instituted by James Manning of Scotch\nPlains, New Jersey, to establish in Rhode Island a university on the\nbroad basis of religious freedom, but under the special care of the\nBaptists. A charter, to be presented to the General Assembly in 1763,\nwas prepared by Rev. Ezra Stiles, a Congregational minister at Newport.\nWhen the document was ready for presentation, it was noticed that the\ngoverning power was to be given to a presbyterian body. That occasioned\npostponement. A charter was granted, however, in February, 1764, under\nthe name of \u201cThe Trustees and Fellows of the College or University in\nthe English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in New\nEngland in America.\u201d The corporation was given power to change its\nname. It organized with James Manning as president. Active teaching\nwork was commenced at Warren in 1766. The founding of this university\nwas an event touching not only the life of Rhode Island, but of the\nwhole country. As a Baptist movement, it was first proposed by Morgan\nEdwards in 1762, at the Philadelphia Baptist Association. James\nManning came from the little church at Scotch Plains, New Jersey, and\nfrom a Baptist Association to the only place in America, at that time,\nwhere a Baptist university could be established. The Baptists desired\nthe controlling power, but not the whole power of administration, in\norder to preserve their great principle of religious freedom. According\nto the original charter, twenty-two of the thirty-six trustees were\nto be Baptists, five Quakers, four Congregationalists, and five\nEpiscopalians. Of the twelve fellows, eight were to be Baptist, the\nrest indefinitely of any or all denominations. The following extract\nshows the Baptist ideal:\n\n into this liberal and catholic institution shall never be admitted\n any religious tests, but, on the contrary, all the members hereof,\n shall forever enjoy full, free, absolute, and uninterrupted liberty\n of conscience; and that the places of professors, tutors, and all\n other officers, the President alone excepted, shall be free and open\n for all denominations of Protestants, and the youths of all religious\n denominations shall and may be admitted to the equal advantages,\n emoluments, and honors of the university; and that the sectarian\n differences shall not make any part of the public and classical\n instructions.\n\nIts early history is interesting. There was but one student during\nits first year, the Rev. William Rogers, of Newport, then fourteen\nyears old. In 1767, four new students enrolled. The first years of the\ncollege were spent at Warren, where Dr. James Manning, the president,\nwas the acting pastor of a Baptist church recently organized. In\n1769, the first class of seven was ready for graduation and the first\ncommencement was held on September 7, 1769.\n\nThe various towns of the colony contended earnestly to have the college\npermanently located with them. Newport considered that her large gifts\nto the college were sufficient to give her the preference. Providence,\nbeing a stronger center for the Baptists, won, and, in 1770, the\ncollege was moved to that city. The old brick schoolhouse, near the\nfoot of Meeting Street, was the first building used by the college. The\nstudents boarded in private families at a dollar and a quarter a week.\nThe building committee soon selected a better location for the school\nand a better place for housing the student body. Morgan Edwards said of\nthe site finally selected:\n\n Commanding a prospect of the Town of Providence below, of the\n Narragansett Bay and Island and of an extensive country, variegated\n with hills and dales, woods and plains.... Surely this spot was made\n for a seat of the Muses.\n\nThe first building, one sufficient for the needs of the college for the\nfollowing fifty years, was University Hall, modeled after Nassau Hall\nof Princeton. The upper two stories were added after the Revolutionary\nwar. For six years, during that great struggle, the hall was used as\nbarracks and hospital for the combined American and French troops. In\n1775, the present First Baptist Church Meeting House was erected, \u201cfor\nthe public worship of Almighty God and to hold commencements in.\u201d Since\n1775 until the present time, with the exceptions of the years 1804 and\n1832, this church has been used for the commencement exercises. On its\nplatform illustrious students have received their degrees and have gone\nforth to bless the world. The presidents of Brown University, seated\nin the James Manning chair, have presided at the commencements in the\nhistoric Baptist Meeting House, and have given public honor to men\nwho in turn have honored the university and city. George Washington\nreceived the honorary degree of LL. D. in 1790. Among her illustrious\ngraduates none is greater than Adoniram Judson, our pioneer American\nand Baptist foreign missionary.\n\nDoctor Manning died in 1791, and was buried in the North Burial Ground.\nThe corporation voted that same year,\n\n That the children of the Jews may be admitted into this institution\n and entirely enjoy the freedom of their own religion, without any\n constraint or imposition whatever.\n\nThe name of the college was changed from Rhode Island to Brown\nUniversity, in 1804, in honor of Nicholas Brown, whose liberal gifts to\nthe college were much appreciated. He was a trustee and in his lifetime\ngave about $100,000 to the college. In 1821 the increasing number of\nstudents made another building imperative, and Nicholas Brown gave this\nneeded structure, Hope College, as a gift to the institution.\n\n[Illustration: Original Home of Brown University, in Providence, R. I.]\n\n[Illustration: Brown University in Early Nineteenth Century]\n\nThe second president of Brown University was Jonathan Maxcy, who served\nfrom 1792 until 1802. In these ten years two hundred and twenty-seven\nwere graduated, sixty-six claiming law as their profession, and\nfifty-six entering the ministry. Asa Messer was the third president,\nserving from 1802 until his resignation in 1826. His membership was in\nthe First Baptist Church, but his views, after 1815, were Unitarian.\nActs of vandalism, such as breaking into the library, beating down the\npulpit, and breaking windows, were such that he took it as a protest\nagainst his position and finally resigned.\n\nThe next president was Francis Wayland. He completely reorganized the\nUniversity. He introduced the elective system, and offered several\npractical courses. The college grounds were laid out. Two new buildings\nwere erected. Manning Hall, a gift of Nicholas Brown, and named\nin honor of the first president, was built in 1840. In this Doric\nstructure the library found a home on the first floor and the chapel on\nthe second. Rhode Island Hall was erected shortly afterward, $10,000\nbeing raised by Rhode Island men and women, and the balance of $12,500\nbeing largely the gift of Nicholas Brown. Doctor Wayland\u2019s presidency\ncame to an end by his death in 1855. He was buried in North Burial\nGround. Following him came Barnes Sears, Alexis Gaswell, Ezekiel Gilman\nRobinson, Elisha Benjamin Andrews, and the present president, W. H. P.\nFaunce, since June, 1899. Today the college has more than a thousand\nstudents, about thirty buildings, and an endowment of more than four\nmillion dollars. Brown University was the pioneer of the hundreds of\nschools, colleges, and universities which the Baptists were destined to\nhave in the years that followed. These are not limited to one State,\nbut are scattered all over our country.\n\nPilgrims to Providence, the birthplace of religious liberty in America,\nshould not fail to visit those buildings which contain sacred relics of\nthe long and hard struggle for soul-liberty and political freedom in\nAmerica.\n\nThe present million-dollar CITY HALL, at the west end of Exchange\nPlace, in Providence, was erected in the period 1874 to 1878. In the\noffice of the Recorder of Deeds can be seen \u201cthe original deeds\u201d\nfrom the Indian chiefs to Roger Williams in 1636, also his letter\ntransferring to his loving friends, \u201ca share of the new territory.