Round House of Grass Long Council Chamber Making a Long House

Indian Men Feeding Dogs

Roger Williams protected the Quakers by granting them in his colony a
shelter from persecutions. However, he was never friendly to their
peculiar tenets and assailed them in debates and pamphlets. When George
Fox, their founder, was in America in 1672, Williams challenged him
to a debate. A delay in getting the challenge to Fox, who had sailed
for England, did not leave the debate unaccepted. Three Rhode Island
Quakers undertook the task. Roger Williams rowed the thirty miles
to Newport and for three days debated with all the characteristic
bitterness of debates of that period. They adjourned to complete the
debate at Providence. Williams is seen in the worst light here and has
been greatly criticized for the strong language he used in opposing
these Quakers. We should never forget that the Puritans went far beyond
strong language, in persecuting some to death and in exiling others.
Both sides claimed a victory in the debate, which was perpetuated in
pamphlets, issued at its completion. Williams wrote one, entitled,
“George Fox Digg’d out of his Burrowes.” Fox replied with one,
entitled, “A New-England Fire-Brand Quenched.” Fox’s book is a quarto
of 489 pages. Williams’ book, a small quarto of 327 pages, was printed
in Boston, 1676. The only original copy known to exist is the one in
the Library of Harvard College.

Roger Williams wrote many letters, the originals of which were widely
scattered. Many of these have been collected and printed in a volume
by the Rhode Island Historical Society. In one of these letters, to
Governor Bradford, of Boston, he refers to a collection of discourses
which he had reduced to writing. These sermons, with treatises written
prior to his banishment, are probably lost forever.

KING PHILIP’S WAR

Canonicus died, June 4, 1647. Massasoit died in 1660, leaving two
sons, Wamsutta and Metacon, or as they were nicknamed by the English,
Alexander and Philip. The former succeeded his father. On a return from
Plymouth Alexander died suddenly, and Philip suspected that he was
poisoned. This, however, was not the fact. The Narragansetts had not
forgotten the death or murder of Miantonomo, and the Indians generally
felt that the English were gradually crowding them out of their own
domains. Philip took advantage of this feeling and organized a war
which had for its object the complete extermination of all the
English settlements. This war, opening in Plymouth, 1675, lasted more
than a year. Twelve out of the ninety New England towns were completely
destroyed and forty others were the scene of fire and slaughter. A
thousand strong men lost their lives in addition to a large number of
helpless women and children who were tomahawked. Rhode Island, for the
first time, was exposed to the hostile attacks of the Indians. Many of
the inhabitants, fearing the impending disaster, had joined the army
of attack against the Indians. In retaliation for this, Providence was
attacked, and twenty-nine houses were burned. One of them contained the
town records, part of which were saved by being thrown into a pond,
from which they were afterward recovered. When the Indians appeared
on the heights above Providence, Roger Williams, unarmed, went out to
counsel with them. He urged them to stop the warfare, telling them that
the English king would come to the assistance of the colonists and,
with greater numbers, overpower the Indians. They replied:

 Let them come, we are ready for them. But as for you, Brother
 Williams, you are a good man, you have been kind to us many years, not
 a hair of your head shall be touched.

He returned to a house which had been converted into a fort. It was not
touched, but the town otherwise was destroyed. Most of the citizens of
the mainland fled to Rhode Island and Newport. The doom of the Indians
was sounded, the war was put down, and the leaders were captured or
slain. Immediately after the war the work of rebuilding commenced.
Houses were built larger and more substantially.

                           A _NEW-ENGLAND_-

                         Fire-Brand Quenched,

                               Being an

                                ANSWER

                                UNTO A

                Slanderous Book, Entituled; _GEORGE FOX
    Digged out of his Burrows_, &c. Printed at _Boston_ in the Year
      1676, by _Roger Williams_ of _Providence_ in _New-England_.

     Which he _Dedicateth_ to the _KING_, with Desires, _That, if_
   the Most-High _please_, Old _and_ New-England _may Flourish, when
   the_ Pope & Mahomet, Rome & Constantinople _are in their Ashes_.

     Of a _DISPUTE_ upon XIV. of his _Proposals_ held and debated
     betwixt him, the said _Roger Williams_, on the one part, and
  _John Stubs_, _William Edmundson_ and _John Burnyeat_ on the other.
   At _Providence_ and _Newport_ in _Rode-Island_, in the Year 1672.
   IN which his _Cavils_ are Refuted, & his _Reflections_ Reproved.

                             In Two Parts.

                               AS ALSO,

                 An _ANSWER_ to _R. W’s APPENDIX_, &c.

                                WITH A

          _POST-SCRIPT_ Confuting his Blasphemous Assertions,
     _viz._ _Of the Blood of_ Christ, _that was Shed, its being_
   Corruptible _and_ Corrupted; _and that_ Salvation _was by a Man,
                        that was_ Corruptible,
                      &_c._ Where-unto is added a

  _CATALOGUE_ of his _Railery_, _Lies_, _Scorn_ & _Blasphemies_: And
           His _TEMPORIZING SPIRIT_ made manifest. Also, The
    _LETTERS_ of _W. Coddington_ of _Rode-Island_, and _R. Scot_ of
  _Providence_ in _New-England_ concerning _R.W._ And _Lastly_, Some
       _TESTIMONIES_ of _Antient_ & _Modern Authors_ concerning
       the _LIGHT_, _SCRIPTURES_, _RULE_ &, the _SOUL_ of _Man_.

                 By _GEORGE FOX_ and _JOHN BURNYEAT_.

                    Printed in the Year MDC. LXXIX.

[Illustration: Rhode Island Historical Society Museum]

[Illustration: Apple Tree Root from the Grave of Roger Williams]

[Illustration: Grave of Roger Williams]

Roger Williams for many years had a trading-place, where he did
business with the Indians. This store was near the present village of
Wickford. His profits, he tells us, were five hundred dollars a year.
The foundations of this old building are still intact, with a new
superstructure over them. Late in life he made monthly preaching visits
to this place. When too old to do this, he planned the publication of
his sermons for the natives. Roger Williams was the original missionary
to the North American Indians, antedating the illustrious Eliot by
thirteen years. Williams’ Indian Bible is in the John Hay Library,
Providence, R. I.

[Illustration: New Testament Title-page of Roger Williams’ Indian Bible]

                                 WUSKU

                            WUTTESTAMENTUM

                              NULLORDUMUN

                             JESUS CHRIST

                        Nuppoquohwussuaeneumun.

                             _CAMBRIDGE_:

          Printed by _Samuel Green_ and _Marmaduke Johnson_,

                                MDCLXI.

[Illustration: Indian Bible Used by Roger Williams, the Pioneer
Missionary to the American Indians]

                                  THE

                              HOLY BIBLE:

                            CONTAINING THE

                             OLD TESTAMENT

                            AND THE _NEW_.

                          Translated into the

                            INDIAN LANGUAGE

                                 _AND_

    Ordered to be Printed by Commissioners of the _United Colonies_
                           in _NEW-ENGLAND_,

              At the Charge, and with the Consent of the

                       CORPORATION IN _ENGLAND_

        _For the Propagation of the Gospel amongst the_ Indians
                           _in New_-England.

                             _CAMBRIDGE._

          Printed by _Samuel Green_ and _Marmaduke Johnson_.

                               MDCLXIII.

In 1683, Roger Williams died. All the inhabitants of Providence turned
out to honor his memory. The coffin was carried on the shoulders of his
friends, and his earthly remains were laid to rest on his own property,
on the slope of the hill east of his residence and the spring. An
apple tree grew above the grave. The roots drew from the remains their
nourishment and followed the shape of the skeleton and the legs. Today
these same roots are preserved in the Rhode Island Historical Society’s
collection. Reuben A. Guild describes this in the following manner:

 Still further up the hill among the trees of his orchard, was the
 family burial ground. Crossing Benefit Street and passing into the
 rear of the house of the late Sullivan Dorr, a few feet from the
 stable door, is the original grave of Roger Williams. It is covered
 by a finished cap of a heavy stone pillar. Here for nearly two
 hundred years slept the remains of the Apostle of Religious Liberty.
 In March, 1860, the grave was opened, and the dust, for that was all
 that remained of the mortal body, was carefully placed in an urn and
 deposited in Mr. Randall’s family tomb in the North Burial Ground.
 Mrs. Williams’ grave was also visited, and a lock of braided hair was
 all that was discovered. At the bottom of Roger Williams’ grave the
 root of an apple tree had turned out of its way to enter in at the
 head. Following the position of the body to the thighs, it had turned,
 now divided, to follow each leg to the feet, tender fibers shooting
 out in various directions.

