The party who renewed this almost forgotten contest, under the

leadership of Mr. Byles and his friends, with the intention of

making the position of the Rogerenes untenable, having brought

affairs to this crisis, are resolved to conquer. They proceed in the

line of violence which they have inaugurated, and in their rage even

demand of these devoted people that—to escape torture—they recant

their testimony against the doctrines and practices of this church.

Their testimony being of a purely Scriptural character, how can they

recant, even if they would, except by denying the truth of those

declarations from the New Testament which they have proclaimed in

the presence of their persecutors? The zeal of the Rogerenes is only

redoubled. It is now a question whether they will obey men rather

than God, for fear of what men may do to them. Yet, in their strict

fidelity to the teachings of Christ, they make no resistance to the

redoubled efforts of their enemies. Though their old men are

scourged to the verge of death and their women insulted; though

their brethren are suspended by the thumbs to be mercilessly whipped

on the bare skin; though warm tar is poured on their heads; though

men and women are driven through the streets more brutally than any

cattle, to be thrown into the river; though they are given over to

mobs of heartless children and youth to be whipped with thorny

sticks and otherwise abused, not the smallest or weakest of their

persecutors need fear the slightest violence in return.

With every attempt at a fresh testimony, the brutality of their

enemies is increased and the terms of imprisonment doubled, until

the prison is filled to suffocation and some of those within venture

to bar the doors against the incarceration of fresh victims. It

being impossible to further punish the offenders already in prison,

other than through presentation to the County Court, those who have

barred the door are presented at that court, probably on their own

confession, by reason of which there is one court record, relating

to this otherwise lawless contest of a year and a half in duration,

which is to the following effect:—

“Samuel Rogers, John Rogers, Alexander Rogers, Nathaniel Rogers”

(all sons of John Rogers, 2d) “and Joseph Bolles, of New London,

Samuel Smith of Groton” (grandson of Bathsheba) “Timothy

Waterhouse” (son of John of Groton) “bound over to the County

Court to answer complaint of Christopher Christophers” (son of

Chris. Chris.) “sheriff of New London, for that said persons, with

sundry other persons, on Sunday, Aug. 12th, 1764, did, in a very

high-handed, tumultuous manner, being in N. L. prison, bar up the

doors of said prison on the justice, so that said sheriff and

officers were denied and prevented admission into and possession

of said prison, and made a most tumultuous noise and uproar &c. as

pr. writ.”

The sentence of the court is a fine of 40_s._ each and costs of

prosecution, £2 each, which indicates more sympathy than severity on

the part of this court.

[Since the early and the latter scenes of this long contest are

shown to have been marked by unflinching endurance, unswerving

courage and strategic measures on the part of the defence, it may be

judged that during the entire period of unrelenting endeavors to

continue to a successful issue the policy instigated by Mr. Byles,

the assailants of the Rogerenes were encouraged by no signs of

weakening on the part of the sufferers, while much discouraged by

the disgrace attached to their church and the disapprobation of not

a few of its own members, on account of the unprecedentedly severe

policy that had brought on this countermove and the startlingly

barbarous punishments for the same.]

After nearly two year’s continuance of such heroic measures, under

leadership of Mr. Byles and his friends, the Rogerenes, while many

of their heads of families are in prison, institute a new kind of

tactics, striking more directly at the very root of the matter,

viz., at Mr. Byles. The plan is to have some of their people besiege

Mr. Byles, at every conceivable opportunity, with attempts to

converse with him in regard to the teachings of the New Testament,

and to reason with him concerning the cruelties practised upon the

Rogerenes. They are also to go to the meeting-house on Sunday and

sit directly in his sight, and they are to linger in the

neighborhood of his house or the meeting-house, where he may know of

their vicinity and expect them to walk with him and talk to him “of

the things of God,” whenever he ventures outside.

Victory is now near at hand. Mr. Byles is driven nearly frantic. His

tormentors are thrown into prison for declining to give bonds or to

pay fines for attempts to approach this gentleman and converse with

him. In this serio-comic crisis, parties of Rogerenes enter the

meeting-house on Sunday and sit where Mr. Byles cannot fail to

observe their grave, earnest and otherwise expressive faces, telling

volumes at a glance, of inexpressible sufferings and losses, endured

through tedious months and wasting years, of children left

fatherless and motherless at home or wandering the streets tearful

and hungry, and of many a bitter thing well known to Mr. Byles. But,

most eloquent of all to him and most impressive, is the fixed

determination in their faces to continue in his sight at every

opportunity. Even a cat may look at a king without fear of

consequences, and so do the Rogerenes look at Mr. Byles. Here is

something that has been left out of the law books.

Ere long, the able-bodied men and women not in prison may attend to

business and family duties, while a few old people, principally

women, go on Sunday to sit in the meeting-house, or stand outside

before and after meeting. Also on week days they sit or stand in the

vicinity of Mr. Byle’s house, until he will not venture out, if but

one such person is near. Nor will he go to the church on Sunday,

even if there are but two or three Rogerene women outside, until

some official drives them away and escorts him to the meeting-house.

The bell is sometimes kept tolling a full hour, until it is time the

long service should be well under way, before the minister makes his

appearance; he has been waiting for some one to drive these women

away.

For the whole time—more than two months—that the men who have

attempted to converse with Mr. Byles are kept in prison, these

faithful women keep the watch on Mr. Byles. When the men are at

length released, they renew their endeavors to talk with Mr. Byles.