\u201d The\noriginal Compact of Government is here also, and there is a bust of\nRoger Williams over the entrance.\n\nTHE OLD STATE HOUSE, situated on Benefit Street, is a building which\ncan well vie with Faneuil Hall in Boston and Independence Hall in\nPhiladelphia as a \u201cCradle of Liberty.\u201d Built in 1763, it was originally\noccupied by the Rhode Island Colonial Assembly, who here on May 4,\n1776, two months previous to the Declaration of Independence, in\nPhiladelphia, adopted the famous act renouncing allegiance to Great\nBritain. This fact is commemorated by a bronze tablet and also by an\nannual commemoration in all the public schools of Providence.\n\nTHE NEW STATE HOUSE, or \u201cMarble Palace,\u201d on the crest of Capitol Hill,\ncompleted in 1902 at a cost of $3,200,000, is built of white Georgia\nmarble, and has for a distinguishing feature one of the few marble\ndomes existing in the world. This inscription is on the south front of\nthe Capitol:\n\n To hold forth a lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil state\n may stand and best be maintained, with full Liberty in Religious\n Concernments.\n\nOn the north side, we read,\n\n Providence Plantations, Founded by Roger Williams, 1636, Providence,\n Portsmouth, Newport, incorporated by Parliament, 1643, Rhode Island,\n Providence Plantations, obtained Royal Charter 1663. In General\n Assembly declared a Sovereign State, May 4th, 1776.\n\nThe inscription around the interior of the dome is a Latin quotation\nfrom Tacitus. Translated it is:\n\n Rare felicity of the times when it is permitted to think as you like,\n and say what you think.\n\nIn the State Chamber is Gilbert Stuart\u2019s rare full-length portrait of\nGeneral Washington. In the Secretary of State\u2019s office is the original\ncharter, granted in 1663, under which the colony and State were\ngoverned until 1843. In a subbasement there is a collection of State\nhistorical exhibits, originally collected for the Jamestown Exposition.\nOn the dome of the State House there is a colossal bronze statue of\n\u201cIndependent Man, or the Genius of Religious Liberty,\u201d designed by\nBrewster.\n\n[Illustration: Capitol Building in Providence, Where the Charter is\nKept]\n\n[Illustration: City Hall, Providence, Where the Compact, Indian Deed,\nand Letter of Transference are Kept]\n\nTHE COURT HOUSE is on the corner of Benefit and College Streets. In its\ncorridor there is a historical painting by C. F. Grant, picturing\n\u201cThe return of Roger Williams with the first charter for the Colony in\n1644.\u201d\n\n\nRHODE ISLAND IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR\n\nRhode Island was the first to strike a blow for civil liberty as she\nwas the first in the struggle for religious liberty. She was last,\nhowever, to adopt the Constitution of the United States. She hesitated\nto surrender to the federal government the liberties enjoyed under her\ncharter, the most liberal ever granted to a colony. She has a right to\nbe proud of her record, before, during, and after the Revolutionary\nwar. E. Benjamin Andrews opened his case for Rhode Island\u2019s recognition\nwith these words:\n\n States are great or small according to their miles, and as the little\n birth town of the Christ, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, was not\n least among the princes of Judah, so Rhode Island, diminutive as she\n is physically, is far from least among the princely Constituents of\n this republic.\n\nThe history of Rhode Island proves that the best compatriot political\nliberty ever had was absolute religious liberty.\n\nRhode Island was the first to strike the name of king from the charter\nof her liberties, thus becoming the first sovereign independent State\nin all the New World.\n\nRhode Island was the first to recommend the permanent establishment of\na Continental Congress, in town meeting assembled, May 17, 1774, and\nin General Assembly, June 15, 1774, she appointed Samuel Ward and Ezek\nHopkins her first delegates thereto.\n\nRhode Island was also the first, by overt act, to renounce allegiance\nto George III of England. She was first to instruct her officers to\ndisregard the Stamp Act and to ensure them indemnity for so doing. In\n1765, she explicitly declared that in herself alone was vested the\nright of local taxation.\n\nRhode Island was first to fire a gun against the dominion of England.\nThe first blood of the Revolutionary war was spilt in Narragansett\nBay. Lexington was fought April 19, 1775; the Boston Tea Party was on\nDecember 16, 1773; Providence men, after perfecting their plans at the\nSabin Tavern, Planet and South Main Streets, rowed down the river, and\non June 10, 1772, sent up the Gaspee in flames.\n\nOn July 19, 1769, the men of Newport sunk His Majesty\u2019s sloop, Liberty.\nRhode Island was the first to establish an American navy. She gave the\ncommand to Abraham Whipple, who forthwith captured the first war prize\n(the tender of the frigate Rose, then off Newport). After the war of\nindependence was under way, Rhode Island was the first to recommend\nand urge upon Congress the establishment of a Continental navy.\nCongress chose a Rhode Islander to work out the plans. Ezek Hopkins, a\nProvidence man, was appointed commander-in-chief. Three-fourths of all\nthe officers were from Rhode Island. These men were the vikings of the\nAmerican Revolution. Ezek Hopkins\u2019 home is still preserved on Admiral\nStreet. There is a monument to him at his grave in Hopkins Square,\ncorner Branch Avenue and Charles Street.\n\nIn proportion to her size none of the other States can compare with\nRhode Island in the amount given to the Continental loan. Her citizens,\nunlocking their purses, freely furnished the sinews of war. She\ncontributed seven times as much as South Carolina, whose population was\nthree times as large; one and a half times as much as Maryland, whose\npopulation was four times as great; twice as much as Virginia, with a\npopulation eight times larger.\n\nRhode Island contributed proportionately her share of men to the great\nstruggle. Rhode Island men were in every great battle under Washington.\nRhode Island has been greatly criticized for not quickly adopting the\nConstitution. She was the last to adopt it. Her conception of religious\nand civic liberty in combination was such that she was not willing to\nlose easily the liberty which she had obtained for herself and which\nshe freely advocated for others. Her part in the great struggle was so\ngreat that her motive for delay in adopting the Constitution should\nnever be questioned. Her ideal of liberty, unique to Rhode Island then,\nis the generally accepted one now throughout America and back of every\ngreat politicial reform in lands beyond our borders.\n\nEx-Governor Russell Brown, on Rhode Island Day at the World\u2019s Columbian\nExposition, said:\n\n The history of our State is a birthright which neither lands nor gold\n can buy, for full as it is of stirring and passionate events, there\n is not an incident in our annals that can bring the scarlet of shame\n to the cheek of civilized man. Roger Williams the first settler, the\n thrice-exiled friend of the weak and oppressed, by his revolt against\n Puritan intolerance and his sacrifice for soul liberty, baptized Rhode\n Island\u2019s early days with glory sufficient for any State.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE TORCH-BEARERS OF THE IDEAL OF ROGER WILLIAMS UNTIL LIBERTY\nENLIGHTENED THE WORLD\n\n I believe all our Baptist ministers in town, except two, and most of\n our brethren in the country were on the side of the Americans in the\n late dispute.... To this hour we believe that the independence of\n America will, for a while, secure the liberty of this country, but\n if that continent had been reduced, Britain would not have long been\n free.