Roger Williams died a poor man. His interest in the needy and
distressed had kept him constantly poor. Ambition formed no part
of his personal life. His ambitions were for the larger group of
distressed souls. A prophet is rarely appreciated in his own age by
his contemporaries. Posterity, in later days, usually discovers the
greatness and genius of the man and the ideal he realized. Today that
ideal is the secret of America’s greatness and one that has given her
distinction among the nations. Shortly before Williams’ death there was
a discussion relative to dividing up the common lands. Williams wrote
to the Town of Providence a plea, which is characteristic of the spirit
of the man:

 For all experience tells us that public peace and love is better than
 abundance of corn and cattle. I have only one motion and petition
 which I earnestly pray the town to lay to heart, as ever they look for
 a blessing from God upon the town, on your families, your corn and
 cattle, and your children after you; it is this, that after you have
 got over the black brook of some soul bondage yourself, you tear not
 down the bridge after you, by leaving no small pittance for distressed
 souls that may come after you.

V

FROM SOUL-LIBERTY TO ABSOLUTE CIVIL LIBERTY

RHODE ISLAND’S GIFT

  Last of the thirteen, smallest of them all,
  What canst thou bring to this world’s festival,
  Where all thy sisters come with pride and power,
  And bring each one a princess’ generous dower
  Of gold and gems, and fruits and precious woods,
  And joyous tribute of their costly goods?
  What can we bring? No outward show of gain,
  No pomp of state; we bring the sons of men!

  Bring gold, fair sisters, yellow gold,
  And gems, and all that’s fair and fine,
  And heap them all, the new, the old,
  Before our country’s stately shrine.
  Bring hardihood from north and east,
  Bring beauty from the south and west,
  Bring valor to adorn the feast,
  Bring all that has withstood time’s test.
  We grudge you not the riches rare,
  We grudge you not your acres broad,
  We bring you for our noble share
  THE LIBERTY TO WORSHIP GOD.

--_Caroline Hazard, Poem read on “Rhode Island Day” at World’s
Columbian Exposition, Chicago, October 5, 1893._

FROM SOUL-LIBERTY TO ABSOLUTE CIVIL LIBERTY

The ideal of democracy grew in all the New England colonies and led
eventually to the American Revolution and the establishment of the
United States of America. Rhode Island, however, in the century prior
to the Revolution, had never given up her advocacy of soul-liberty, and
thus the Revolution was to her a greater struggle than to the other
colonies. This distinct feature will be seen in a study of the real
successors of Roger Williams, in the struggle for religious liberty.
Therefore it is interesting to note some of the outstanding events in
the history of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, previous to the
Revolutionary War.

In June, 1700, a lot was set aside for a training-ground, a
burial-ground, and other public uses. Thus originated the North Burial
Ground, the first public burial-ground in the colony. Before this each
family had buried on its own land. Not until 1760, when Benefit Street
was laid through the burial-grounds of many of the citizens, including
the land where Roger Williams first settled, did they come to use in a
general way this North Burial Ground. Then many bodies were removed to
the new place for burial.

The second house of worship to be erected in the colony, in 1704,
was the Friends’ Meeting House, in what is now Lincoln. It is still
standing, although with an extensive addition. The Friends’ Meeting
House in Providence was erected about the same time. The First
Congregational Church was organized in 1720, a meeting-house being
erected in 1723. It was on the site of the present county court-house.
In 1722, the Episcopalians erected their first church building. It was
called King’s Church, and was on the site of the present St. John’s
Church on North Main Street. In 1798, the Methodists organized their
first church, building their first meeting-house in 1816 at the corner
of Aborn and Washington Streets. The Roman Catholics commenced their
work in 1827, meeting in Mechanics’ Hall, afterward in the old Town
House. From the very start no discouragement was given to any church to
organize in Rhode Island. During this same period of time Baptists were
hindered in other colonies.

In 1660, the proprietors of the colony ordered the setting aside of
one hundred acres of upland and six of meadows to be reserved for the
maintenance of a school. In 1696, a piece of land on Dexter Lane,
or Stamper’s Hill, was set apart for a school. This schoolhouse was
built about the year 1697, about fifty feet north of Olney Street, on
the east side of Stamper’s Street. It was used for about fifty years.
The schoolmaster probably received all of his compensation from the
scholars. A lot on the end of the Court House Parade was left for a
school building. The first reference to a school house on this lot is
found in the town records for 1752. The town leased this schoolhouse
to a schoolmaster. In 1769, the first free school was established on
King’s Street, now Meeting Street. This building is used now as a
fresh-air school.

BROWN UNIVERSITY

As early as 1762 a movement was instituted by James Manning of Scotch
Plains, New Jersey, to establish in Rhode Island a university on the
broad basis of religious freedom, but under the special care of the
Baptists. A charter, to be presented to the General Assembly in 1763,
was prepared by Rev. Ezra Stiles, a Congregational minister at Newport.
When the document was ready for presentation, it was noticed that the
governing power was to be given to a presbyterian body. That occasioned
postponement. A charter was granted, however, in February, 1764, under
the name of “The Trustees and Fellows of the College or University in
the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in New
England in America.” The corporation was given power to change its
name. It organized with James Manning as president. Active teaching
work was commenced at Warren in 1766. The founding of this university
was an event touching not only the life of Rhode Island, but of the
whole country. As a Baptist movement, it was first proposed by Morgan
Edwards in 1762, at the Philadelphia Baptist Association. James
Manning came from the little church at Scotch Plains, New Jersey, and
from a Baptist Association to the only place in America, at that time,
where a Baptist university could be established. The Baptists desired
the controlling power, but not the whole power of administration, in
order to preserve their great principle of religious freedom. According
to the original charter, twenty-two of the thirty-six trustees were
to be Baptists, five Quakers, four Congregationalists, and five
Episcopalians. Of the twelve fellows, eight were to be Baptist, the
rest indefinitely of any or all denominations. The following extract
shows the Baptist ideal:

 into this liberal and catholic institution shall never be admitted
 any religious tests, but, on the contrary, all the members hereof,
 shall forever enjoy full, free, absolute, and uninterrupted liberty
 of conscience; and that the places of professors, tutors, and all
 other officers, the President alone excepted, shall be free and open
 for all denominations of Protestants, and the youths of all religious
 denominations shall and may be admitted to the equal advantages,
 emoluments, and honors of the university; and that the sectarian
 differences shall not make any part of the public and classical
 instructions.

Its early history is interesting. There was but one student during
its first year, the Rev. William Rogers, of Newport, then fourteen
years old. In 1767, four new students enrolled. The first years of the
college were spent at Warren, where Dr. James Manning, the president,
was the acting pastor of a Baptist church recently organized. In
1769, the first class of seven was ready for graduation and the first
commencement was held on September 7, 1769.

The various towns of the colony contended earnestly to have the college
permanently located with them. Newport considered that her large gifts
to the college were sufficient to give her the preference. Providence,
being a stronger center for the Baptists, won, and, in 1770, the
college was moved to that city. The old brick schoolhouse, near the
foot of Meeting Street, was the first building used by the college. The
students boarded in private families at a dollar and a quarter a week.
The building committee soon selected a better location for the school
and a better place for housing the student body. Morgan Edwards said of
the site finally selected:

 Commanding a prospect of the Town of Providence below, of the
 Narragansett Bay and Island and of an extensive country, variegated
 with hills and dales, woods and plains.... Surely this spot was made
 for a seat of the Muses.

The first building, one sufficient for the needs of the college for the
following fifty years, was University Hall, modeled after Nassau Hall
of Princeton. The upper two stories were added after the Revolutionary
war. For six years, during that great struggle, the hall was used as
barracks and hospital for the combined American and French troops. In
1775, the present First Baptist Church Meeting House was erected, “for
the public worship of Almighty God and to hold commencements in.” Since
1775 until the present time, with the exceptions of the years 1804 and
1832, this church has been used for the commencement exercises. On its
platform illustrious students have received their degrees and have gone
forth to bless the world. The presidents of Brown University, seated
in the James Manning chair, have presided at the commencements in the
historic Baptist Meeting House, and have given public honor to men
who in turn have honored the university and city. George Washington
received the honorary degree of LL. D. in 1790. Among her illustrious
graduates none is greater than Adoniram Judson, our pioneer American
and Baptist foreign missionary.

Doctor Manning died in 1791, and was buried in the North Burial Ground.
The corporation voted that same year,

 That the children of the Jews may be admitted into this institution
 and entirely enjoy the freedom of their own religion, without any
 constraint or imposition whatever.