It is now not long before Mr. Byles has had more than enough

opportunity to distinguish himself in an endeavor to extinguish the

Rogerenes. He is determined not only to leave New London but to

desert the Congregational ministry and denomination, and lays all

the blame of his failure to conquer these people upon lack of

execution of the ecclesiastical laws!!![168] His determination is

sudden, so far as the knowledge of his parishioners is concerned,

and his exit speedy in the extreme. (For particulars regarding his

resignation, see extract from “Debate, etc.,” in _Appendix_.)

Footnote 168:

Mr. Byles, having precipitately left New London and the country to

receive Episcopal orders in England, his “forsaken congregation”

(Caulkins) criticised and ridiculed him mercilessly, even to

lampoons (see “History of New London”), among which was one called

“The Proselyte,” which was sung to the tune of “The Thief and the

Cordelier.” He afterwards became an Episcopal minister in Boston,

but in the time of the Revolution was a royalist and a refugee,

among those prohibited from returning to Massachusetts. He was

succeeded in the Congregational church at New London by Rev.

Ephraim Woodbridge, grandson of the first Congregational minister

of Groton, of the same name. Mr. Woodbridge was a most estimable

man. He allowed of no admission to church membership without

evidence of conversion, contrary to the practice so long in vogue

in New London previous to his ministry. It is a notable fact that

certain families belonging to the Congregational church before

this season of persecution, are afterwards found members of

another denomination. It is unlikely that the popularity of this

church was other than injured by the fame of this exploit, the

effect of which, as well as the new rule for admission, may help

to account for the fact that by 1776 there were but five men on

its roll of membership. It will be remembered that some members of

this church were allied to the Rogerenes, while others were

evidently liberal and friendly.

The Rogerenes may now rest on their laurels. With Mr. Byles out of

the way, we hear no more of harsh measures being employed against

this sect. They may now attend their own meetings upon Sunday

instead of those of their opponents, never neglecting, however, to

give sufficient evidence that this is to them a holiday and not a

“holy day.”

John Bolles lived to praise God that He had granted His servants

strength to continue faithful to the end and given them so signal a

victory. This devout and heroic Christian was called to his reward

in his ninetieth year, January 7, 1767.

In another decade, is heard the trumpet call of the Revolution. It

is more than probable that a people of such courage and love of

liberty have some difficulty at this time in keeping their

sentiments within scriptural limits, and still more difficulty in

holding back their youth from the fray. Not a few grandsons of John

Rogers, 2d, and John Bolles, as well as other Rogerene youth, break

away. One of them crosses the Delaware with Washington, and another

is in the body-guard of the great general. The young volunteers of

this blood and training fight bravely on land and sea. Some of them

die on the field and some in loathsome prison ships.[169] Outside of

the John Rogers descent, many are the descendants of James Rogers,

1st, that join the Continental army and navy. Yet, for the most

part, the Rogerene youth hold firmly to the doctrine of

non-resistance as set forth in the New Testament. Many of them are

among the first to note the inconsistency between the sentence in

the Declaration of Independence regarding the equal rights of all

men and the clause in the Constitution countenancing slavery. As for

the torch of religious liberty which this sect held aloft in the

darkness, through many a weary contest,—a few years more, and the

flame that it has helped to kindle leaps high, in the dim dawn of

that day whose sun shall yet flood the heavens.

Footnote 169:

Of John Bolles, 4th (on his mother’s side a grandson of Joseph

Bolles), who served in the Revolution on board armed vessels of

Connecticut, and died on board a prison ship of the enemy, it was

said, by one who knew him, that he was “a young man of

extraordinary intelligence, information and gallantry.”

[For further elucidation of the events set forth in this chapter,

there is presented in the _Appendix_ an extract from the pamphlet

published about 1759 by Joseph Bolles, describing some of the

opening events of this persecution under the leadership of Mr.

Byles, also several extracts from the pamphlet written by John

Rogers, 3d, giving particulars of the merciless punishments

inflicted upon those who took part in the countermove of 1764-66.

This pamphlet is entitled “A Looking Glass for the Presbyterians

of New London.” The limits of this chapter have allowed of very

brief presentation of those cruelties, expressed in general terms.

Still other extracts from the pamphlet by John Rogers, 3d, may be

found in the “History of New London”; but only a perusal of the

whole work could give an adequate idea of the barbarous cruelties

practised upon the Rogerenes in this contest, during the whole of

which not one of the victims was charged with returning a single

blow or making any resistance to the attacks of the lynching

parties. There is also presented in the _Appendix_, in connection

with this chapter, quotations from a pamphlet which appeared

shortly after the resignation of Mr. Byles, under the auspices of

the Congregational church, entitled _A Debate between Rev. Mr.

Byles and the Brethren_, which portion relates to Mr. Byle’s

determination to leave that church and ministry, and shows his

aversion to the Rogerenes who were his victors. It will be seen

that from the three above-mentioned sources has been drawn the

information contained in this chapter.]

CHAPTER XIII.

QUAKERTOWN.

In the new century, ecclesiastical persecutions are scarcely more

than a tradition, save to the aged men and women still living who

took part in their youth in the great countermove, the sufferings

attendant upon which are now, even to them, as a nightmare dream.

The laws that nerved to heroic protest a people resolved to obey no

dictation of man in regard to the worship of God lie dead upon the

statute book—although as yet not buried. The Rogerenes are taking

all needful rest on Sunday, the day set apart for their meetings.

Many of those on the New London side mingle as interested listeners

in the various orthodox congregations. They walk where they please

on Sunday, and are no longer molested. The merciless intolerance

that brought this sect into existence being no longer itself

tolerated, the chief mission of the Rogerenes is well nigh

accomplished. The children may soon enter into that full Christian

liberty, in the cause of which their fathers suffered and withstood,

during the dark era of ecclesiastical despotism in New England.