--_Doctor Rippon, of London, England, to President Manning, of\n Rhode Island College, written in 1784._\n\n Nor need any one dream that Jefferson and Madison could have carried\n this measure by their genius and influence. They were opposed by many\n men whose transcendent services, or unequalled oratory, or wealth,\n position, financial interests, or intense prejudices would have\n enabled them easily to resist their unsupported assaults. Like a\n couple of first-class engineers on a tender with a train attached, but\n no locomotive, would Jefferson and Madison have appeared without the\n Baptists. They furnished the locomotive for these skilled engineers\n which drew the train of religious liberty through every persecuting\n enactment in the penal code of Virginia.--_Wm. Cathcart, D. D., in\n \u201cThe Baptists and the American Revolution.\u201d_\n\n The Baptists were the first and only religious denomination that\n struck for independence from Great Britain, and the first and only\n one that made a move for religious liberty before independence was\n declared.... Of those who took part in the struggle for religious\n liberty, the Baptists were the only denomination that maintained a\n consistent record and held out without wavering until the end--until\n every vestige of the old establishment had been obliterated by the\n sale of the glebes.--_Dr. Charles James, in \u201cDocumentary History of\n the Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia.\u201d_\n\n\n\n\nTHE TORCH-BEARERS OF THE IDEAL OF ROGER WILLIAMS UNTIL LIBERTY\nENLIGHTENED THE WORLD\n\n\nWe have seen the early struggles of Roger Williams. We have seen the\nhalo of glory which clusters about the State he founded. We have seen\nhis place in the plans of a Divine providence. We have also seen his\nplace in the procession of heroes who held aloft the torch of religious\nand soul-liberty throughout the ages. When by death, he was compelled\nto drop that torch, others took it up and continued the procession\nuntil the first amendment to our National Constitution became a fact\nof history. The Baptists led the historic movement in all the colonies\nwhich stood for this principle of \u201cReligious Liberty.\u201d Oscar S. Straus\nsays:\n\n The Baptists ... had a much more enlightened and advanced view: they\n held that Christianity should propagate itself by its own spiritual\n force; that the civil government was entirely apart and distinct and\n should have no control over conscience, or power to inflict punishment\n for spiritual censures.\n\nProfessor Gervinus, professor at Heidelberg, Germany, about the year\n1850, published a work, in which he referred to Williams and his ideal:\n\n Roger Williams urged an entire liberty of conscience in Massachusetts.\n He was obliged to fly from the country, and in 1636 he founded a small\n new society in Rhode Island upon the principles of entire liberty of\n conscience. It was prophesied that the democratic attempts to obtain\n a general elective franchise and entire religious liberty would be\n of short duration. But these institutions have spread from that\n petty state over the whole union. They superseded the aristocratic\n commencements of Carolina and New York, the High-church part of\n Virginia, the theocracy in Massachusetts, and the monarchy throughout\n America; they have given laws to one quarter of the globe; and,\n dreaded for their moral influence, they stand in the background of\n every democratic struggle in Europe.\n\nFor the publication of such sentiments, Professor Gervinus was tried\nat Mannheim and sentenced to four months\u2019 imprisonment and to have his\nbooks publicly burned.\n\nBack of political progress there must be spiritual strength. Back of\nthe final victory of religious liberty in America there was not only\nthe glorious example of Rhode Island as a political demonstration but\nthe persistent propagation of the ideals in all the States. This was\nchiefly the task of the Baptists, many of whose churches could trace\ntheir origin to settlers from Rhode Island.\n\nDuring the Colonial period, the laws of Massachusetts and Virginia\nrelating to soul-liberty were most severe; those in Maryland and\nPennsylvania, the most lenient, outside of Rhode Island.\n\n[Illustration: Order banishing the Founders of the First Baptist Church\nin Boston.]\n\n[Sidenote: 1644. Nov. 13.]\n\n Whereas Thomas Gold (and others) obstinate and turbulent Annabaptists,\n have some time since combined themselves wh others in a pretended\n church estate xxxxx to the great griefe and offence of the godly\n orthodox xxxxxxxx and about two years since were enjoyned by this\n Court to desist from said practise and to returne to our allowed\n Church Assemblies, xxxxxx this Court doe judge it necessary that\n they be removed to some other part of this country or elsewhere: and\n accordingly doeth order that (they) doe before the twentieth of July\n next remove themselves out of this jurisdiccon.\n\nIn Massachusetts the Baptist sentiment did not die out with the\nbanishment of Roger Williams. In 1640, Rev. Mr. Chauncey advocated the\nimmersion of believers and also of infants. Later President Dunster,\nof Cambridge College, went further and denounced the whole system\nof infant baptism. About the same time, Lady Moody, of Lynn, denied\ninfant baptism. In 1644, a poor man by the name of Painter, reaching\nthe same conclusion, refused to have his child baptized. The court\ninterfered and the man was tied up and whipped. On November 13, 1644,\ntwo months after Williams arrived in Boston, en route to Providence,\nwith the charter, the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law against\nthe Baptists, in which they were described as \u201cThe incendiaries of\ncommonwealths, the troublers of churches.\u201d They ordered that all who\n\u201copenly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants shall be sentenced\nto banishment.\u201d The General Court issued an order in 1644 banishing the\nfounders of the Boston Baptist Church. In 1651, Obadiah Holmes, John\nClarke, and John Crandall came to Lynn, Massachusetts, from Newport,\nRhode Island. They were holding a service in Mr. Witter\u2019s house, about\ntwo miles out from Lynn. Mr. Clarke was preaching from Revelation\n3:10. The service was broken up by the arrival of two constables, who,\nwith clamorous tongues, interrupted the discourse and arrested the\npreachers. The prisoners were held in Lynn until the morning, when they\nwere taken to the Boston prison. Two weeks later, they were sentenced\nto pay heavy fines. The fines of Clarke and Crandall were paid by\nfriends. Holmes refused any assistance in paying his fine of thirty\npounds and was publicly whipped with thirty lashes from a three-corded\nwhip. Thirteen others, who sympathized with these brethren, were\narrested and were ordered to pay a fine of forty shillings each or\ntake ten lashes. John Hazel, an old man from Rehoboth, was whipped\nand died a few days afterward. Clarke published the story of this\nincident in \u201cIll Newes from New-England\u201d--an original copy is in the\nJohn Carter Brown Library, Providence, R. I. Cotton was the religious\nleader in Boston, back of this persecution. In 1680 the doors of the\nBaptist meeting-house in Boston were nailed up by the authorities.\nFinally the Baptists in Boston won some freedom, which, however, was\ndenied to other Baptist churches throughout the State. Isaac Backus\nwas the leader among the Massachusetts Baptists for soul-liberty. With\nPresident Manning, he appealed to the Massachusetts delegates at the\nContinental Congress to provide in the Constitution for separation\nof Church and State. John Adams replied to them: \u201cThey might as well\nturn the heavenly bodies out of their annual and diurnal courses as\nto expect they would give up their establishment.\u201d This spirit of\nopposition was continued until 1833, in which year the last vestige of\noppressive religious intolerance was removed from the statute-books of\nMassachusetts.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                                  ILL\n\n                                 NEWES\n\n                                 FROM\n\n                              NEW-ENGLAND\n\n                                  OR\n\n                     A Narative of _New-Englands_\n\n                             PERSECUTION.\n\n                          WHEREIN IS DECLARED\n\n               That while old _England_ is becoming new,\n                     _New-England_ is become Old.