The name of the college was changed from Rhode Island to Brown
University, in 1804, in honor of Nicholas Brown, whose liberal gifts to
the college were much appreciated. He was a trustee and in his lifetime
gave about $100,000 to the college. In 1821 the increasing number of
students made another building imperative, and Nicholas Brown gave this
needed structure, Hope College, as a gift to the institution.

[Illustration: Original Home of Brown University, in Providence, R. I.]

[Illustration: Brown University in Early Nineteenth Century]

The second president of Brown University was Jonathan Maxcy, who served
from 1792 until 1802. In these ten years two hundred and twenty-seven
were graduated, sixty-six claiming law as their profession, and
fifty-six entering the ministry. Asa Messer was the third president,
serving from 1802 until his resignation in 1826. His membership was in
the First Baptist Church, but his views, after 1815, were Unitarian.
Acts of vandalism, such as breaking into the library, beating down the
pulpit, and breaking windows, were such that he took it as a protest
against his position and finally resigned.

The next president was Francis Wayland. He completely reorganized the
University. He introduced the elective system, and offered several
practical courses. The college grounds were laid out. Two new buildings
were erected. Manning Hall, a gift of Nicholas Brown, and named
in honor of the first president, was built in 1840. In this Doric
structure the library found a home on the first floor and the chapel on
the second. Rhode Island Hall was erected shortly afterward, $10,000
being raised by Rhode Island men and women, and the balance of $12,500
being largely the gift of Nicholas Brown. Doctor Wayland’s presidency
came to an end by his death in 1855. He was buried in North Burial
Ground. Following him came Barnes Sears, Alexis Gaswell, Ezekiel Gilman
Robinson, Elisha Benjamin Andrews, and the present president, W. H. P.
Faunce, since June, 1899. Today the college has more than a thousand
students, about thirty buildings, and an endowment of more than four
million dollars. Brown University was the pioneer of the hundreds of
schools, colleges, and universities which the Baptists were destined to
have in the years that followed. These are not limited to one State,
but are scattered all over our country.

Pilgrims to Providence, the birthplace of religious liberty in America,
should not fail to visit those buildings which contain sacred relics of
the long and hard struggle for soul-liberty and political freedom in
America.

The present million-dollar CITY HALL, at the west end of Exchange
Place, in Providence, was erected in the period 1874 to 1878. In the
office of the Recorder of Deeds can be seen “the original deeds”
from the Indian chiefs to Roger Williams in 1636, also his letter
transferring to his loving friends, “a share of the new territory.” The
original Compact of Government is here also, and there is a bust of
Roger Williams over the entrance.

THE OLD STATE HOUSE, situated on Benefit Street, is a building which
can well vie with Faneuil Hall in Boston and Independence Hall in
Philadelphia as a “Cradle of Liberty.” Built in 1763, it was originally
occupied by the Rhode Island Colonial Assembly, who here on May 4,
1776, two months previous to the Declaration of Independence, in
Philadelphia, adopted the famous act renouncing allegiance to Great
Britain. This fact is commemorated by a bronze tablet and also by an
annual commemoration in all the public schools of Providence.

THE NEW STATE HOUSE, or “Marble Palace,” on the crest of Capitol Hill,
completed in 1902 at a cost of $3,200,000, is built of white Georgia
marble, and has for a distinguishing feature one of the few marble
domes existing in the world. This inscription is on the south front of
the Capitol:

 To hold forth a lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil state
 may stand and best be maintained, with full Liberty in Religious
 Concernments.

On the north side, we read,

 Providence Plantations, Founded by Roger Williams, 1636, Providence,
 Portsmouth, Newport, incorporated by Parliament, 1643, Rhode Island,
 Providence Plantations, obtained Royal Charter 1663. In General
 Assembly declared a Sovereign State, May 4th, 1776.

The inscription around the interior of the dome is a Latin quotation
from Tacitus. Translated it is:

 Rare felicity of the times when it is permitted to think as you like,
 and say what you think.

In the State Chamber is Gilbert Stuart’s rare full-length portrait of
General Washington. In the Secretary of State’s office is the original
charter, granted in 1663, under which the colony and State were
governed until 1843. In a subbasement there is a collection of State
historical exhibits, originally collected for the Jamestown Exposition.
On the dome of the State House there is a colossal bronze statue of
“Independent Man, or the Genius of Religious Liberty,” designed by
Brewster.

[Illustration: Capitol Building in Providence, Where the Charter is
Kept]

[Illustration: City Hall, Providence, Where the Compact, Indian Deed,
and Letter of Transference are Kept]

THE COURT HOUSE is on the corner of Benefit and College Streets. In its
corridor there is a historical painting by C. F. Grant, picturing
“The return of Roger Williams with the first charter for the Colony in
1644.”

RHODE ISLAND IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

Rhode Island was the first to strike a blow for civil liberty as she
was the first in the struggle for religious liberty. She was last,
however, to adopt the Constitution of the United States. She hesitated
to surrender to the federal government the liberties enjoyed under her
charter, the most liberal ever granted to a colony. She has a right to
be proud of her record, before, during, and after the Revolutionary
war. E. Benjamin Andrews opened his case for Rhode Island’s recognition
with these words:

 States are great or small according to their miles, and as the little
 birth town of the Christ, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, was not
 least among the princes of Judah, so Rhode Island, diminutive as she
 is physically, is far from least among the princely Constituents of
 this republic.

The history of Rhode Island proves that the best compatriot political
liberty ever had was absolute religious liberty.

Rhode Island was the first to strike the name of king from the charter
of her liberties, thus becoming the first sovereign independent State
in all the New World.

Rhode Island was the first to recommend the permanent establishment of
a Continental Congress, in town meeting assembled, May 17, 1774, and
in General Assembly, June 15, 1774, she appointed Samuel Ward and Ezek
Hopkins her first delegates thereto.

Rhode Island was also the first, by overt act, to renounce allegiance
to George III of England. She was first to instruct her officers to
disregard the Stamp Act and to ensure them indemnity for so doing. In
1765, she explicitly declared that in herself alone was vested the
right of local taxation.

Rhode Island was first to fire a gun against the dominion of England.
The first blood of the Revolutionary war was spilt in Narragansett
Bay. Lexington was fought April 19, 1775; the Boston Tea Party was on
December 16, 1773; Providence men, after perfecting their plans at the
Sabin Tavern, Planet and South Main Streets, rowed down the river, and
on June 10, 1772, sent up the Gaspee in flames.

On July 19, 1769, the men of Newport sunk His Majesty’s sloop, Liberty.
Rhode Island was the first to establish an American navy. She gave the
command to Abraham Whipple, who forthwith captured the first war prize
(the tender of the frigate Rose, then off Newport). After the war of
independence was under way, Rhode Island was the first to recommend
and urge upon Congress the establishment of a Continental navy.
Congress chose a Rhode Islander to work out the plans. Ezek Hopkins, a
Providence man, was appointed commander-in-chief. Three-fourths of all
the officers were from Rhode Island. These men were the vikings of the
American Revolution. Ezek Hopkins’ home is still preserved on Admiral
Street. There is a monument to him at his grave in Hopkins Square,
corner Branch Avenue and Charles Street.

In proportion to her size none of the other States can compare with
Rhode Island in the amount given to the Continental loan. Her citizens,
unlocking their purses, freely furnished the sinews of war. She
contributed seven times as much as South Carolina, whose population was
three times as large; one and a half times as much as Maryland, whose
population was four times as great; twice as much as Virginia, with a
population eight times larger.

Rhode Island contributed proportionately her share of men to the great
struggle. Rhode Island men were in every great battle under Washington.
Rhode Island has been greatly criticized for not quickly adopting the
Constitution. She was the last to adopt it. Her conception of religious
and civic liberty in combination was such that she was not willing to
lose easily the liberty which she had obtained for herself and which
she freely advocated for others. Her part in the great struggle was so
great that her motive for delay in adopting the Constitution should
never be questioned. Her ideal of liberty, unique to Rhode Island then,
is the generally accepted one now throughout America and back of every
great politicial reform in lands beyond our borders.

Ex-Governor Russell Brown, on Rhode Island Day at the World’s Columbian
Exposition, said:

 The history of our State is a birthright which neither lands nor gold
 can buy, for full as it is of stirring and passionate events, there
 is not an incident in our annals that can bring the scarlet of shame
 to the cheek of civilized man. Roger Williams the first settler, the
 thrice-exiled friend of the weak and oppressed, by his revolt against
 Puritan intolerance and his sacrifice for soul liberty, baptized Rhode
 Island’s early days with glory sufficient for any State.