After the last veterans in this cause have been gathered to their

rest, the past is more and more crowded out by the busy present.

Most of the male descendants of the New London Rogerenes remove to

other parts. Many of them are among the hardiest and most

enterprising of the western pioneers. From homes in New York and

Pennsylvania they move farther and farther west, until no State but

has a strain from Bolles and Quaker Hill. Descendants who remain in

New London, lacking a leader of their own sect in this generation,

join in a friendly manner with other denominations, affiliating most

readily with the Baptists and being least associated with the still

dominant church. In Groton, however, despite some emigration, is

still to be found an unbroken band of Rogerenes, and a remnant upon

Quaker Hill continues in fellowship with those of Groton.

As the region occupied by John Rogers, John Bolles and their

neighborhood of followers received the name of Quaker Hill, so that

district in Groton occupied chiefly by Rogerenes received the name

of Quakertown.

We find no written account or authenticated tradition regarding the

beginnings of Quakertown, save that here was the home of the Groton

leader, John Waterhouse. Given a man of this stamp as resident for

half a century, and we have abundant cause for the founding in this

place of a community of Rogerenes as compact as that at Quaker Hill.

Quakertown occupies a district about two miles square in the

southeastern part of the present town of Ledyard. It was formerly a

part of Groton. Among the early Rogerenes of this vicinity was John

Culver. Besides gifts of land from his father, John Culver had

received a gift of land from Major John Pynchon of Springfield,

Mass., in recognition of the “care, pains and service” of his father

(John Culver, Sr.) in the division of Mr. Pynchon’s lands (Groton

Records) formerly owned in partnership with James Rogers. John

Culver, Jr., did not, however, depend upon farming, being a “panel

maker” by trade. As has been seen, John Culver and his family

removed to New Jersey about 1735, there to found a Rogerene

settlement. (See Chapter XII.) His daughter Esther, however,

remained in Groton, as the wife of John Waterhouse.

Among other early Groton residents was Samuel Whipple from

Providence, both of whose grandfathers were nonconformists who had

removed to Rhode Island to escape persecution in Massachusetts.

About 1712 this enterprising man purchased a large amount of land

(said to be 1,000 acres) about eight miles from the present

Quakertown locality, in or near the present village of Poquetannoc.

Upon a stream belonging to this property, he built iron-works and a

saw-mill. It is said that the product of the iron-works was of a

superior quality, and that anchors and iron portions of some of the

ships built in New London were made at these works.[170] Samuel

Whipple’s son Zacharia married a daughter (Elizabeth) of John

Rogers, 2d; a grandson (Noah) of his son Samuel married a

granddaughter (Hope Whipple) of the same leader, and a daughter

(Anne) of his son Daniel married a grandson (William Rogers) of the

same; while a daughter (Content) of his son Zachariah married

Timothy Waterhouse, son of John Waterhouse. Yet it was not until

early in the nineteenth century that descendants of Samuel Whipple

in the male line became residents of Quakertown.[171] That the early

affiliations of the Whipple family with the Rogerenes had fitted

their descendants for close union with the native residents of the

place is indicated by the prominent position accorded the Whipples

in this community.

Footnote 170:

In his will, dated 1727, Samuel Whipple left the iron-works and

saw-mill to his son Daniel; his lands with buildings to be divided

between his sons Samuel, Zacharia and Zephania. The portion of

Zacharia sold in 1734 for £1,000.

Footnote 171:

The first of the name who came to Quakertown was Samuel Whipple

(son of above Noah and Hope), born in 1766, a man of most

estimable character and devotedly attached to peace principles.

His brother Silas also settled in Quakertown. Samuel is ancestor

of those of the name now resident in that locality.

Other families of Groton and its neighborhood affiliated and

intermarried with Rogerenes early in the nineteenth century. William

Crouch of Groton married a daughter of John Bolles. This couple are

ancestors of many of the later day Rogerenes of Quakertown. Two sons

and two grandsons of Timothy Watrous married daughters of Alexander

Rogers of Quaker Hill (one of the younger sons of John, 2d).

Although there was a proportion of Rogers and Bolles lineage in this

community at an early date, there was not one of the Rogers or

Bolles name. Later, a son of Alexander Rogers, 2d, married in

Quakertown and settled there; but this is not a representative name

in that locality, while Watrous, Whipple and Crouch are to be

distinctly classed as such.

As for other families who joined the founders of Quakertown or

became associated with their descendants, it is safe to say that men

and women who, on account of strict adherence to apostolic

teachings, relinquished all hope of worldly pleasures and successes,

to join the devoted people of this isolated district, were of a most

religious and conscientious character.

Generally speaking, the New London descendants in the nineteenth

century are a not uncompromising leaven, scattered far and wide

among many people and congregations whose religious traditions and

predilections are, unlike their own, of an ecclesiastical type.

Every radical leaven of a truly Christian character is destined to

have beneficial uses, for which reason it cannot so much be

regretted that the fate of the New London community was to be broken

up and widely disseminated.

While the New London Rogerenes were, through the mollifying

influences of a liberal public opinion, as well as by a wide

emigration and lack of a leader fitted to the emergency, slowly but

surely blending with the world around them, quite a different policy

was crystallizing upon the Groton side. That the Rogerene sect

should continue and remain a separate people was undoubtedly the

intention of John Rogers, John Rogers, 2d, John Bolles and their

immediate followers; aye, a separate people until that day, should

such day ever arrive, when there should be a general acceptance of

the law of love instituted by Christ, in place of the old law of

force and retaliation. Yet not only had these early leaders more

than enough upon them in their desperate struggle for religious

liberty, but they could not sufficiently foresee conditions ahead of

their times, in order to establish their sect for a different era.