\n\n  Also four Proposals to the Honoured Parliament and Councel of State,\n   touching the way to _Propagate the Gospel of Christ_ (with small\n        charge and great safety) both in Old _England_ and New.\n\n  Also four conclusions touching the faith and order of the Gospel of\n  Christ out of his last Will and Testament, confirmed and justified\n\n         By JOHN CLARK Physician of Rode Island in _America_.\n\n               _Revel._ 2. 25. _Hold fast till I come._\n                    3. 11. _Behold I come quickly._\n               22. 20. _Amen, even so come Lord Jesus._\n\n                               _LONDON_,\n\n  Printed by _Henry Hills_ living in _Fleet-Yard_ next door to the\n                  _Rose_ and _Crown_, in the year 1652.\n\nIn Virginia, the opposition to the Baptist movement was bitter and\nunrelenting. The early settlers of Virginia left England, when their\nchurch, the Established Church of England, had won a complete victory\nover all other persuasions. The Virginians sought to duplicate in the\nnew land the spirit of the victors across the sea and make religion\nuniform in their colony. Laws were passed against popish recusants as\nearly as 1643. Other laws were passed by their assembly between the\nyears 1659 and 1663 against those who failed to have their children\nbaptized. The Quakers especially found these laws most severe. The\nearly Baptists of Virginia were of the common people; their ministers\nwere illiterate; and for a while they escaped notice. The first\nimprisonment of Baptists was in the county of Spottsylvania, Va., June\n4, 1768. Three Baptists, John Waller, Lewis Craig, and James Childs,\nwith others, were arrested for disturbing the peace. (There was no\nlaw against preaching.) The opposing lawyer in the court-room made this\ncharge:\n\n May it please your worships, these men are great disturbers of the\n peace; they cannot meet a man on the road, but they ram a text of\n Scripture down his throat.\n\nMr. Waller so defended himself and his brethren that their enemies were\nsomewhat puzzled to know how to proceed against them. They offered\nto release them on promise to refrain from preaching in the county\nfor a year and a day. The defendants refused the offer and were sent\nto prison. Other Baptist ministers were arrested, and soon thirty\nwere under arrest. The prisons became Baptist pulpits, and multitudes\ngathered around them to hear the preachers. Their opponents engaged\ndrummers to drown the preaching; high enclosures were in some cases\nerected before prison windows, and suffocating materials were burned\nnear the prisons. Baptists from the beginning were unremitting in their\nstruggle to secure religious liberty. They secured the support of\nPatrick Henry, a member of the Established Church, but a firm friend of\nall who stood for liberty, civil and religious. He helped the Baptists\nto win the complete victory.\n\nThe Baptist cause was destined to have a more congenial atmosphere\nin Pennsylvania when we remember that William Penn, its illustrious\nfounder, had an English Baptist father and a Dutch mother, undoubtedly\nof Anabaptist descent. He received his charter in 1681, forty-five\nyears after Roger Williams\u2019 banishment from Massachusetts. Penn\npossessed broad and liberal ideas and was opposed to any church\nestablishment. He provided\n\n that all persons who confess and acknowledge the Almighty and Eternal\n God to be the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the world, ... should\n in no ways be molested, nor compelled to frequent or maintain any\n religious worship.\n\nYet only those confessing faith in Jesus Christ could become freemen in\nPenn\u2019s domain. The separate Quakers in the colony of Pennsylvania were\narrested, fined, and imprisoned for dissent.\n\n[Illustration: John Clarke Memorial First Baptist Church of Newport, R.\nI.]\n\n[Illustration: Grave of John Clarke]\n\nThe first company of Baptists in this colony came from Rhode Island.\nWilliam Dugan came there in 1684, three years after Penn received\nhis charter. He settled at Cold Spring, in Bucks County. The first\nchurch in Philadelphia was founded by John Holmes in 1686. The first\nmeeting-place was at the corner of Second and Chestnut Streets.\n\n[Illustration: The Law in William Penn\u2019s Colony. No Absolute\nSoul-liberty in Pennsylvania in Those Days.]\n\n [Sidenote: Two Thirds of the Members have the Power of a full House.\n No Member to vote &c. in the House till qualified. The Qualification\n of every Member of Assembly. Altered by an Act pass\u2019d in the II Geo.\n I, entitled An Act--prescribing the Forms of Declaration of Fidelity.\n &c.]\n\n AND if any County or Part of this Province shall refuse or neglect to\n choose their respective Representatives as aforesaid, or if chosen, do\n not meet to serve in Assembly, those who are so chosen and met shall\n have the full Power of an Assembly in as ample Manner as if all the\n Representatives had been chosen and met; Provided, they are not less\n than two Thirds of the Whole that ought to meet.\n\n AND BE IT FURTHER ENACTED by the Authority aforesaid, That no\n Person who shall be hereafter a Member of the Assembly, or House of\n Representatives of this Province, shall be capable to vote in the said\n House, or sit there during any Debate, after their Speaker is chosen,\n until he shall make and subscribe the following Declarations and\n Profession his Belief, _viz._,\n\n _I_ A. B. _do sincerely promise, and solemnly declare before GOD\n and the World, That I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to\n Queen_ Anne. _And I do solemnly profess and declare. That I do,\n from my Heart, abbor, detest and renounce as impious and heretical,\n that damnable Doctrine and Position, That Princes excommunicated or\n deprived by the Pope, or any Authority of the See of_ Rome, _may be\n deposed or murdered by their Subjects, or any other whatsoever_.\n\n _AND I do declare, That no foreign Prince, Person, Prelate, State\n or Potentate hath, or ought to have, any Power, Jurisdiction,\n Superiority, Preeminence or Authority ecclesiastical or spiritual,\n within the Realm of_ England, _or the Dominions thereunto belonging_.\n\n _AND I_ A. B. _do solemnly and sincerely, in the Presence of_ GOD,\n _profess, testify and declare, That I do believe that in the Sacrament\n of the_ LORD\u2019s _Supper there is not any Transubstantiation of the\n Elements of Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of_ CHRIST, _at or\n after the Consecration thereof, by any Person whatsoever; and that the\n Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin_ Mary, _or any other Saint, and\n the Sacrifice of the_ Mass, _as they are now used in the Church of_\n Rome, _are superstitions and Idolatrous_.\n\n _AND I do solemnly, in the Presence of_ GOD, _profess, testify and\n declare. That I do make this Declaration and every Part thereof, in\n the plain and ordinary Sense of the Words read unto me, as they are\n commonly understood by_ English Protestants, _without any Evasion,\n Equivocation or mental Reservation whatsoever and without any\n Dispensation already granted me for this Purpose by the Pope, or any\n other Authority or Person whatsoever, or without any Hope of any such\n Dispensation from any Person or Authority whatsoever, or without\n thinking I am or may be acquitted before_ GOD, _or Man, or absolved of\n this Declaration, or any Part thereof, although the Pope, or any other\n Person or Persons, or Power whatsoever, should dispense with or annull\n the same, or declare that it was null or void from the Beginning_.\n\n _AND I_ A. B. _profess Faith in_ GOD _the Father, and in_ JESUS\n CHRIST, _his eternal Son, the true_ GOD, _and in the_ HOLY SPIRIT,\n _one_ GOD, _blessed for evermore; and do acknowledge the_ Holy\n Scriptures _of the_ Old _and_ New-Testament, _to be given by divine\n Inspiration_.