VI

THE TORCH-BEARERS OF THE IDEAL OF ROGER WILLIAMS UNTIL LIBERTY
ENLIGHTENED THE WORLD

 I believe all our Baptist ministers in town, except two, and most of
 our brethren in the country were on the side of the Americans in the
 late dispute.... To this hour we believe that the independence of
 America will, for a while, secure the liberty of this country, but
 if that continent had been reduced, Britain would not have long been
 free.--_Doctor Rippon, of London, England, to President Manning, of
 Rhode Island College, written in 1784._

 Nor need any one dream that Jefferson and Madison could have carried
 this measure by their genius and influence. They were opposed by many
 men whose transcendent services, or unequalled oratory, or wealth,
 position, financial interests, or intense prejudices would have
 enabled them easily to resist their unsupported assaults. Like a
 couple of first-class engineers on a tender with a train attached, but
 no locomotive, would Jefferson and Madison have appeared without the
 Baptists. They furnished the locomotive for these skilled engineers
 which drew the train of religious liberty through every persecuting
 enactment in the penal code of Virginia.--_Wm. Cathcart, D. D., in
 “The Baptists and the American Revolution.”_

 The Baptists were the first and only religious denomination that
 struck for independence from Great Britain, and the first and only
 one that made a move for religious liberty before independence was
 declared.... Of those who took part in the struggle for religious
 liberty, the Baptists were the only denomination that maintained a
 consistent record and held out without wavering until the end--until
 every vestige of the old establishment had been obliterated by the
 sale of the glebes.--_Dr. Charles James, in “Documentary History of
 the Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia.”_

THE TORCH-BEARERS OF THE IDEAL OF ROGER WILLIAMS UNTIL LIBERTY
ENLIGHTENED THE WORLD

We have seen the early struggles of Roger Williams. We have seen the
halo of glory which clusters about the State he founded. We have seen
his place in the plans of a Divine providence. We have also seen his
place in the procession of heroes who held aloft the torch of religious
and soul-liberty throughout the ages. When by death, he was compelled
to drop that torch, others took it up and continued the procession
until the first amendment to our National Constitution became a fact
of history. The Baptists led the historic movement in all the colonies
which stood for this principle of “Religious Liberty.” Oscar S. Straus
says:

 The Baptists ... had a much more enlightened and advanced view: they
 held that Christianity should propagate itself by its own spiritual
 force; that the civil government was entirely apart and distinct and
 should have no control over conscience, or power to inflict punishment
 for spiritual censures.

Professor Gervinus, professor at Heidelberg, Germany, about the year
1850, published a work, in which he referred to Williams and his ideal:

 Roger Williams urged an entire liberty of conscience in Massachusetts.
 He was obliged to fly from the country, and in 1636 he founded a small
 new society in Rhode Island upon the principles of entire liberty of
 conscience. It was prophesied that the democratic attempts to obtain
 a general elective franchise and entire religious liberty would be
 of short duration. But these institutions have spread from that
 petty state over the whole union. They superseded the aristocratic
 commencements of Carolina and New York, the High-church part of
 Virginia, the theocracy in Massachusetts, and the monarchy throughout
 America; they have given laws to one quarter of the globe; and,
 dreaded for their moral influence, they stand in the background of
 every democratic struggle in Europe.

For the publication of such sentiments, Professor Gervinus was tried
at Mannheim and sentenced to four months’ imprisonment and to have his
books publicly burned.

Back of political progress there must be spiritual strength. Back of
the final victory of religious liberty in America there was not only
the glorious example of Rhode Island as a political demonstration but
the persistent propagation of the ideals in all the States. This was
chiefly the task of the Baptists, many of whose churches could trace
their origin to settlers from Rhode Island.

During the Colonial period, the laws of Massachusetts and Virginia
relating to soul-liberty were most severe; those in Maryland and
Pennsylvania, the most lenient, outside of Rhode Island.

[Illustration: Order banishing the Founders of the First Baptist Church
in Boston.]

[Sidenote: 1644. Nov. 13.]

 Whereas Thomas Gold (and others) obstinate and turbulent Annabaptists,
 have some time since combined themselves wh others in a pretended
 church estate xxxxx to the great griefe and offence of the godly
 orthodox xxxxxxxx and about two years since were enjoyned by this
 Court to desist from said practise and to returne to our allowed
 Church Assemblies, xxxxxx this Court doe judge it necessary that
 they be removed to some other part of this country or elsewhere: and
 accordingly doeth order that (they) doe before the twentieth of July
 next remove themselves out of this jurisdiccon.

In Massachusetts the Baptist sentiment did not die out with the
banishment of Roger Williams. In 1640, Rev. Mr. Chauncey advocated the
immersion of believers and also of infants. Later President Dunster,
of Cambridge College, went further and denounced the whole system
of infant baptism. About the same time, Lady Moody, of Lynn, denied
infant baptism. In 1644, a poor man by the name of Painter, reaching
the same conclusion, refused to have his child baptized. The court
interfered and the man was tied up and whipped. On November 13, 1644,
two months after Williams arrived in Boston, en route to Providence,
with the charter, the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law against
the Baptists, in which they were described as “The incendiaries of
commonwealths, the troublers of churches.” They ordered that all who
“openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants shall be sentenced
to banishment.” The General Court issued an order in 1644 banishing the
founders of the Boston Baptist Church. In 1651, Obadiah Holmes, John
Clarke, and John Crandall came to Lynn, Massachusetts, from Newport,
Rhode Island. They were holding a service in Mr. Witter’s house, about
two miles out from Lynn. Mr. Clarke was preaching from Revelation
3:10. The service was broken up by the arrival of two constables, who,
with clamorous tongues, interrupted the discourse and arrested the
preachers. The prisoners were held in Lynn until the morning, when they
were taken to the Boston prison. Two weeks later, they were sentenced
to pay heavy fines. The fines of Clarke and Crandall were paid by
friends. Holmes refused any assistance in paying his fine of thirty
pounds and was publicly whipped with thirty lashes from a three-corded
whip. Thirteen others, who sympathized with these brethren, were
arrested and were ordered to pay a fine of forty shillings each or
take ten lashes. John Hazel, an old man from Rehoboth, was whipped
and died a few days afterward. Clarke published the story of this
incident in “Ill Newes from New-England”--an original copy is in the
John Carter Brown Library, Providence, R. I. Cotton was the religious
leader in Boston, back of this persecution. In 1680 the doors of the
Baptist meeting-house in Boston were nailed up by the authorities.
Finally the Baptists in Boston won some freedom, which, however, was
denied to other Baptist churches throughout the State. Isaac Backus
was the leader among the Massachusetts Baptists for soul-liberty. With
President Manning, he appealed to the Massachusetts delegates at the
Continental Congress to provide in the Constitution for separation
of Church and State. John Adams replied to them: “They might as well
turn the heavenly bodies out of their annual and diurnal courses as
to expect they would give up their establishment.” This spirit of
opposition was continued until 1833, in which year the last vestige of
oppressive religious intolerance was removed from the statute-books of
Massachusetts.

                                  ILL

                                 NEWES

                                 FROM

                              NEW-ENGLAND

                                  OR

                     A Narative of _New-Englands_

                             PERSECUTION.

                          WHEREIN IS DECLARED

               That while old _England_ is becoming new,
                     _New-England_ is become Old.

  Also four Proposals to the Honoured Parliament and Councel of State,
   touching the way to _Propagate the Gospel of Christ_ (with small
        charge and great safety) both in Old _England_ and New.

  Also four conclusions touching the faith and order of the Gospel of
  Christ out of his last Will and Testament, confirmed and justified

         By JOHN CLARK Physician of Rode Island in _America_.

               _Revel._ 2. 25. _Hold fast till I come._
                    3. 11. _Behold I come quickly._
               22. 20. _Amen, even so come Lord Jesus._

                               _LONDON_,

  Printed by _Henry Hills_ living in _Fleet-Yard_ next door to the
                  _Rose_ and _Crown_, in the year 1652.