It was by the instinct of self-preservation combined with conscious

inability to secure any adequate outside footing in the new state of

affairs, that the small but compact band at Quakertown, beholding

with dismay and disapproval the breaking up of the main body on the

New London side, resolved to prevent such a disbanding of their own

Society, by carefully bringing up their children in the faith and as

carefully avoiding contact with other denominations. It was a heroic

purpose, the more so because such a policy of isolation was so

evidently perilous to the race. Not so evident was the fact that

such exclusiveness must eventually destroy the sect which they so

earnestly desired to preserve. Such, as has been seen, was not the

policy of that founder whose flock were “scattered throughout New

England,” and some of the most efficient of whose co-workers were

drawn from the midst of an antagonistic denomination; neither was it

the policy of him who carried his Petition not only to the General

Court of Connecticut, but to that of Massachusetts. Yet it was no

ordinary man who carried out the policy above outlined, with a

straightforward purpose and vigorous leadership, in the person of

elder Zephania Watrous, a grandson of John Waterhouse.

John Waterhouse was living in 1773, at which date he was

eighty-three years of age.[172] Considerably previous to that time

he must have been succeeded by some younger man.

Footnote 172:

At the same date, Andrew Davis must also have been advanced in

years.

Elder Timothy Watrous, the Groton leader, who next appears to view,

was a son of John Waterhouse, born in 1740. He is said to have been

an able preacher and a man of the highest degree of probity.

Supposing John Waterhouse to have been in active service to his

seventy-fifth year, Timothy could have succeeded him at the age of

twenty-four, at which age the latter took part in the great

countermove of 1764-66. His experience in this conflict is given in

his own words:—

In the fore part of my life, the principal religion of the country

was strongly defended by the civil power and many articles of the

established worship were in opposition to the religion of Jesus

Christ. Therefore I could not conform to them with a clear

conscience. So I became a sufferer. I endured many sore

imprisonments and cruel whippings. Once I received forty stripes

save one with an instrument of prim, consisting of rods about

three and a half feet long, with snags an inch long to tear the

flesh. Once I was taken and my head and face covered with warm

pitch, which filled my eyes and put me in great torment, and in

that situation was turned out in the night and had two miles to go

without the assistance of any person and but little help of my

eyes. And many other things I have suffered, as spoiling of goods,

mockings, etc. etc. But I do not pretend to relate particularly

what I have suffered; for it would take a large book to contain

it. But in these afflictions I have seen the hand of God in

holding me up; and I have had a particular love to my persecutors

at times, which so convicted them that they confessed that I was

assisted with the spirit of Christ. But although I had so tender a

feeling towards them that I could freely do them all the good in

my power; yet the truth of my cause would not suffer me to conform

to their worship, or flinch at their cruelty one jot, though my

life was at stake; for many times they threatened to kill me. But,

through the mercy of God, I have been kept alive to this day and

am seventy years of age; and I am as strong in the defense of the

truth as I was when I suffered. But my persecutors are all dead;

there is not one of them left.

This extract is from a book entitled “The Battle Axe,” written by

the above Timothy, Sr., and his sons Timothy and Zacharia. Timothy,

Jr., succeeded his father as leader and preacher in this Society.

Zacharia was a schoolmaster of considerable note, and at one time

taught school at “the head of the river.” He invented the coffee

mill so generally in use, which important invention, his widow,

being ignorant of its worth, sold for forty dollars. Having

discovered some copper ore in the vicinity of his house, he smelted

it and made a kettle. After a vain search to find a printer willing

to publish “The Battle Axe,” he made a printing-press, by means of

which, after his death, his brother Timothy published the book. Thus

“The Battle Axe,” even aside from its subject-matter, was a book of

no ordinary description. At a later date it was reprinted by the

ordinary means. Copies of the first edition are now exceedingly

rare, and held at a high price. There is a copy of this edition in

the Smithsonian Institute. We present an extract from the body of

this work in the _Appendix_, but no adequate knowledge of the book

can be obtained from so limited a space. Men who could venture to

decry war in the very height of public exaltation over the success

of the struggle for independence were too far ahead of their age, in

this regard, to attract other than unfriendly attention.[173]

Footnote 173:

The tone and style of this work as a whole are in marked contrast

to the works of John Rogers, 1st, John Rogers, 2d, and John

Bolles, whose writings, although earnest, are of a very

dispassionate character.

The first proof discovered, that the Rogerenes have conscientious

scruples in regard to paying the military fine,[174] is a printed

Petition issued by Alexander Rogers, one of the younger sons of

John, 2d, of Quaker Hill, a thorough Rogerene, and, as has been

seen, closely allied with those of Quakertown. This Petition is

dated 1810, at which time Alexander Rogers was eighty-two years of

age; his children, however, were comparatively young. The fine was

for not allowing his son to enter the train-band. (This Petition

will be found in _Appendix_.) It proves that, even at so late a date

as this, the authorities were seizing Rogerene property in the same

way as of old, taking in this instance for a fine of a few shillings

the only cow in the possession of the family, and making no return.

As of old, no attempt is made to sue for the amount taken over and

above the legal fine, but this Petition is printed and probably well

circulated in protest.[175]

Footnote 174:

It is very possible that this Society refused to pay military

fines from the first; but no record of such refusal has been

found.

Footnote 175:

An original printed copy of this Petition is extant in Quakertown.

Soon after the death of Timothy Watrous, Sr., and that of his son

Zachariah, occurred the death of Timothy, Jr., in 1814. The latter

was succeeded in leadership of the Society by his youngest brother,

Zephania, then about thirty years of age.