\n\nLord Baltimore, the Roman Catholic proprietor of Maryland, was far in\nadvance of his Church. He came to the New World to secure religious\nliberty for himself and his friends. The Maryland Act of Toleration,\nissued in 1649, provided that\n\n Blasphemy against God, and a denial of the Trinity should be punished\n with death and confiscation of lands and goods, and blasphemy against\n the Virgin Mary should first be punished by a fine of five pounds, and\n if persisted in, by a forfeiture of all possessions and banishment\n from the colony.\n\n[Illustration: The Law Concerning Religious Toleration in Maryland\nColony. It is not Religious Liberty.]\n\n[Sidenote: 1649.]\n\n Acts and Orders of ASSEMBLY, assented to, enacted and made, at a\n General Session of the said Assembly, begun and held at _St. Mary_\u2019s\n on the 2d Day of _April_ 1649, and ended the 21st Day of the same\n Month.\n\n WILLIAM STONE, Esq; Governor.\n\n CHAP. I. [Illustration]\n\n [Sidenote: Passed 21st of _April_ 1649.]\n\n _An Act concerning Religion. Lib._ C _and_ WH. _fol._ 106. _Lib._ WH.\n _fol._ 111. _and Lib._ WH _and_ L. _fol._ 1.\n\n Confirmed among the perpetual Laws 1676, _ch._ 2.\n\n _N. B._ By this Law, (1.) Blasphemy against GOD, denying our Saviour\n JESUS CHRIST to be the Son of GOD, or denying the Holy TRINITY, or the\n Godhead of any of the Three Persons, _&c._ was to be Punished with\n Death, and Confiscation of Lands and Goods to the Lord Proprietary.\n (2.) Persons using any reproachful Words or Speeches concerning the\n Blessed Virgin _Mary_, Mother of our Saviour, or the Holy Apostles\n or Evangelists, or any of them, for the 1st Offence to forfeit 5_l._\n Sterling to the Lord Proprietary; or, in default of Payment, to be\n publicly Whipped, and Imprisoned at the Pleasure of his Lordship, or\n his Lieut. General. For the 2d Offence to forfeit 10_l._ Sterling,\n or in default of Payment to be publicly and severely Whipped, and\n Imprisoned as before directed. And for the 3d Offence to forfeit Lands\n and Goods, and be for ever Banished out of the Province. (3.) Persons\n reproaching any other within the Province by the Name or Denomination\n of Heretic, Schismatic, Idolater, Puritan, Independent, Presbyterian,\n Popish Priest, Jesuit, Jesuited Papist, Lutheran, Calvinist,\n Anabaptist, Brownist, Antinomian, Barrowist, Round-Head, Separatist,\n or any other Name or Term in a reproach-\n\nThe Baptist church at Chestnut Ridge was formed in 1742 by Henry\nSator, a layman of the General Baptist order, who had recently come\nfrom England. He invited Baptist ministers to preach in his house. They\nsoon gathered a congregation; proselytes were gained, and a church\norganized. This church appealed to the governor and was taken under the\nprotection of the toleration laws.\n\n[Illustration: Puritan-Religious-Liberty! Facsimile of original laws.\nFrom \u201cBody of Liberties.\u201d First legal code for the government of the\nBay Colony. Drawn up by Rev. Nathaniel Ward, Lawyer-divine of Ipswich.]\n\n 94. _Capitall Laws._\n\n 1.\n\n [Sidenote: Dut. 13. 6, 10.\n\n Dut. 17. 2, 6\n\n Ex. 22. 20.]\n\n [Sidenote: P. 14.\n\n S. 1.]\n\n If any man after legall conviction shall have or worship any other\n god, but the lord god, he shall be put to death.\n\n 2.\n\n [Sidenote: Ex. 22. 18.\n\n Lev. 20. 27.\n\n Dut. 18. 10.]\n\n [Sidenote: S. 2.]\n\n If any man or woeman be a witch, (that is hath or consulteth with a\n familiar spirit,) They shall be put to death.\n\n 3.\n\n [Sidenote: Lev. 24. 15, 16.]\n\n [Sidenote: S. 3.]\n\n If any man shall Blaspheme the name of god, the father, Sonne or Holie\n ghost, with direct, expresse, presumptuous or high handed blasphemie,\n or shall curse god in the like manner, he shall be put to death.\n\n\nTHE FINAL VICTORY IN THE LONG STRUGGLE\n\nTwo Baptist organizations in close sympathy with each other contributed\nmuch toward the final victory. They made appeals to their immediate\nconstituency and also to the larger following of all Baptists and other\nlovers of religious liberty. These were the Warren Association in New\nEngland, and the General Committee in Virginia. Each had a committee\nof grievances. The Baptists were nobly assisted by Presbyterians and\nQuakers in the final stages of the great conflict. Isaac Backus wrote\nhis immortal work on \u201cA History of New England, with Especial Reference\nto the Baptists.\u201d He drafted appeals for the Association and for the\ncommittee on grievances to the General Assembly, published addresses on\nreligious liberty, and inserted advertisements in leading papers. He\nbelieved that partial history and false statements regarding Baptist\nhistory and doctrines should be removed by scattering impartial and\ntrue knowledge. He was a Baptist giant and had his share in forming\nsentiment, which eventually made religious intoleration impossible in\nAmerica.\n\nIsaac Backus, with President Manning, of Brown University, then Rhode\nIsland College, went to Philadelphia and with Quakers and others\nappealed to John Adams and other Massachusetts delegates in Carpenter\nHall, Philadelphia. These advocates of soul-liberty took the position\nthat to pay taxes to support a church clergy in which they did not\nbelieve was as much a wrong as to pay taxes for a government in which\nthey had no representation. It was not the paltry tax of fourpence a\nman that the colonists in Massachusetts rebelled against. It was the\nprinciple that was back of paying the pence which they opposed. They\nwere greatly amazed when John Adams told them that their own colony,\nMassachusetts, had \u201cthe most mild and equitable establishment of\nreligion that was known in the world.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: William Rogers James Manning Isaac Backus These men were\nall connected with the opening of the first Baptist college in America.\nJames Manning was the first president; Isaac Backus, a member of the\noriginal board of trustees; William Rogers, the first student.]\n\nThe Virginia Baptists, through their General Convention, organized in\n1784, united the efforts of the Baptists there and in New England for\nthe final phases of the war against religious tyranny. For four years\nthey had worked for liberty in their State laws and had won a complete\nvictory. Then, in 1788, they turned to the national issue. The Federal\nConstitution had provided in Article VI, \u201cNo religious Test shall ever\nbe required as a qualification to any Office or public Trust under the\nUnited States.\u201d This did not satisfy the Baptists, because religious\ntests might be imposed for other purposes than those specified. In a\nnoble letter, drafted by John Leland, a Baptist minister, they appealed\nto Washington. They paid a high compliment to his achievements and\nthen stated their grievance, closing with these words:\n\n If religious liberty is rather insecure in the Constitution the\n administration will certainly prevent all oppression, for a WASHINGTON\n will preside. Should the horrid evils that have been so pestiferous\n in Asia and Europe, faction, ambition, war, perfidy, fraud, and\n persecution for conscience sake, ever approach the borders of\n our happy nation, may the name and administration of our beloved\n President, like the radiant source of day, scatter all the dark clouds\n from the American hemisphere.\n\nWashington replied that his ideals were the same, assuring them of\nthis, in the following words:\n\n No one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual\n barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny and every species of\n religious persecution.\n\nHe complimented the Baptists and said that they\n\n have been, throughout America, uniformly and almost unanimously, the\n firm friends to civil liberty, and the persevering promoters of our\n glorious revolution.\n\nHis assurance was not empty words. In a short time James Madison, with\nthe President\u2019s approval, submitted certain amendments. Article VI was\nsuperseded by the First Amendment to the Constitution, which specified:\n\n Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or\n prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging freedom of speech,\n or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and\n to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.