sacrament, nor after meat. Upon this accusation no verdict was rendered until the next session of the Court, that Williams might have time to repent, and mend his life. But he stood firm on what he conceived to be the "rocky strength of his grounds"; and having been found guilty of having "broached and divulged divers new and dangerous opinions against the authority of magistrates; as also writ letters of defamation, both of the magistrates and churches," he was finally sentenced to leave the colony within six weeks. Though sentenced, Williams was not silenced. He withdrew to the sanctuary of his own house, and there set forth his obnoxious doctrines to all comers, and they were not a few. At length, it being rumored that he had planned the founding of a colony upon Narraganset Bay, the government determined to send him forthwith to England; and, for the execution of this purpose, again ordered him before the Court at Boston. Williams refused to obey the summons, alleging his ill health as a reason. Thereupon a pinnace was sent round to Salem, with orders for his apprehension and conveyance on board a ship then ready to sail for England. It was too late. When the officers arrived at his house, the object of their search was already a wanderer in the woods, and a pensioner upon the bounty of the red men.

The course of Williams at Salem cannot be altogether justified. He was unbecomingly forward in requiring the congregation at Boston publicly to acknowledge the sin of having been united with the church of England, as a condition of his communing with them; and he manifested a contentious temper in urging his people at Salem to withdraw from all fellowship with their Christian brethren of the Colony. But on the other hand, it cannot be said that Williams committed any crime against society. It was not for any overt act that he was banished, but for the expression of opinions. He had preached against Popish symbols, but he had not cut the cross from the king's colors; he had advised his flock to withdraw from the communion of their sister churches, but he had not instigated them to revolt against the state; he had insisted that the king's patent could not confer a perfect title to lands in this country without some compensation to the natives, but this view did not militate with the general practice of the New England settlers. If he had not approved of the meeting of the Massachusetts

ministers for spiritual improvement, neither had he disturbed it; and if he had insisted upon the duty of women's wearing veils, it was no more serious an offence than that committed by such good citizens as John Eliot and President Chauncy, both of whom had inveighed, with no less fervor, against the practice of men's wearing wigs. His offence consisted in asserting with vehemence, we grant, with unyielding pernacity, with little regard of consequences to others as well as himself; but no more nor less than asserting-the great truth of the freedom of conscience. Though he was charged with defaming the character of the churches, or denying the power of magistrates, or wishing to restrict the liberty of individuals, the head and front of his offence really consisted in advocating the doctrine of "soul-liberty.'

But it has been said, that the opinions of Williams tended directly to undermine the foundations of the government of the Colony; and therefore that his conduct was in a high degree criminal. The premise may be true, but the inference is illogical. It may be true, that the church and state were so closely allied, and so dependent upon each other, that their severance would, possibly, have been fatal to both; but the principles of truth are insurrectionary_only when the foundations of government are unsound. Roger Williams did but proclaim a great moral law, when he asserted that the civil magistrate has no right to intermeddle between God and men's consciences. He was in the right, when he declared, that "the civil magistrate might not intermeddle even to stop a church from apostasy and heresy "; and when the authorities banished him for the utterance of this sentiment, they were in the wrong. Men have no right to construct society on the narrow, arbitrary system of a close corporation. They are bound to make it conformable to the essential requirements of humanity; and in doing this, they certainly cannot overlook so urgent a want, experienced by every enlightened mind, as that of worshipping God according to the dictates of conscience. If the Massachusetts colonists erected their civil and ecclesiastical organization on an illiberal basis, they, and not Roger Williams, must be held responsible for the bad consequences which might have resulted to it from his proclamation of a vital principle.

Williams suffered many privations and was exposed to

imminent perils during his flight from Salem, of which his biographer has given a very graphic description. For these sufferings, however, the Massachusetts government cannot be held responsible; as it was their intention to have sent him to England, though, it must be added, on such short notice as would have been very prejudicial to his interests. Befriended by the Indians, whose favor he had secured during his residence at Plymouth, he reached in safety the shores of Narraganset Bay, whither he had been directed by the friendly advice of Governor Winthrop. There he was hospitably entertained in the cabin of Massasoit, and obtained of him a grant of land on the Seekonk river, where, early in the spring, he pitched his tent, and began to plant. But receiving a letter from Governor Winslow, stating that his plantation lay within the jurisdiction of Plymouth, and begging him to remove across the river, that no offence might be given to Massachusetts, Williams, in company with five other persons who had joined him at Seekonk, left the fields. which he had planted, and embarked in a canoe for the opposite shore. He finally selected for his new home a spot situated on a sunny slope of the eastern bank of the Mooshausic, and gratefully called it Providence.