By this time, the Quakertown Society had become so large that there

was need of better accommodations for their meetings than could be

afforded in an ordinary house. In 1815 the Quakertown meeting-house

was built, that picturesque and not inartistic house of many gables,

the first floor of which was for the occupation of the elder and his

family, while the unpartitioned second story was for Rogerene

meetings.

Materials and labor for the building of this meeting-house were

furnished by members of the Society. The timber is said to have been

supplied from a forest felled by the September gale of 1815, and

sawed in a saw-mill owned by Rogerenes. The same gale had unroofed

the old Watrous (John Waterhouse) dwelling which stood near the site

of the meeting-house.[176]

Footnote 176:

The old meeting-house is upon land which was part of the farm

occupied by John Waterhouse, and afterwards by his son Timothy.

The Quakertown people had a schoolhouse of their own as well as a

meeting-house, and thus fully controlled the training of their youth

and preserved them from outside influence. About the middle of the

century, a regular meeting-house was built. The old meeting-house

was turned entirely into a dwelling. The newer meeting-house

resembles a schoolhouse.

Zephania Watrous was the last of the prominent leaders in this

community. He was not only gifted as a religious teacher, but

possessed much mechanical genius. By an ingenious device, water from

a large spring was conducted into the cellar of the meeting-house

and made to run the spinning-wheels in the living-room above, where

were made linen thread and fine table linen, in handsome patterns. A

daughter of this preacher (a sweet old lady, still living in this

house in 1900) stated that she used often in her youth to spin sixty

knots of thread a day.

It is alleged in Quakertown that Rogerenes were the first to decry

slavery. This claim is not without foundation. Some of the Quakers

censured this practice as early as 1750, although many of them

held slaves for a considerable time after that date. Slavery was

not publicly denounced in their Society until 1760. It was before

1730 that John Bolles came to the conclusion that slavery was not

in accordance with the teachings of the New Testament. Copies of

the papers by which he freed his slaves, bearing the above date,

may be seen among the New London town records. His resolve to keep

no more slaves and his reasons for it are among the traditions

cherished by his descendants. Attention has previously been called

to the evident aversion on the part of James Rogers and his son

John to the practice of keeping slaves in life bondage. There is

no indication that John Rogers, Sr., ever kept a slave, and many

indications to the contrary. His son John, however, kept slaves to

some extent, some of whom at least he freed for “faithful service”

(New London Records). Two able-bodied “servants,” are found in his

inventory.[177] His son James mentions a servant, “Rose,” in his

will of 1754. His son John, however, never kept a slave, and his

family were greatly opposed to that practice, by force of early

teaching. With the exceptions here noted, no proof appears of the

keeping of slaves among the early Rogerenes, although many of them

were in circumstances to indulge in that practice, which was

prevalent in their neighborhood. The date at which slavery was

denounced by the Rogerene Society does not appear.

Footnote 177:

Town records reveal one of these as a freeman, years after, in a

neighboring town, a respected colored man, with an exceptionally

lively family of children.

It is certain that the Rogerenes of Quakertown were not only among

the first to declare against the brutality of war and the sanction

it received from ministers and church members, but among the

foremost in the denunciation of slavery. Nor were there those

lacking on the New London side to join hands with their Groton

friends on these grounds. The churches of New London, in common with

others, would not listen to any meddling with slavery, partisanship

on which question would surely have divided those churches. The

Rogerenes saw no justifiable evasion, for Christians, of the rule to

love God and your fellowmen, to serve God and not Mammon, and to

leave the consequences with Him who gave the command.

At the period of the antislavery agitation, some of the descendants

of John Rogers and John Bolles on the New London side (no longer

called by the name of Rogerenes), and other sympathizers with those

of Quakertown, attended meetings in the upper chamber of the house

of many gables, and joined with them in antislavery and other

Rogerene sentiments, declarations and endeavors. Among these

visitors was William Bolles,[178] the enterprising book publisher of

New London (Part I., Chapter VII.), who had become an attendant upon

the services of the Baptist church of New London; but who withdrew

from such attendance after discovery that the minister and leading

members of that church expected those opposed to slavery to maintain

silence upon that subject. He published a paper in this cause, in

1838, called _The Ultimatum_, with the following heading:—

ULTIMATUM.

THE PRESS MUZZLED: PULPIT GAGGED: LIBERTY OF SPEECH DESTROYED; THE

CONSTITUTION TRAMPLED UNDER FOOT; MOBS TRIUMPHANT, AND CITIZENS

BUTCHERED: OR, SLAVERY ABOLISHED—THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE.—FELLOW

CITIZENS, MAKE YOUR ELECTION.

Footnote 178:

Great-grandson of John Rogers, 2d, and of John Bolles.

A few disconnected sentences (by way of brevity) selected from one

of the editorial columns of this sheet, will give some idea of its

style:—

It is with pleasure we make our second appearance before our

fellow citizens, especially when we remember the avidity with

which our first number was read, so that we were obliged to print

a second edition. Our sheet is the organ of no association of men

or body of men, but it is the friend of the oppressed and the

uncompromising enemy of all abuses in Church and State. Our

friends S. and J. must not be surprised that their communications

are not admitted—the language is too harsh, and partakes a little

too much of the denunciatory spirit for us. We care not how

severely sin is rebuked, but we would remind them that a rebuke is

severe in proportion as the spirit is kind and the language

courteous—our object is to conciliate and reform, not to

exasperate.