In Virginia, the opposition to the Baptist movement was bitter and
unrelenting. The early settlers of Virginia left England, when their
church, the Established Church of England, had won a complete victory
over all other persuasions. The Virginians sought to duplicate in the
new land the spirit of the victors across the sea and make religion
uniform in their colony. Laws were passed against popish recusants as
early as 1643. Other laws were passed by their assembly between the
years 1659 and 1663 against those who failed to have their children
baptized. The Quakers especially found these laws most severe. The
early Baptists of Virginia were of the common people; their ministers
were illiterate; and for a while they escaped notice. The first
imprisonment of Baptists was in the county of Spottsylvania, Va., June
4, 1768. Three Baptists, John Waller, Lewis Craig, and James Childs,
with others, were arrested for disturbing the peace. (There was no
law against preaching.) The opposing lawyer in the court-room made this
charge:

 May it please your worships, these men are great disturbers of the
 peace; they cannot meet a man on the road, but they ram a text of
 Scripture down his throat.

Mr. Waller so defended himself and his brethren that their enemies were
somewhat puzzled to know how to proceed against them. They offered
to release them on promise to refrain from preaching in the county
for a year and a day. The defendants refused the offer and were sent
to prison. Other Baptist ministers were arrested, and soon thirty
were under arrest. The prisons became Baptist pulpits, and multitudes
gathered around them to hear the preachers. Their opponents engaged
drummers to drown the preaching; high enclosures were in some cases
erected before prison windows, and suffocating materials were burned
near the prisons. Baptists from the beginning were unremitting in their
struggle to secure religious liberty. They secured the support of
Patrick Henry, a member of the Established Church, but a firm friend of
all who stood for liberty, civil and religious. He helped the Baptists
to win the complete victory.

The Baptist cause was destined to have a more congenial atmosphere
in Pennsylvania when we remember that William Penn, its illustrious
founder, had an English Baptist father and a Dutch mother, undoubtedly
of Anabaptist descent. He received his charter in 1681, forty-five
years after Roger Williams’ banishment from Massachusetts. Penn
possessed broad and liberal ideas and was opposed to any church
establishment. He provided

 that all persons who confess and acknowledge the Almighty and Eternal
 God to be the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the world, ... should
 in no ways be molested, nor compelled to frequent or maintain any
 religious worship.

Yet only those confessing faith in Jesus Christ could become freemen in
Penn’s domain. The separate Quakers in the colony of Pennsylvania were
arrested, fined, and imprisoned for dissent.

[Illustration: John Clarke Memorial First Baptist Church of Newport, R.
I.]

[Illustration: Grave of John Clarke]

The first company of Baptists in this colony came from Rhode Island.
William Dugan came there in 1684, three years after Penn received
his charter. He settled at Cold Spring, in Bucks County. The first
church in Philadelphia was founded by John Holmes in 1686. The first
meeting-place was at the corner of Second and Chestnut Streets.

[Illustration: The Law in William Penn’s Colony. No Absolute
Soul-liberty in Pennsylvania in Those Days.]

 [Sidenote: Two Thirds of the Members have the Power of a full House.
 No Member to vote &c. in the House till qualified. The Qualification
 of every Member of Assembly. Altered by an Act pass’d in the II Geo.
 I, entitled An Act--prescribing the Forms of Declaration of Fidelity.
 &c.]

 AND if any County or Part of this Province shall refuse or neglect to
 choose their respective Representatives as aforesaid, or if chosen, do
 not meet to serve in Assembly, those who are so chosen and met shall
 have the full Power of an Assembly in as ample Manner as if all the
 Representatives had been chosen and met; Provided, they are not less
 than two Thirds of the Whole that ought to meet.

 AND BE IT FURTHER ENACTED by the Authority aforesaid, That no
 Person who shall be hereafter a Member of the Assembly, or House of
 Representatives of this Province, shall be capable to vote in the said
 House, or sit there during any Debate, after their Speaker is chosen,
 until he shall make and subscribe the following Declarations and
 Profession his Belief, _viz._,

 _I_ A. B. _do sincerely promise, and solemnly declare before GOD
 and the World, That I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to
 Queen_ Anne. _And I do solemnly profess and declare. That I do,
 from my Heart, abbor, detest and renounce as impious and heretical,
 that damnable Doctrine and Position, That Princes excommunicated or
 deprived by the Pope, or any Authority of the See of_ Rome, _may be
 deposed or murdered by their Subjects, or any other whatsoever_.

 _AND I do declare, That no foreign Prince, Person, Prelate, State
 or Potentate hath, or ought to have, any Power, Jurisdiction,
 Superiority, Preeminence or Authority ecclesiastical or spiritual,
 within the Realm of_ England, _or the Dominions thereunto belonging_.

 _AND I_ A. B. _do solemnly and sincerely, in the Presence of_ GOD,
 _profess, testify and declare, That I do believe that in the Sacrament
 of the_ LORD’s _Supper there is not any Transubstantiation of the
 Elements of Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of_ CHRIST, _at or
 after the Consecration thereof, by any Person whatsoever; and that the
 Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin_ Mary, _or any other Saint, and
 the Sacrifice of the_ Mass, _as they are now used in the Church of_
 Rome, _are superstitions and Idolatrous_.

 _AND I do solemnly, in the Presence of_ GOD, _profess, testify and
 declare. That I do make this Declaration and every Part thereof, in
 the plain and ordinary Sense of the Words read unto me, as they are
 commonly understood by_ English Protestants, _without any Evasion,
 Equivocation or mental Reservation whatsoever and without any
 Dispensation already granted me for this Purpose by the Pope, or any
 other Authority or Person whatsoever, or without any Hope of any such
 Dispensation from any Person or Authority whatsoever, or without
 thinking I am or may be acquitted before_ GOD, _or Man, or absolved of
 this Declaration, or any Part thereof, although the Pope, or any other
 Person or Persons, or Power whatsoever, should dispense with or annull
 the same, or declare that it was null or void from the Beginning_.

 _AND I_ A. B. _profess Faith in_ GOD _the Father, and in_ JESUS
 CHRIST, _his eternal Son, the true_ GOD, _and in the_ HOLY SPIRIT,
 _one_ GOD, _blessed for evermore; and do acknowledge the_ Holy
 Scriptures _of the_ Old _and_ New-Testament, _to be given by divine
 Inspiration_.

Lord Baltimore, the Roman Catholic proprietor of Maryland, was far in
advance of his Church. He came to the New World to secure religious
liberty for himself and his friends. The Maryland Act of Toleration,
issued in 1649, provided that

 Blasphemy against God, and a denial of the Trinity should be punished
 with death and confiscation of lands and goods, and blasphemy against
 the Virgin Mary should first be punished by a fine of five pounds, and
 if persisted in, by a forfeiture of all possessions and banishment
 from the colony.

[Illustration: The Law Concerning Religious Toleration in Maryland
Colony. It is not Religious Liberty.]

[Sidenote: 1649.]

 Acts and Orders of ASSEMBLY, assented to, enacted and made, at a
 General Session of the said Assembly, begun and held at _St. Mary_’s
 on the 2d Day of _April_ 1649, and ended the 21st Day of the same
 Month.

 WILLIAM STONE, Esq; Governor.

 CHAP. I. [Illustration]

 [Sidenote: Passed 21st of _April_ 1649.]

 _An Act concerning Religion. Lib._ C _and_ WH. _fol._ 106. _Lib._ WH.
 _fol._ 111. _and Lib._ WH _and_ L. _fol._ 1.

 Confirmed among the perpetual Laws 1676, _ch._ 2.

 _N. B._ By this Law, (1.) Blasphemy against GOD, denying our Saviour
 JESUS CHRIST to be the Son of GOD, or denying the Holy TRINITY, or the
 Godhead of any of the Three Persons, _&c._ was to be Punished with
 Death, and Confiscation of Lands and Goods to the Lord Proprietary.
 (2.) Persons using any reproachful Words or Speeches concerning the
 Blessed Virgin _Mary_, Mother of our Saviour, or the Holy Apostles
 or Evangelists, or any of them, for the 1st Offence to forfeit 5_l._
 Sterling to the Lord Proprietary; or, in default of Payment, to be
 publicly Whipped, and Imprisoned at the Pleasure of his Lordship, or
 his Lieut. General. For the 2d Offence to forfeit 10_l._ Sterling,
 or in default of Payment to be publicly and severely Whipped, and
 Imprisoned as before directed. And for the 3d Offence to forfeit Lands
 and Goods, and be for ever Banished out of the Province. (3.) Persons
 reproaching any other within the Province by the Name or Denomination
 of Heretic, Schismatic, Idolater, Puritan, Independent, Presbyterian,
 Popish Priest, Jesuit, Jesuited Papist, Lutheran, Calvinist,
 Anabaptist, Brownist, Antinomian, Barrowist, Round-Head, Separatist,
 or any other Name or Term in a reproach-

The Baptist church at Chestnut Ridge was formed in 1742 by Henry
Sator, a layman of the General Baptist order, who had recently come
from England. He invited Baptist ministers to preach in his house. They
soon gathered a congregation; proselytes were gained, and a church
organized. This church appealed to the governor and was taken under the
protection of the toleration laws.