\n\nThus the long fight was won in America, and now people generally\nappreciate the importance of the victory gained. Rhode Island may\nhave hesitated to accept the imperfect Constitution, with its lack of\nassurance for complete religious liberty. In this connection we should\nnot forget that Massachusetts and Connecticut were the last to ratify\nthe First Amendment.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE WORLD-WIDE INFLUENCE OF ROGER WILLIAMS\u2019 IDEAL\n\n \u201cThe world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted\n upon trusted foundations of political liberty.\u201d--_President Wilson\u2019s\n War Message to Congress, 1917._\n\n  Till the war-drum throbb\u2019d no longer, and the battle-flags were furl\u2019d\n  In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.\n  There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,\n  And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.\n  --_Alfred Tennyson._\n\n A day will come when bullets and bombs shall be replaced by ballots,\n by the universal suffrages of the people, by the sacred arbitrament\n of a great Sovereign Senate.... A day will come when we shall face\n those two immense groups, the United States of America and the United\n States of Europe, in face of each other, extending hand to hand over\n the ocean, exchanging their products, their commerce, their industry,\n their art, their genius clearing the earth, colonizing deserts, and\n ameliorating creation under the eye of the Creator. To you, I appeal,\n French, English, Germans, Russians, Slavs, Europeans, Americans,\n what have we to do to hasten the coming of the great day? LOVE ONE\n ANOTHER.--_Victor Hugo._\n\n I asked him (Premier Lloyd George) what message he would send to\n American Baptists. Quick as a flash, he turned and said: \u201cTell them\n that it is Baptist principles that we are fighting for in this\n great struggle. All that Baptists count dear is at stake in this\n issue.\u201d--_Lloyd George to George Coleman, President, Northern Baptist\n Convention. From the latter\u2019s speech at Atlantic City, N. J., May,\n 1918._\n\n\n\n\nTHE WORLD-WIDE INFLUENCE OF ROGER WILLIAMS\u2019 IDEAL\n\n\nRoger Williams, as a man of vision, was experimenting with a new\nidealism. His ideas, now generally accepted, have made absolute\nreligious liberty, with its complete separation of Church and State, an\nidea almost synonymous with the name of the United States of America.\nThat lonely man, in the smallest of the colonies, set the pace for the\nother twelve original commonwealths and established a national pattern\nfor the forty-eight States in the present Union. Our cup of blessing\nhas overflowed, and today the whole world is awaking to the blessings\nin store for them if they partake of the same privileges.\n\n\u201cMankind has pursued liberty over mountain and across valley,\u201d writes\nPres. E. Y. Mullins,\n\n by land and by sea, through fire and through flood, since the\n first man caught a glimpse of liberty\u2019s white robes leading on to\n victory. The love of victory is now a volcanic fire which breaks out\n into revolution and consumes and destroys the ancient fabrics of\n government, and now it is a tide of life which rolls across the face\n of nations, causing them to burst into the beauty and fragrance of a\n new springtime. The spirit of liberty in its quest for the goal of its\n desire has sounded all the notes in the gamut of human experience,\n from the minor notes of abject despair to the ringing p\u00e6an of victory\n over every foe.\n\nThe Baptist churches of America, the torch-bearers of religious\nor soul-liberty, have grown from the one church which Williams\nfounded in Providence into a mighty host. From twelve members in one\nchurch organization in 1639 that denomination has grown in America\nuntil today, according to the latest government statistics, it has\nthe largest membership of any Protestant denomination in America,\n7,236,650. Its one preacher has become a great host of 39,734, serving\n53,133 churches. Instead of one college with one student in 1764,\nit now has 463 schools in America, with 68,513 students. Instead\nof one lone missionary to the Indians, it now has a large army of\nmissionaries in the home and foreign fields.\n\nDoctor Masters, Secretary of Publicity of the Home Mission Board\nof the Southern Baptist Convention, in tabulating the figures from\nthe preliminary statistics furnished by the United States Census\nDepartment, calls our attention to the fact that the approximate\nBaptist population of America, including members and other adherents,\nis twenty-two millions. The Baptists are thus in the lead of every\ndenomination, Catholic or Protestant, in America; our net gain for ten\nyears is the greatest of all denominations, 28 per cent, compared with\n10.8 per cent of the Roman Catholics. He gives the comparative strength\nof Romanists and evangelicals in America as eighty million evangelicals\nto 15,700,000 Roman Catholics.\n\nBefore the days of the great war, Pres. E. Y. Mullins, with prophetic\nvision wrote:\n\n We are approaching the Baptist age of the world, because we are\n approaching the age of the triumph of democracy. Like a vine growing\n in the darkness of some deep cavern, and slowly stretching itself\n toward the dim light shining in through the distant mouth of the\n cavern, so has humanity slowly crept on toward freedom. The mighty\n hordes of the Asiatic and European world, weary and sad yet courageous\n and resolute, are hastening forward with unresting feet toward the\n gates of destiny. Toward those gates these hundreds of years the\n Baptists have been pointing, and today in the foremost files of time\n they lead the way. As humanity enters they will shout with the full\n knowledge that God in Christ has led all the way.... And the goal\n of human progress shall be realized in an eternal society wherein\n absolute democracy is joined to absolute monarchy, God the Father\n being the monarch, and his people a vast family of free children.\n\nTrue political liberty is the child of religious liberty. It must\nlook to freedom of the soul as a child does to its mother for birth,\nprotection, and provision. Political anarchy is the usual result of a\npeople seeking full liberty by ignoring or neglecting the support which\nreligion brings to man\u2019s moral nature. It is a long road to political\nliberty, but it is a road which has run parallel with religious\nliberty. It is interesting to note the Americanization of the world.\nThere were few democracies when our Republic was born. Our victory over\ntyranny was an inspiration to oppressed peoples. The French followed\nshortly afterward. Wherever Napoleon went, he held aloft the banner of\nequality and liberty. He granted the latter under a form of government\nby which he became emperor. After almost a century, France gained\nboth. Napoleon\u2019s exile to St. Helena did not usher in a restoration\nof the older European order. National sovereignty and constitutional\ngovernment were the constituent parts of a liberty the people would\nnot be denied in almost all the countries of Europe. In Italy, Charles\nAlbert, King of Savoy, Sardinia, and Piedmont, gave his people a\nconstitutional form of government. Though opposed by the papal States\nand Austria, this movement grew until, under King Emmanuel, Cavour, and\nGaribaldi, all Italy was united and free. Denmark followed in 1849,\nGreece in 1866, and Spain the following year. The Christians of the\nBalkan Peninsula revolted from the Turks in 1875, and were recognized a\npower by the greater powers and were given a constitutional government.\nIn 1910 Portugal banished royalty and welcomed democracy. Russia, in\n1917, threw off the shackles of autocracy for those of anarchy. When\nshe awakes from her delirium she will doubtless see the true light and\nfollow it.