About the year 1850, several noted abolitionists came to New London

to hold a meeting. Rogerenes from Quakertown gathered with others to

hear the speeches. When the time for the meeting arrived, the use of

the court-house, which had previously been promised them, was

refused. In this dilemma, Mr. Bolles told the speakers they could go

to the burying-ground and there speak, standing upon his mother’s

grave. The meeting took place, but during its continuance the

speakers were pelted with rotten eggs.[179]

Footnote 179:

This information was furnished by a native of Quakertown who

attended this meeting—Mr. Ira Whipple, afterwards of Westerly.

Mr. Bolles often entertained at his house speakers in the abolition

cause. Such speakers were also entertained at Quakertown, where they

frequently held meetings when not allowed to speak elsewhere in the

region. The Rogerenes of this place also assisted in the escape of

fugitive slaves, Quakertown being, between 1830 and 1850, one of the

stations of the Underground Railroad. Fugitive slaves were brought

here, under cover of darkness, concealed in the meeting-house and

forwarded by night to the next station. For these daring deeds, the

Quakertown people were repeatedly mobbed and suffered losses.

Rogerenes were also among the first in the cause of temperance, nor

did they confine their temperance principles to the use of tobacco

and intoxicating liquors, but advocated temperance in eating as

well. Although never observing the fast days appointed by

ecclesiastical law, they made use of fasting with prayer, and fasted

for their physical as well as spiritual good, judging the highest

degree of mental or spiritual power not to be obtained by persons

who indulged in “fullness of bread.” (See “Answer to Mr. Byles,” by

Joseph Bolles, in _Appendix_.) The Rogerenes of Quakertown have been

and still are earnest advocates of temperance principles.

The isolation and exclusiveness of the Quakertown community in the

nineteenth century has already been noted as a distinct departure

from the liberal and outreaching policy of the early Rogerenes.

There was yet another departure, in regard to freedom of speech,

which culminated, about the middle of the nineteenth century, in a

division of this community into two opposing parties. At this date,

Elder Zephania Watrous was advanced in years; but he had been, and

still was, a man of great force of character, and was accounted a

rigid disciplinarian. Only a man of such type could have held this

community to its strictly exclusive policy for so long a period.

Free inquiry, with expression of individual views, was favored by

the Rogerenes from the first, and formed an important feature of

their meetings for study and exposition of gospel truths. Largely by

this very means were their youth trained to interest in, and

knowledge of, the Scriptures. Such freedom had been instituted by

the founder of the sect, with no restrictions save the boundary line

between liberty and license.[180]

Footnote 180:

In Mr. Bowna’s account of his conversation with John Rogers (1703)

he states that John Rogers said his Society “admitted any one who

wanted information concerning the meaning of any text to put the

question, and it was then expounded and spoken to as they

understood it; and one being admitted to show his dissent with his

reasons for it: ‘Thus,’ said he, ‘we improve our youth in

Scriptural knowledge.’ I asked him if they did not sometimes carry

their differences in sentiment too far, to their hurt? He

acknowledged there was danger in doing so, but they guarded

against it as much as they could.”

The elder did not favor free speech in the meetings of the Society;

he undoubtedly judged that such freedom would tend to disorder and

division. The sequel, however, proved that a Society which could be

held firmly together, for more than a hundred years, under a

remarkably liberal policy in this regard, could be seriously divided

under the policy of repression.

The feeling upon this point became so intense that public meetings

were held in Quakertown for full discussion of the subject pro and

con. These meetings excited wide interest, and were attended by many

persons from adjoining towns. The party for free speech won the

victory; but the division tended to weaken the little church, the

decline of which is said to date from that period.[181]

Footnote 181:

In his last sickness, Elder Zephania Watrous sent for the leader

of the party which had opposed his conservative views and asked

forgiveness for anything on his own part that might have seemed

unfriendly to his opponent.

For nearly two hundred years, New Testament doctrines as expounded

by John Rogers (in his writings) have been taught in Quakertown, and

the Bible studied and restudied anew, with no evasion or explaining

away of its apparent meanings. Morality has been taught not as a

separate code, but as a principal part of the religion of Jesus

Christ. Great prominence has been given to non-resistance and all

forms of application of the law of love.

Women were from the first encouraged to speak in Rogerene meetings,

the meetings referred to being those for exhortation, prayer and

praise. It will be seen (_Appendix_) that John Bolles wrote a

treatise in favor of allowing women to speak in such meetings. Mr.

Bownas also quotes John Rogers as saying that women were admitted to

speak in Rogerene meetings, “some of them being qualified by the

gift of the Spirit.”

Among the principles rigidly insisted upon in Quakertown are that

persons shall not be esteemed on account of wealth, learning or

position, but only for moral and religious characteristics; strict

following of the Golden Rule by governments as well as by

individuals, hence no going to war, or retaliatory punishments

(correction should be kindly and beneficent); no profane language,

or the taking of an oath under any circumstances; no voting for any

man having principles contrary to the teachings of the New

Testament; no set prayers in meetings, but dependence on the

inspiration of the Holy Spirit; no divorce except for fornication;

to suffer rather than to cause suffering. There has always been

great disapprobation of “hireling ministers.” None of the Rogerene

elders ever received payment for preaching or for pastoral work.

A gentleman who has been prominent in the Quakertown Society being

questioned, some years since, in regard to the lack of sympathy

between the Rogerenes and other denominations, gave the following

reasons for a state of feeling on both sides which is not wholly

absent even at the present day.

“The other churches considered cessation of work on Sunday to be a

part of the Christian religion, and to be forced upon all as such.