[Illustration: Puritan-Religious-Liberty! Facsimile of original laws.
From “Body of Liberties.” First legal code for the government of the
Bay Colony. Drawn up by Rev. Nathaniel Ward, Lawyer-divine of Ipswich.]

 94. _Capitall Laws._

 1.

 [Sidenote: Dut. 13. 6, 10.

 Dut. 17. 2, 6

 Ex. 22. 20.]

 [Sidenote: P. 14.

 S. 1.]

 If any man after legall conviction shall have or worship any other
 god, but the lord god, he shall be put to death.

 2.

 [Sidenote: Ex. 22. 18.

 Lev. 20. 27.

 Dut. 18. 10.]

 [Sidenote: S. 2.]

 If any man or woeman be a witch, (that is hath or consulteth with a
 familiar spirit,) They shall be put to death.

 3.

 [Sidenote: Lev. 24. 15, 16.]

 [Sidenote: S. 3.]

 If any man shall Blaspheme the name of god, the father, Sonne or Holie
 ghost, with direct, expresse, presumptuous or high handed blasphemie,
 or shall curse god in the like manner, he shall be put to death.

THE FINAL VICTORY IN THE LONG STRUGGLE

Two Baptist organizations in close sympathy with each other contributed
much toward the final victory. They made appeals to their immediate
constituency and also to the larger following of all Baptists and other
lovers of religious liberty. These were the Warren Association in New
England, and the General Committee in Virginia. Each had a committee
of grievances. The Baptists were nobly assisted by Presbyterians and
Quakers in the final stages of the great conflict. Isaac Backus wrote
his immortal work on “A History of New England, with Especial Reference
to the Baptists.” He drafted appeals for the Association and for the
committee on grievances to the General Assembly, published addresses on
religious liberty, and inserted advertisements in leading papers. He
believed that partial history and false statements regarding Baptist
history and doctrines should be removed by scattering impartial and
true knowledge. He was a Baptist giant and had his share in forming
sentiment, which eventually made religious intoleration impossible in
America.

Isaac Backus, with President Manning, of Brown University, then Rhode
Island College, went to Philadelphia and with Quakers and others
appealed to John Adams and other Massachusetts delegates in Carpenter
Hall, Philadelphia. These advocates of soul-liberty took the position
that to pay taxes to support a church clergy in which they did not
believe was as much a wrong as to pay taxes for a government in which
they had no representation. It was not the paltry tax of fourpence a
man that the colonists in Massachusetts rebelled against. It was the
principle that was back of paying the pence which they opposed. They
were greatly amazed when John Adams told them that their own colony,
Massachusetts, had “the most mild and equitable establishment of
religion that was known in the world.”

[Illustration: William Rogers James Manning Isaac Backus These men were
all connected with the opening of the first Baptist college in America.
James Manning was the first president; Isaac Backus, a member of the
original board of trustees; William Rogers, the first student.]

The Virginia Baptists, through their General Convention, organized in
1784, united the efforts of the Baptists there and in New England for
the final phases of the war against religious tyranny. For four years
they had worked for liberty in their State laws and had won a complete
victory. Then, in 1788, they turned to the national issue. The Federal
Constitution had provided in Article VI, “No religious Test shall ever
be required as a qualification to any Office or public Trust under the
United States.” This did not satisfy the Baptists, because religious
tests might be imposed for other purposes than those specified. In a
noble letter, drafted by John Leland, a Baptist minister, they appealed
to Washington. They paid a high compliment to his achievements and
then stated their grievance, closing with these words:

 If religious liberty is rather insecure in the Constitution the
 administration will certainly prevent all oppression, for a WASHINGTON
 will preside. Should the horrid evils that have been so pestiferous
 in Asia and Europe, faction, ambition, war, perfidy, fraud, and
 persecution for conscience sake, ever approach the borders of
 our happy nation, may the name and administration of our beloved
 President, like the radiant source of day, scatter all the dark clouds
 from the American hemisphere.

Washington replied that his ideals were the same, assuring them of
this, in the following words:

 No one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual
 barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny and every species of
 religious persecution.

He complimented the Baptists and said that they

 have been, throughout America, uniformly and almost unanimously, the
 firm friends to civil liberty, and the persevering promoters of our
 glorious revolution.

His assurance was not empty words. In a short time James Madison, with
the President’s approval, submitted certain amendments. Article VI was
superseded by the First Amendment to the Constitution, which specified:

 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
 prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging freedom of speech,
 or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and
 to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Thus the long fight was won in America, and now people generally
appreciate the importance of the victory gained. Rhode Island may
have hesitated to accept the imperfect Constitution, with its lack of
assurance for complete religious liberty. In this connection we should
not forget that Massachusetts and Connecticut were the last to ratify
the First Amendment.

VII

THE WORLD-WIDE INFLUENCE OF ROGER WILLIAMS’ IDEAL

 “The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted
 upon trusted foundations of political liberty.”--_President Wilson’s
 War Message to Congress, 1917._

  Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d
  In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
  There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
  And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.
  --_Alfred Tennyson._

 A day will come when bullets and bombs shall be replaced by ballots,
 by the universal suffrages of the people, by the sacred arbitrament
 of a great Sovereign Senate.... A day will come when we shall face
 those two immense groups, the United States of America and the United
 States of Europe, in face of each other, extending hand to hand over
 the ocean, exchanging their products, their commerce, their industry,
 their art, their genius clearing the earth, colonizing deserts, and
 ameliorating creation under the eye of the Creator. To you, I appeal,
 French, English, Germans, Russians, Slavs, Europeans, Americans,
 what have we to do to hasten the coming of the great day? LOVE ONE
 ANOTHER.--_Victor Hugo._

 I asked him (Premier Lloyd George) what message he would send to
 American Baptists. Quick as a flash, he turned and said: “Tell them
 that it is Baptist principles that we are fighting for in this
 great struggle. All that Baptists count dear is at stake in this
 issue.”--_Lloyd George to George Coleman, President, Northern Baptist
 Convention. From the latter’s speech at Atlantic City, N. J., May,
 1918._

THE WORLD-WIDE INFLUENCE OF ROGER WILLIAMS’ IDEAL

Roger Williams, as a man of vision, was experimenting with a new
idealism. His ideas, now generally accepted, have made absolute
religious liberty, with its complete separation of Church and State, an
idea almost synonymous with the name of the United States of America.
That lonely man, in the smallest of the colonies, set the pace for the
other twelve original commonwealths and established a national pattern
for the forty-eight States in the present Union. Our cup of blessing
has overflowed, and today the whole world is awaking to the blessings
in store for them if they partake of the same privileges.

“Mankind has pursued liberty over mountain and across valley,” writes
Pres. E. Y. Mullins,

 by land and by sea, through fire and through flood, since the
 first man caught a glimpse of liberty’s white robes leading on to
 victory. The love of victory is now a volcanic fire which breaks out
 into revolution and consumes and destroys the ancient fabrics of
 government, and now it is a tide of life which rolls across the face
 of nations, causing them to burst into the beauty and fragrance of a
 new springtime. The spirit of liberty in its quest for the goal of its
 desire has sounded all the notes in the gamut of human experience,
 from the minor notes of abject despair to the ringing pæan of victory
 over every foe.

The Baptist churches of America, the torch-bearers of religious
or soul-liberty, have grown from the one church which Williams
founded in Providence into a mighty host. From twelve members in one
church organization in 1639 that denomination has grown in America
until today, according to the latest government statistics, it has
the largest membership of any Protestant denomination in America,
7,236,650. Its one preacher has become a great host of 39,734, serving
53,133 churches. Instead of one college with one student in 1764,
it now has 463 schools in America, with 68,513 students. Instead
of one lone missionary to the Indians, it now has a large army of
missionaries in the home and foreign fields.

Doctor Masters, Secretary of Publicity of the Home Mission Board
of the Southern Baptist Convention, in tabulating the figures from
the preliminary statistics furnished by the United States Census
Department, calls our attention to the fact that the approximate
Baptist population of America, including members and other adherents,
is twenty-two millions. The Baptists are thus in the lead of every
denomination, Catholic or Protestant, in America; our net gain for ten
years is the greatest of all denominations, 28 per cent, compared with
10.8 per cent of the Roman Catholics. He gives the comparative strength
of Romanists and evangelicals in America as eighty million evangelicals
to 15,700,000 Roman Catholics.