Williams and his few companions were now beyond the chartered limits of civilization, in a wilderness inhabited by savages. But these savages were his friends; for, during his residence at Plymouth, he had cultivated with pains and many presents the acquaintance of the two principal chiefs of the Narragansets, Canonicus and Miantonomo. Through their regard for him, he readily obtained a large tract of land upon the fresh rivers of Mooshausic and Wanasquatucket, though "it was not thousands nor tens of thousands of money, that could have bought of them an English entrance into this Bay." The land thus acquired was not appropriated by Williams to making himself, like William Penn, or Lord Baltimore, or Sir Walter Raleigh, the proprietary of a princely domain. On the contrary, though probably purchased at the expense of his entire property, it was distributed in equal shares among the little company of friends; for his own services he received only a few pounds, as a "loving gratuity," and he retained in his possession no more land, or authority, than was given to the others. The same liberality was manifested in the form of government which was established. It

was a pure democracy. The following agreement entered into by the settlers constituted the only charter of their liberties.

We, whose names are here underwritten, being desirous to inhabit in the town of Providence, do promise to submit ourselves, in active or passive obedience, to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for public good of the body in an orderly way, by the major consent of the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together into a township, and such others whom they shall admit into the same, only in civil things."

But

According to this compact, it will be observed, the inhabitants were to submit to the orders and agreements of the majority only in civil things. Thus was fully recognized, in the first form of government adopted by the settlers at Providence, the great principle of religious toleration. The Puritans, who gloried in leaving England because they were persecuted for conscience's sake, established in this country a system of oversight and control in religion, a kind of Protestant inquisition, no less severe, and far more effective, than the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission. Roger Williams really founded a "shelter for persons distressed for conscience." No man, whatever were his religious opinions, was on that account excluded from the settlement. Here many of the followers of Mrs. Hutchinson, exiled from Massachusetts, were "lovingly entertained " here, Samuel Gorton and his associates rather harshly characterized by our author as men of "wild and fanatical opinions" were kindly harboured; here, contrary to the earnest solicitations of the Commissioners of the United Colonies, the Quakers were allowed to find a refuge from persecution; and here, as is fully shown by Professor Gammell, from that day unto this, have the rights of conscience ever been respected, and no law has ever been passed sanctioning the interference of the civil magistracy in religious

concerns.

The church planted by Williams at Providence was established on the simplest basis. Indeed, we discover no traces of any religious institutions in the Colony until nearly three years after its settlement. At that period, Williams, having before adopted the Congregational form of public worship and church government, established this free system of

ecclesiastical polity in the Plantations. Becoming convinced of the invalidity of infant baptism, and of baptism by sprinkling generally, he was immersed by a layman, to whom he himself afterwards administered the ordinance. Also, after having held the office of pastor of the church at Providence for about four years, he resigned it on the ground that there was then existing in the world no true ministry with authority to dispense the sacraments; and became what, in the language of the times, was called a "SeekHe still believed in a "ministry of prophecy," who might preach the gospel; but he conceded to them no authority to rule the church, or administer its ordinances, "because it was not derived from the apostles, otherwise than by the ministers of England, whom he judged to be ill authority."

er."

As we have already observed, the government first established at Providence was a pure democracy. For several years, the original settlers, together with those received by them into the same fellowship of vote," met once a month in town meeting to transact their public affairs on a footing of perfect equality. No power was delegated to any officers. No authority for acting as a corporate body was obtained from the mother country. The "orders and agreements of the majority" passed for law only by general consent of the inhabitants. But this system of pure democracy could not last long. Various differences of opinion, particularly respecting the boundaries of lands, springing up in the Colony, it was soon found necessary to incorporate into the system the principle of representative government. Accordingly, in 1640, five disposers " were chosen, with power, subject to an appeal to the people, to adjust the disagreements which had occurred in the Colony; and these persons, together with a treasurer previously appointed, formed the body of town officers. From the first, great jealousy of delegated power was felt in this settlement; and its abuse was carefully guarded against by meetings of the citizens once in three months, and by the occurrence, at the same intervals, of new elections of officers. But with the growth of the Plantations there appeared a number of turbulent spirits, who needed to be restrained by the strong arm of power; and there arose, from time to time, acrimonious disputes, which threatened to rend asunder the