Many of their preachers were led into the ministry as a learned and

lucrative profession, with no spiritual call to preach, being

educated by men for that purpose. In many instances these preachers

were worldly-minded to a great extent. The churches believed in war

and in training men to kill their fellowmen. Ministers and church

members used liquor freely. Church members held slaves, and

ministers upheld the practice. For a long time the Rogerenes were

compelled to assist in the support of the Congregational church, to

which of all churches they were most opposed, on account of its

assumption of authority over others in the matter of religion. The

Rogerenes were fined for not attending the regular meetings, and

cruelly persecuted for not keeping sacred the ‘idol Sabbath’ so

strictly observed by other denominations. Although persecution has

ceased, prejudice still remains on both sides, partly inherited, as

it were, and partly the result of continued differences of opinion.”

At the present day, meetings in Quakertown are similar to Baptist or

Methodist conference meetings. The Lord’s Supper is observed once a

quarter. In the old times the Rogerenes held a feast once a year, in

imitation of the last passover with the disciples, at which time a

lamb was killed and eaten with unleavened bread. The Sunday service

consisted of preaching and exposition of Scripture, while prayers,

singing of hymns, relation of experience, etc., were reserved for

the evening meetings of the Society. The latter were meetings for

the professing Christians, while the Sunday meetings were public

meetings, where all were welcomed. It will be observed that this was

according to the apostolic practice, and not materially different

from the practice of other denominations at the present day.

If there was so decided an aversion to physicians on the part of the

early Rogerenes as has been represented, it has not come down to the

present time among the people of Quakertown, as have most of the

oldtime sentiments and customs; yet evidence is not lacking to prove

that their predecessors made use of faith and prayer in the healing

of disease, and that there have been cases of such healing in this

Society. One of the latter, within the memory of persons yet living,

was recounted to us by the gentleman to whom we have referred, upon

our inquiring of him if he had ever heard of any cures of this kind

in Quakertown. Pointing to a portrait on the wall, he said, “That

man was cured in a remarkable manner.” He then stated the

circumstances as follows:—

“He had been sick with dysentery, and was so low that his death was

momentarily expected; his wife had even taken out the clothes she

wished placed upon him after death. While he lay in this seemingly

last stage of the disease, he suddenly became able to speak, and

said, in a natural tone, to his wife: ‘Bring me my clothes.’ She

told him he was very ill and must not try to exert himself; but he

continued so urgent that, to pacify him, she brought the clothes he

usually wore. He at once arose, dressed himself and was apparently

well, and so continued. He said that, while he lay there in that

weak condition, he suddenly felt an invisible hand placed upon his

head and heard a voice saying: ‘Arise, my son, you are healed,’ upon

which he immediately felt a complete change, from extreme illness

and weakness to health and strength; hence his request to his wife.”

There are numerous traditions regarding the offering of prayers for

recovery by the bedsides of the sick, on the part of the early

elders of this community, who were sometimes desired to render this

service outside of their own Society, and readily complied.

That the founders of this community, both men and women, were

persons of no ordinary mental and physical vigor, is attested by the

excellent mental and physical condition of their descendants, after

generations of intermarriage within their own borders. At the

present day, it would puzzle an expert to calculate their

complicated relationships. In a visit to this locality, some years

since, we met two of the handsomest, brightest and sweetest old

ladies we ever beheld, each of whom had passed her eightieth year,

and each of whom bore the name of Esther (as did the wife of John

Waterhouse). Both were descendants of John Rogers, and of the first

settlers of Quakertown, several times over.[182] One of them told us

that her grandmother took a cap-border to meeting to hem in the time

of the great countermove, at which time and for which cause she was

whipped at the New London whipping-post; also that for chopping a

few sticks of wood in his back yard, on Sunday, a Quakertown man was

“dragged to New London prison.” This is but a hint of the traditions

that linger in this community regarding the days of persecution. The

other lady, a daughter of Elder Zephania Watrous, lived in the old

meeting-house, where she was born. In the room with this gentle and

comely old lady were five generations of the Watrous family, herself

the eldest, and a child of four or five years the youngest, all fair

representatives of Quakertown people; healthy, intelligent and

good-looking.

Footnote 182:

It is not to be inferred that no new families have come into

Quakertown, or that none of the people have married outside.

Accessions to this community have been not infrequent, both by

marriage and otherwise.

To a stranger in these parts, it is a wonder how the inhabitants

have maintained themselves in such an apparently sterile and rocky

region.[183] In fact, these people did not depend upon agriculture

for a livelihood. Although thus isolated, they were from the first

thrifty, ingenious and enterprising. The property of the first

settlers having been divided and subdivided among large families, it

was not long before their descendants must either desert their own

community or invent methods of bringing into Quakertown adequate

profits from without. Consequently, we find them, early in the

nineteenth century, selling, in neighboring towns, cloths, threads,

yarn and other commodities of their own manufacture. A large

proportion of the men learned trades and worked away from home

during the week. Many of them were stone-masons, a trade easily

learned in this rocky region, and one in which they became experts.

In later times, we find some of them extensively engaged in raising

small fruits, especially strawberries.

Footnote 183:

Quakertown is said not to be so rocky and sterile as it appears to

a person riding over the road, but to have a considerable amount

of good farming-land.

Although, with the decline of persecution, no new leader arose to

rank with those of the past, bright minds have not been lacking in

later days in this fast thinning community, which, like other remote

country places, has suffered by the emigration of its youth to more

promising fields of action.

Timothy Watrous, 2d, invented the first machine for cutting cold

iron into nails. He also made an entire dock himself.

Samuel Chapman, a descendant of John Rogers and John Waterhouse, is

said to have made and sailed the first steamship on the Mississippi.

He founded large iron-works in New Orleans. His son Nathan was one

of the founders of the Standard Iron Works of Mystic.