Before the days of the great war, Pres. E. Y. Mullins, with prophetic
vision wrote:

 We are approaching the Baptist age of the world, because we are
 approaching the age of the triumph of democracy. Like a vine growing
 in the darkness of some deep cavern, and slowly stretching itself
 toward the dim light shining in through the distant mouth of the
 cavern, so has humanity slowly crept on toward freedom. The mighty
 hordes of the Asiatic and European world, weary and sad yet courageous
 and resolute, are hastening forward with unresting feet toward the
 gates of destiny. Toward those gates these hundreds of years the
 Baptists have been pointing, and today in the foremost files of time
 they lead the way. As humanity enters they will shout with the full
 knowledge that God in Christ has led all the way.... And the goal
 of human progress shall be realized in an eternal society wherein
 absolute democracy is joined to absolute monarchy, God the Father
 being the monarch, and his people a vast family of free children.

True political liberty is the child of religious liberty. It must
look to freedom of the soul as a child does to its mother for birth,
protection, and provision. Political anarchy is the usual result of a
people seeking full liberty by ignoring or neglecting the support which
religion brings to man’s moral nature. It is a long road to political
liberty, but it is a road which has run parallel with religious
liberty. It is interesting to note the Americanization of the world.
There were few democracies when our Republic was born. Our victory over
tyranny was an inspiration to oppressed peoples. The French followed
shortly afterward. Wherever Napoleon went, he held aloft the banner of
equality and liberty. He granted the latter under a form of government
by which he became emperor. After almost a century, France gained
both. Napoleon’s exile to St. Helena did not usher in a restoration
of the older European order. National sovereignty and constitutional
government were the constituent parts of a liberty the people would
not be denied in almost all the countries of Europe. In Italy, Charles
Albert, King of Savoy, Sardinia, and Piedmont, gave his people a
constitutional form of government. Though opposed by the papal States
and Austria, this movement grew until, under King Emmanuel, Cavour, and
Garibaldi, all Italy was united and free. Denmark followed in 1849,
Greece in 1866, and Spain the following year. The Christians of the
Balkan Peninsula revolted from the Turks in 1875, and were recognized a
power by the greater powers and were given a constitutional government.
In 1910 Portugal banished royalty and welcomed democracy. Russia, in
1917, threw off the shackles of autocracy for those of anarchy. When
she awakes from her delirium she will doubtless see the true light and
follow it.

The Americanization of Asia is moving rapidly forward. In 1852
Commodore Perry--by a strange providence from Rhode Island--forced open
the door into Japan. The shoguns, masters for centuries, lost their
power. Then the Mikado for twenty years took their autocratic powers
to himself but was compelled after that to give his people a liberal
constitutional form of government. The Chinese nation, hoary with age,
entered the list of democracies in 1911, becoming the United States
of China. The Shah of Persia, after a broken promise which brought
on a revolution, gave his people, in 1906, a constitutional form of
government. The Young Turks in 1909, after compelling Abdul Hamid II
to abdicate, placed Mohammed V on the throne as his successor. Prior
to the Great War they had what is at least an approach to the newer
constitutional ideals of the modern world.

The lands to the south of us have their struggle toward the same
desired goal. The Republic of Mexico needs a religious and educational
preparation which will largely solve, among that unassimilated
conglomeration of Indians, negroes, and mestizos, the problem of stable
government. Let the religious leaders of Mexico, who have tried for
centuries with their religious autocratic systems, give way for a
single generation to the evangelical churches with their democratic
idealisms and the unchained Bible, and then revolutions and immorality
will fade away, and the land, so desolated in recent years, will
blossom like the rose.

When Napoleon defeated the monarchs of Europe and their system, he
shook the confidence of the people of Central and South America in
their absent monarchs across the seas. South American nations followed
one by one into the class of democracies. Central American States also
broke away from their European masters. These lands need the open Bible
of the evangelical Christian churches more than our battleships and
marines. When superstition is banished by the light which radiates from
the Bible, then the republics to the south of us will vie with us in
advancement and prosperity.

Absolute monarchy is doomed in Europe and throughout the world. The
sword unsheathed by America must not rest in its scabbard until
democracy is safe in the world and the world is made safe for
democracy. Belgium outraged, France desecrated, Great Britain drained,
Russia bleeding slowly to death, and all Europe a shambles, may find in
the ideals of Roger Williams healing for their wounds and health for
the coming years.

Due honor should be given to every colony builder of the New World.
Great were their suffering and sacrifices.

  All praise to others of the vanguard then,
  To Spain, to France, to Baltimore and Penn.
  To Jesuit, Quaker, Puritan, and Priest,
  Their toils be crowned, their honors be increased.

  Give praise to others early come or late,
  For love and labor on our ship of state.

By faith the Pilgrims left old England, and sojourned in Holland as
in a strange country. By faith they trusted their all to God and the
Mayflower. By faith they endured the hardships of that first winter and
founded their colony in which they sought to honor God according to the
truth as they saw it. All honor to the faith of our Pilgrim Fathers.

In hope the Puritans left their native land, seeking not a separation
from the mother Church but rather purification of the Established
Order. In hope they founded Salem and Boston and other towns about
the Massachusetts Bay. In hope they laid strong the foundations which
afterward led to the victories of Lexington and Bunker Hill. All honor
to the Puritan builders of a great commonwealth, the New America.

Through charity Roger Williams fled into the depths of snowy forests
and crossed frozen streams, to form among savage tribes a new colony
where no man would be denied political privileges because of religious
belief. Through charity he forgave those who exiled him and at the
risk of his own life saved Puritan and Pilgrim from an impending
Indian massacre. Through charity he shared his purchased possessions
gratuitously with others. Through charity he formed the immortal
compact binding men together “only in civil things.” Through charity he
sacrificed his humble patrimony, his home at Salem, and the earnings of
his lifetime to safeguard and protect the colony he had founded for the
joys of others. Through charity he extended for the first time in our
national history a loving welcome to men of all beliefs into the new
fraternity of human hearts founded for human helpfulness.

Roger Williams possessed the faith of the Pilgrim and the hope of the
Puritan. Faith and hope getteth, but charity giveth. Roger Williams
possessed the charity of Christ. He followed in the footsteps of
his Master along a pathway of pain. Like the Man of Galilee, in the
olive orchard and vine-clad garden, and on the bleak skull-shaped
hill without the walls of Jerusalem, his humble servant, the man of
Providence, had his Gethsemane and Golgotha in the frozen forests and
on the snow-clad hills under the wintry skies of New England.

  Aye, call it holy ground,
    The soil where first they trod,
  They left unstained what there they found,
    Freedom to worship God.

And now in these United States of America, there abideth the faith
of the Pilgrim, the hope of the Puritan, and the charity of Roger
Williams; but the greatest of these is charity.

STUDY OUTLINE OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ROGER WILLIAMS

ROGER WILLIAMS AND HIS TIMES

1. _Rise and Development of English Puritanism_: Reformation in
England, from Wyclif to Henry VIII. Reformation under Henry VIII,
Edward VI, and Elizabeth. Influence of the Marian exiles. Rise of
English Puritanism. Influence and mission of Thomas Cartwright and
Robert Browne. Growth of Presbyterianism and independency. Origin of
British Baptists (in Wales and England).

2. _Contemporaneous Colonial Settlements_: The Plymouth Pilgrims. The
Dorchester Adventurers. Naumkeag settlers. Endicott Company at Salem.
Winthrop Company at Boston. Connecticut settlers. Early Dutch and
Virginia settlements. (Study idealism, origin, vitality of each.)

3. _Indian Predecessors of Roger Williams and Puritans_: Tribal
settlements, their ideas, customs, and moral status. Ideas of
soul-liberty among the Indians. Priority of Williams’ Indian missionary
work. Labors of Eliot and others.

II

ROGER WILLIAMS, HIS LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS

1. _Life Prior to Exile from England, 1602-1629_: His birth and
education. Religious ferment in England. His love affairs, marriage,
and exile.

2. _In New England Prior to Settlement in Providence, 1629-1636_:
Experiences in Boston, Salem, Plymouth, the wilderness, and Seekonk.

3. _Providence Plantations Prior to First Charter, 1636-1644_:
Arrival. Reception by Indians. First deeds to property. Baptism.
Early government. Indian troubles. Neighbors at Pawtuxet, Warwick,
Portsmouth, and Blackstone. Williams’ first visit to England. First
charter. Indian trading-post near Wickford. His first writings.