\n\nThe Americanization of Asia is moving rapidly forward. In 1852\nCommodore Perry--by a strange providence from Rhode Island--forced open\nthe door into Japan. The shoguns, masters for centuries, lost their\npower. Then the Mikado for twenty years took their autocratic powers\nto himself but was compelled after that to give his people a liberal\nconstitutional form of government. The Chinese nation, hoary with age,\nentered the list of democracies in 1911, becoming the United States\nof China. The Shah of Persia, after a broken promise which brought\non a revolution, gave his people, in 1906, a constitutional form of\ngovernment. The Young Turks in 1909, after compelling Abdul Hamid II\nto abdicate, placed Mohammed V on the throne as his successor. Prior\nto the Great War they had what is at least an approach to the newer\nconstitutional ideals of the modern world.\n\nThe lands to the south of us have their struggle toward the same\ndesired goal. The Republic of Mexico needs a religious and educational\npreparation which will largely solve, among that unassimilated\nconglomeration of Indians, negroes, and mestizos, the problem of stable\ngovernment. Let the religious leaders of Mexico, who have tried for\ncenturies with their religious autocratic systems, give way for a\nsingle generation to the evangelical churches with their democratic\nidealisms and the unchained Bible, and then revolutions and immorality\nwill fade away, and the land, so desolated in recent years, will\nblossom like the rose.\n\nWhen Napoleon defeated the monarchs of Europe and their system, he\nshook the confidence of the people of Central and South America in\ntheir absent monarchs across the seas. South American nations followed\none by one into the class of democracies. Central American States also\nbroke away from their European masters. These lands need the open Bible\nof the evangelical Christian churches more than our battleships and\nmarines. When superstition is banished by the light which radiates from\nthe Bible, then the republics to the south of us will vie with us in\nadvancement and prosperity.\n\nAbsolute monarchy is doomed in Europe and throughout the world. The\nsword unsheathed by America must not rest in its scabbard until\ndemocracy is safe in the world and the world is made safe for\ndemocracy. Belgium outraged, France desecrated, Great Britain drained,\nRussia bleeding slowly to death, and all Europe a shambles, may find in\nthe ideals of Roger Williams healing for their wounds and health for\nthe coming years.\n\nDue honor should be given to every colony builder of the New World.\nGreat were their suffering and sacrifices.\n\n  All praise to others of the vanguard then,\n  To Spain, to France, to Baltimore and Penn.\n  To Jesuit, Quaker, Puritan, and Priest,\n  Their toils be crowned, their honors be increased.\n\n  Give praise to others early come or late,\n  For love and labor on our ship of state.\n\nBy faith the Pilgrims left old England, and sojourned in Holland as\nin a strange country. By faith they trusted their all to God and the\nMayflower. By faith they endured the hardships of that first winter and\nfounded their colony in which they sought to honor God according to the\ntruth as they saw it. All honor to the faith of our Pilgrim Fathers.\n\nIn hope the Puritans left their native land, seeking not a separation\nfrom the mother Church but rather purification of the Established\nOrder. In hope they founded Salem and Boston and other towns about\nthe Massachusetts Bay. In hope they laid strong the foundations which\nafterward led to the victories of Lexington and Bunker Hill. All honor\nto the Puritan builders of a great commonwealth, the New America.\n\nThrough charity Roger Williams fled into the depths of snowy forests\nand crossed frozen streams, to form among savage tribes a new colony\nwhere no man would be denied political privileges because of religious\nbelief. Through charity he forgave those who exiled him and at the\nrisk of his own life saved Puritan and Pilgrim from an impending\nIndian massacre. Through charity he shared his purchased possessions\ngratuitously with others. Through charity he formed the immortal\ncompact binding men together \u201conly in civil things.\u201d Through charity he\nsacrificed his humble patrimony, his home at Salem, and the earnings of\nhis lifetime to safeguard and protect the colony he had founded for the\njoys of others. Through charity he extended for the first time in our\nnational history a loving welcome to men of all beliefs into the new\nfraternity of human hearts founded for human helpfulness.\n\nRoger Williams possessed the faith of the Pilgrim and the hope of the\nPuritan. Faith and hope getteth, but charity giveth. Roger Williams\npossessed the charity of Christ. He followed in the footsteps of\nhis Master along a pathway of pain. Like the Man of Galilee, in the\nolive orchard and vine-clad garden, and on the bleak skull-shaped\nhill without the walls of Jerusalem, his humble servant, the man of\nProvidence, had his Gethsemane and Golgotha in the frozen forests and\non the snow-clad hills under the wintry skies of New England.\n\n  Aye, call it holy ground,\n    The soil where first they trod,\n  They left unstained what there they found,\n    Freedom to worship God.\n\nAnd now in these United States of America, there abideth the faith\nof the Pilgrim, the hope of the Puritan, and the charity of Roger\nWilliams; but the greatest of these is charity.\n\n\n\n\nSTUDY OUTLINE OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ROGER WILLIAMS\n\n\nI\n\nROGER WILLIAMS AND HIS TIMES\n\n1. _Rise and Development of English Puritanism_: Reformation in\nEngland, from Wyclif to Henry VIII. Reformation under Henry VIII,\nEdward VI, and Elizabeth. Influence of the Marian exiles. Rise of\nEnglish Puritanism. Influence and mission of Thomas Cartwright and\nRobert Browne. Growth of Presbyterianism and independency. Origin of\nBritish Baptists (in Wales and England).\n\n2. _Contemporaneous Colonial Settlements_: The Plymouth Pilgrims. The\nDorchester Adventurers. Naumkeag settlers. Endicott Company at Salem.\nWinthrop Company at Boston. Connecticut settlers. Early Dutch and\nVirginia settlements. (Study idealism, origin, vitality of each.)\n\n3. _Indian Predecessors of Roger Williams and Puritans_: Tribal\nsettlements, their ideas, customs, and moral status. Ideas of\nsoul-liberty among the Indians. Priority of Williams\u2019 Indian missionary\nwork. Labors of Eliot and others.\n\n\nII\n\nROGER WILLIAMS, HIS LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS\n\n1. _Life Prior to Exile from England, 1602-1629_: His birth and\neducation. Religious ferment in England. His love affairs, marriage,\nand exile.\n\n2. _In New England Prior to Settlement in Providence, 1629-1636_:\nExperiences in Boston, Salem, Plymouth, the wilderness, and Seekonk.\n\n3. _Providence Plantations Prior to First Charter, 1636-1644_:\nArrival. Reception by Indians. First deeds to property. Baptism.\nEarly government. Indian troubles. Neighbors at Pawtuxet, Warwick,\nPortsmouth, and Blackstone. Williams\u2019 first visit to England. First\ncharter. Indian trading-post near Wickford. His first writings.\n\n4. _Providence under the First Charter, 1644-1663_: Growth of colony.\nIndian difficulties. Coddington\u2019s claims. Opposition from the United\nColonies. Williams\u2019 second visit to England. His writings. Work of his\ncolaborer, John Clarke, of Newport, in securing second charter.\n\n5. _Growth, Destruction, and Rebuilding of Providence, 1663-1676_:\nGeneral pre-Indian War prosperity. The Quakers. The debate and\nWilliams\u2019 writings. Indian War with King Philip. Reconstruction.\n\n6. _Closing Days and Death of Roger Williams_: Official position.\nRetirement and death. Burial. Later removal of dust.\n\n7. _Providence after the Death of its Founder_: Commercially,\nreligiously, educationally, and politically. Its glorious share in the\nRevolutionary War. Its glory among the brotherhood of States. Growth of\nits ideal throughout the world.\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE EVOLUTION OF THE ROGER WILLIAMS IDEAL OF SOUL-LIBERTY\n\n1. _Prior to Days of Williams_: The pioneers, the predecessors of\nWilliams, and the continuity of the struggle for soul-liberty among the\nearly Christians. The work of the Anabaptists or Baptists in the Dark\nAges in northern Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, and England and\nWales. Study their published confessions on the subject of soul-liberty.