4. _Providence under the First Charter, 1644-1663_: Growth of colony.
Indian difficulties. Coddington’s claims. Opposition from the United
Colonies. Williams’ second visit to England. His writings. Work of his
colaborer, John Clarke, of Newport, in securing second charter.

5. _Growth, Destruction, and Rebuilding of Providence, 1663-1676_:
General pre-Indian War prosperity. The Quakers. The debate and
Williams’ writings. Indian War with King Philip. Reconstruction.

6. _Closing Days and Death of Roger Williams_: Official position.
Retirement and death. Burial. Later removal of dust.

7. _Providence after the Death of its Founder_: Commercially,
religiously, educationally, and politically. Its glorious share in the
Revolutionary War. Its glory among the brotherhood of States. Growth of
its ideal throughout the world.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE ROGER WILLIAMS IDEAL OF SOUL-LIBERTY

1. _Prior to Days of Williams_: The pioneers, the predecessors of
Williams, and the continuity of the struggle for soul-liberty among the
early Christians. The work of the Anabaptists or Baptists in the Dark
Ages in northern Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, and England and
Wales. Study their published confessions on the subject of soul-liberty.

2. _Contemporaries of Roger Williams_: The General and Particular
Baptists of England. A consideration of the ideals of toleration,
liberty of conscience, and absolute soul-liberty in the settlements
of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts Bay Colony,
Connecticut; and the Indian’s position also. Compare all these with the
peculiar position of Roger Williams.

3. _Successors of Roger Williams_: The American Baptists. Study
especially the Warren Baptist Association with its committee on
grievances. Study the work of the Philadelphia Baptist Convention.
Study also the work of the Baptists in other States. Cooperation of
Quakers, Presbyterians, and others.

IV

THE WORLD-WIDE INFLUENCE OF ROGER WILLIAMS’ IDEAL

Political democracy, a fruit of religious liberty. The onward march of
democracy in America, Europe, Asia, and South America. The world war
and the world-wide struggle for democracy. Present status of the world
as to religious liberty and as to political democracy. (Take a map and
indicate the same.)

A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

_Biographies_:

 Backus, “History of New England.” (First history in which Williams’
 life-story is told at length.)

 Knowles, “Memoir of Roger Williams.”

 Gammell, “Life of Roger Williams.”

 Elton, “Life of Roger Williams.”

 Straus, “Roger Williams, Pioneer of Religious Liberty.”

 Carpenter, “Roger Williams, A Political Pioneer.”

 Hall, “Roger Williams.”

_Original Documents_:

 “Complete Writings of Roger Williams,” Narragansett Club Publications.

 Bradford, “The Bradford History.”

 Winthrop, “History of the Puritans.”

 Chapin, “Documentary History of Rhode Island.”

 Early Colonial Records.

 Early Records of the Town of Providence. Vols. III, IV, V, VIII.

 Cotton, “Magnalia.”

_General Histories_:

 Arnold, “History of Rhode Island.”

 Staples, “Annals of Providence.”

 Greene, “Providence Plantations for 250 Years.”

 Richman, “Rhode Island, Its Making and its Meaning.”

_Evolution of Soul-liberty_:

 King, “Religious Liberty.”

 Ivimey, “History of English Baptists.”

 General Baptist Church Histories, by Benedict, Armitage, Newman,
 Cathcart, Vedder, etc.

 Mullins, “Axioms of Religion.”

_Historic Spots_:

 Guild, “Footprints of Roger Williams.”

 Hopkins, “The Home Lots of the Early Settlers.”

 State of Rhode Island, “Report of Committee on Marking of Historic
 Sites in Rhode Island.”

 Rider, “Lands of Rhode Island as They Were Known to Canonicus.”

_Fiction_:

 Butterworth, “In the Days of Massasoit.”

 Hall, “The Golden Arrow.”

 Durfee, the epic poem, “What Cheer.”

_Other Books and Pamphlets_:

 H. M. King, “Baptism of Roger Williams,” “Summer Visit of Three Rhode
 Islanders,” “The Mother Church,” “The True Roger Williams,” “Life of
 John Miles,” “Historical Catalog of First Baptist Church.”

 Kimball, “Providence in Colonial Times.”

 Dexter, “As to Roger Williams’ Banishment.”

 Burrage, “Why Was Roger Williams Banished?”

 Merriman, “Pilgrim, Puritan, and Roger Williams.”

 Dorr, “The Planting and Growth of Providence.”

 Burgess, “Reconciliation of Government with Liberty.”

 Eaton, “Roger Williams, the Founder of Providence.”

 Durfee, “Complete Works of Job Durfee.”

 Backus Historical Society, “Elements in Baptist Development.”

_Notable Addresses_:

 Z. Allan, “Memorial of Roger Williams.”

 W. H. P. Faunce, “Roger Williams and His Doctrine of Soul Liberty.”

 Mowry, “Concerning Roger Williams.”

 Durfee, “Oration on 250th Anniversary.”

 Rabbi A. Simon, “Thanksgiving Address on Roger Williams.”

 Diman, “Address at Unveiling of Statue of Roger Williams at Roger
 Williams Park.”

 Proceedings in Congress on Receiving the Roger Williams Statue.

AN ITINERARY FOR A HISTORIC PILGRIMAGE

PLACES OF INTEREST OUTSIDE OF RHODE ISLAND

_In England_: Charterhouse School. Pembroke College, Cambridge.

_In America_: Salem: Site of First Meeting House. The original old
First Church. The Original Roger Williams House (The Witch House).

Plymouth: Coles Hill. The Burial Hill. Harbor. The Meresteads.

Boston and Vicinity: Original Bradford History in State House. Site
of Meeting House where trial took place (Dunster and Meeting Streets,
Cambridge). Site of old First Church.

New York City: Roger Williams’ Watch, in Fraunce’s Tavern.

II

PLACES OF INTEREST IN RHODE ISLAND

_In Providence_: Study a map of the original Home Lots in relation to
the present streets of Providence. (Hopkins, “Home Lots,” is good.)

Capitol Building: The Original Charter from Charles II. The Original
Portsmouth Compact in Secretary of State’s Office.

Court House: Grant’s picture of Landing of Williams.

City Hall: Original Deeds from the Indians. Williams’ Letter of
transference. Original Compact of Providence Settlers.

Civic Center: Symbolical Statuary on Post Office Building. Civic Center
is probably the site of Williams’ baptism.

The Rhode Island Historical Society’s Building: The Apple Tree Roots
from Grave of Williams, his Compass, etc.

John Hay Library: Copy of Roger Williams’ Indian Bible.

John Carter Brown Library: Original Copies of Williams’ books and
letters.

Brown University.

Site of Town Meetings at Entrance to Tunnel.

First Baptist Church: The Bell. Specimen from What Cheer Rock in Lobby.
Pictures of Pastors, etc.

Pardon Tillinghast’s Grave, Benefit Street near Transit.

What Cheer Rock, Roger and Williams Streets.

Sabin Tavern, South Main Street and Transit, Where Gaspee Plot was
hatched.

Old School House on Meeting Street Opposite to this, Site of First Post
Office.

Old State House, where First Declaration of Independence was signed.

Site of Spring, 244 North Main Street.

Site of Roger Williams House, North Main and Alamo Streets.

Grave of Roger Williams, rear of Stable, 108 Benefit Street.

North Burial Ground: Canonicus Rock. Randall Tomb. (Removal Place for
Dust of Williams.) Graves of Manning and Wayland. Memorial to Chad
Brown.

Hopkins Square: Grave and Monument to Admiral Hopkins, Charles Street
and Branch Avenue. The Home of Admiral Hopkins on Admiral Street.

Roger Williams Park: Statue of Williams. Museum with Indian Relics and
Model of Indian Village.

_Out from Providence_: Fort Independence Site at Field’s Point. Gaspee
Point beyond. Drum Rock, Apponaug. Grave of Ezekiel Holliman, Shawomet.
Site of Williams’ Trading-post, Wickford. Indian Soapstone Quarry,
Johnston. Barrington, R. I. Pierce’s Fight, Central Falls.

_Sites at Newport_: Town of Portsmouth on Island. Site of Governor
Bull’s House. First Baptist Church. Graves of Clarke and of Coddington.

_Old Houses_: Gilbert Stuart’s House, North Kingston. Nathanael
Greene’s House, Cumberland. Reynolds’ House (Headquarters of
Lafayette), Bristol. Prescott’s Headquarters, Portsmouth. Stephen
Hopkins’ House, Hopkins Street, Providence.

  Transcriber’s Notes:

  Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.

  Small capitals have been capitalised.

  Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.

  Perceived typographical errors have been changed.

  Repetative chapter headings have been removed.