\n\n2. _Contemporaries of Roger Williams_: The General and Particular\nBaptists of England. A consideration of the ideals of toleration,\nliberty of conscience, and absolute soul-liberty in the settlements\nof Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts Bay Colony,\nConnecticut; and the Indian\u2019s position also. Compare all these with the\npeculiar position of Roger Williams.\n\n3. _Successors of Roger Williams_: The American Baptists. Study\nespecially the Warren Baptist Association with its committee on\ngrievances. Study the work of the Philadelphia Baptist Convention.\nStudy also the work of the Baptists in other States. Cooperation of\nQuakers, Presbyterians, and others.\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE WORLD-WIDE INFLUENCE OF ROGER WILLIAMS\u2019 IDEAL\n\nPolitical democracy, a fruit of religious liberty. The onward march of\ndemocracy in America, Europe, Asia, and South America. The world war\nand the world-wide struggle for democracy. Present status of the world\nas to religious liberty and as to political democracy. (Take a map and\nindicate the same.)\n\n\n\n\nA SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n\n_Biographies_:\n\n Backus, \u201cHistory of New England.\u201d (First history in which Williams\u2019\n life-story is told at length.)\n\n Knowles, \u201cMemoir of Roger Williams.\u201d\n\n Gammell, \u201cLife of Roger Williams.\u201d\n\n Elton, \u201cLife of Roger Williams.\u201d\n\n Straus, \u201cRoger Williams, Pioneer of Religious Liberty.\u201d\n\n Carpenter, \u201cRoger Williams, A Political Pioneer.\u201d\n\n Hall, \u201cRoger Williams.\u201d\n\n\n_Original Documents_:\n\n \u201cComplete Writings of Roger Williams,\u201d Narragansett Club Publications.\n\n Bradford, \u201cThe Bradford History.\u201d\n\n Winthrop, \u201cHistory of the Puritans.\u201d\n\n Chapin, \u201cDocumentary History of Rhode Island.\u201d\n\n Early Colonial Records.\n\n Early Records of the Town of Providence. Vols. III, IV, V, VIII.\n\n Cotton, \u201cMagnalia.\u201d\n\n\n_General Histories_:\n\n Arnold, \u201cHistory of Rhode Island.\u201d\n\n Staples, \u201cAnnals of Providence.\u201d\n\n Greene, \u201cProvidence Plantations for 250 Years.\u201d\n\n Richman, \u201cRhode Island, Its Making and its Meaning.\u201d\n\n\n_Evolution of Soul-liberty_:\n\n King, \u201cReligious Liberty.\u201d\n\n Ivimey, \u201cHistory of English Baptists.\u201d\n\n General Baptist Church Histories, by Benedict, Armitage, Newman,\n Cathcart, Vedder, etc.\n\n Mullins, \u201cAxioms of Religion.\u201d\n\n\n_Historic Spots_:\n\n Guild, \u201cFootprints of Roger Williams.\u201d\n\n Hopkins, \u201cThe Home Lots of the Early Settlers.\u201d\n\n State of Rhode Island, \u201cReport of Committee on Marking of Historic\n Sites in Rhode Island.\u201d\n\n Rider, \u201cLands of Rhode Island as They Were Known to Canonicus.\u201d\n\n\n_Fiction_:\n\n Butterworth, \u201cIn the Days of Massasoit.\u201d\n\n Hall, \u201cThe Golden Arrow.\u201d\n\n Durfee, the epic poem, \u201cWhat Cheer.\u201d\n\n\n_Other Books and Pamphlets_:\n\n H. M. King, \u201cBaptism of Roger Williams,\u201d \u201cSummer Visit of Three Rhode\n Islanders,\u201d \u201cThe Mother Church,\u201d \u201cThe True Roger Williams,\u201d \u201cLife of\n John Miles,\u201d \u201cHistorical Catalog of First Baptist Church.\u201d\n\n Kimball, \u201cProvidence in Colonial Times.\u201d\n\n Dexter, \u201cAs to Roger Williams\u2019 Banishment.\u201d\n\n Burrage, \u201cWhy Was Roger Williams Banished?\u201d\n\n Merriman, \u201cPilgrim, Puritan, and Roger Williams.\u201d\n\n Dorr, \u201cThe Planting and Growth of Providence.\u201d\n\n Burgess, \u201cReconciliation of Government with Liberty.\u201d\n\n Eaton, \u201cRoger Williams, the Founder of Providence.\u201d\n\n Durfee, \u201cComplete Works of Job Durfee.\u201d\n\n Backus Historical Society, \u201cElements in Baptist Development.\u201d\n\n\n_Notable Addresses_:\n\n Z. Allan, \u201cMemorial of Roger Williams.\u201d\n\n W. H. P. Faunce, \u201cRoger Williams and His Doctrine of Soul Liberty.\u201d\n\n Mowry, \u201cConcerning Roger Williams.\u201d\n\n Durfee, \u201cOration on 250th Anniversary.\u201d\n\n Rabbi A. Simon, \u201cThanksgiving Address on Roger Williams.\u201d\n\n Diman, \u201cAddress at Unveiling of Statue of Roger Williams at Roger\n Williams Park.\u201d\n\n Proceedings in Congress on Receiving the Roger Williams Statue.\n\n\n\n\nAN ITINERARY FOR A HISTORIC PILGRIMAGE\n\n\nI\n\nPLACES OF INTEREST OUTSIDE OF RHODE ISLAND\n\n_In England_: Charterhouse School. Pembroke College, Cambridge.\n\n_In America_: Salem: Site of First Meeting House. The original old\nFirst Church. The Original Roger Williams House (The Witch House).\n\nPlymouth: Coles Hill. The Burial Hill. Harbor. The Meresteads.\n\nBoston and Vicinity: Original Bradford History in State House. Site\nof Meeting House where trial took place (Dunster and Meeting Streets,\nCambridge). Site of old First Church.\n\nNew York City: Roger Williams\u2019 Watch, in Fraunce\u2019s Tavern.\n\n\nII\n\nPLACES OF INTEREST IN RHODE ISLAND\n\n_In Providence_: Study a map of the original Home Lots in relation to\nthe present streets of Providence. (Hopkins, \u201cHome Lots,\u201d is good.)\n\nCapitol Building: The Original Charter from Charles II. The Original\nPortsmouth Compact in Secretary of State\u2019s Office.\n\nCourt House: Grant\u2019s picture of Landing of Williams.\n\nCity Hall: Original Deeds from the Indians. Williams\u2019 Letter of\ntransference. Original Compact of Providence Settlers.\n\nCivic Center: Symbolical Statuary on Post Office Building. Civic Center\nis probably the site of Williams\u2019 baptism.\n\nThe Rhode Island Historical Society\u2019s Building: The Apple Tree Roots\nfrom Grave of Williams, his Compass, etc.\n\nJohn Hay Library: Copy of Roger Williams\u2019 Indian Bible.\n\nJohn Carter Brown Library: Original Copies of Williams\u2019 books and\nletters.\n\nBrown University.\n\nSite of Town Meetings at Entrance to Tunnel.\n\nFirst Baptist Church: The Bell. Specimen from What Cheer Rock in Lobby.\nPictures of Pastors, etc.\n\nPardon Tillinghast\u2019s Grave, Benefit Street near Transit.\n\nWhat Cheer Rock, Roger and Williams Streets.\n\nSabin Tavern, South Main Street and Transit, Where Gaspee Plot was\nhatched.\n\nOld School House on Meeting Street Opposite to this, Site of First Post\nOffice.\n\nOld State House, where First Declaration of Independence was signed.\n\nSite of Spring, 244 North Main Street.\n\nSite of Roger Williams House, North Main and Alamo Streets.\n\nGrave of Roger Williams, rear of Stable, 108 Benefit Street.\n\nNorth Burial Ground: Canonicus Rock. Randall Tomb. (Removal Place for\nDust of Williams.) Graves of Manning and Wayland. Memorial to Chad\nBrown.\n\nHopkins Square: Grave and Monument to Admiral Hopkins, Charles Street\nand Branch Avenue. The Home of Admiral Hopkins on Admiral Street.\n\nRoger Williams Park: Statue of Williams. Museum with Indian Relics and\nModel of Indian Village.\n\n_Out from Providence_: Fort Independence Site at Field\u2019s Point. Gaspee\nPoint beyond. Drum Rock, Apponaug. Grave of Ezekiel Holliman, Shawomet.\nSite of Williams\u2019 Trading-post, Wickford. Indian Soapstone Quarry,\nJohnston. Barrington, R. I. Pierce\u2019s Fight, Central Falls.\n\n_Sites at Newport_: Town of Portsmouth on Island. Site of Governor\nBull\u2019s House. First Baptist Church. Graves of Clarke and of Coddington.\n\n_Old Houses_: Gilbert Stuart\u2019s House, North Kingston. Nathanael\nGreene\u2019s House, Cumberland. Reynolds\u2019 House (Headquarters of\nLafayette), Bristol. Prescott\u2019s Headquarters, Portsmouth. Stephen\nHopkins\u2019 House, Hopkins Street, Providence.\n\n\n\n\n  Transcriber\u2019s Notes:\n\n  Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.\n\n  Small capitals have been capitalised.\n\n  Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.\n\n  Perceived typographical errors have been changed.\n\n  Repetative chapter headings have been removed.","title":"Roger Williams, Prophet and Pioneer of Soul-Liberty","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":32330}