Jonathan Whipple, a descendant of John Rogers, having a deaf and

dumb son, conceived the idea of teaching him to speak and to

understand by the motion of the lips, by which method he soon spoke

sonorously and distinctly, and became a man of integrity and

cultivation. Zerah C. Whipple, a grandson of Jonathan, becoming

interested in this discovery, resolved to devote his life to its

perfection. He invented the Whipple Natural Alphabet, and with the

aid of his grandfather, Jonathan, founded The Home School for the

deaf and dumb, at Mystic.

Julia Crouch, author of “Three Successful Girls” (a descendant of

John Rogers and John Bolles), was a Rogerene of Quakertown.

Ida Whipple Benham, a well-known poet, and for many years an

efficient member of the Peace Society, was of Quakertown

origin.[184]

Footnote 184:

The following is from a poem by Mrs. Benham, entitled “Peace.”

Where is the nation brave enough to say,

“I have no need of sword, or shield, or gun;

I will disarm before the world this day;

I will stand free, though lonely, ’neath the sun.

“I fear no foe, since I am friend to all;

I fear no evil, since I wish no harm;

I will not keep my soldier sons in thrall;

They shall be slaves no more—let them disarm!”

That State will stand upon the heights of time

Foremost in honor, bravest of the brave;

Girded with glory, radiant, sublime,

This shall her title be, “The strong to save!”

While other nations boast of arms or art,

She, ’lone of earth shall stand, the truly great!

Brave in forbearance, loftiness of heart,

The world shall see, in her, a Christian State.

Boast not your bravery, O, ye fearful ones,

Ye trembling nations armed with coward steel,

Who hide yourselves behind your conscript sons

And trample freedom with an iron heel!

Vaunt not your righteousness, nor dare to call

Yourselves by His high name, the Prince of Peace,

The holy Christ of God, Who died for all,

That love might reign and sin and sorrow cease.

My country! O, my country! strong and free,

Dare thou the godlike deed that waits thy hand.

Within thy walls wed Peace to Liberty—

Say to thy soldier sons, “Disarm! Disband!”

Set thou the step for Freedom’s stately march;

The Old World after thee shall fall in line.

Follow the pole star crowning heaven’s high arch,

The Star of Peace with radiance divine.

“All men are equal!” graved in lines of light,

Through storm and stress this motto doth not fail;

All men are brothers! set thy virgin might

To prove man’s brotherhood; thou shalt prevail.

Thou shalt prevail, my country, in the strength

Of Him who guides the spheres and lights the sun;

And joy shall reign through all thy breadth and length,

And thou shalt hear the gracious voice, “Well done!”

In recent years, the Rogerenes of Quakertown have given much

attention to the cause of peace and arbitration. The Universal Peace

Union having been established by the Quakers, soon after the

rebellion, the people of Quakertown invited members of that Society

to join them in holding a Peace Convention near Mystic, the most

suitable available point in the vicinity of Quakertown. Accordingly,

in August, 1868, the first of an unbroken series of yearly Peace

Meetings was held in an attractive grove on a hill by the Mystic

River. Including the invited guests, there were present forty-three

persons. The second meeting, in September, 1869, showed such an

increase of interest and attendance that the Connecticut Peace

Society was organized, as a branch of The Universal Peace Union, and

Jonathan Whipple of Quakertown was elected president. This venerable

man (to whom we have before referred), besides publishing and

circulating _The Bond of Peace_ (a paper advocating peace

principles), had long been active as a speaker and correspondent in

the cause so dear to his heart.

In 1871, James E. Whipple, of Quakertown, a young man of high moral

character, having refused from conscientious scruples to pay the

military tax imposed upon him, was arrested by the town authorities

of Ledyard and confined in the Norwich jail, where he remained

several weeks.

About the same time, Zerah C. Whipple, being called upon to pay a

military tax, refused to thus assist in upholding a system which he

believed to be anti-Christian and a relic of barbarous ages. He was

threatened with imprisonment; but some kindly disposed person,

interfering without his knowledge, paid the tax.

In 1872 a petition, signed by members of the Peace Society, was

presented to the legislature of Connecticut praying that body to

make such changes in the laws of the State as should be necessary to

secure the petitioners in the exercise of their conscientious

convictions in this regard. The petition was not granted; but the

subject excited no little interest and sympathy among some of the

legislators.

In the summer of 1874, Zerah C. Whipple, still refusing to do what

his conscience forbade, was taken from his home by the tax collector

of Ledyard and placed in the New London jail. His arrest produced a

profound impression, he being widely known as the principal of the

school for teaching the dumb to speak, and also as a very honest,

high-souled man.

During his six week’s imprisonment, the young man appealed to the

prisoners to reform their modes of life, reproved them for vulgarity

and profanity, furnished them books to read, and began teaching

English to a Portuguese confined there. The jailer himself said, to

the commissioner, that although he regretted Mr. Whipple’s

confinement in jail on his own account, he should be sorry to have

him leave, as the men had been more quiet and easy to manage since

he had been with them. On the evening of the sixth day, an entire

stranger called at the jail and desired to know the amount of the

tax and costs, which he paid, saying he knew the worth of Mr.

Whipple, that his family for generations back had never paid the

military tax, and he wished to save the State the disgrace of

imprisoning a person guilty of no crime. This man was not a member

of the Peace Society. Mr. Whipple afterwards learned that his arrest

was illegal, the laws of the State providing that where property is

tendered, or can be found, the person shall be unmolested. The

authorities of Groton did not compel the payment of this tax by

persons conscientiously opposed to it.

In 1872, _The Bond of Peace_ was removed to Quakertown and its name

changed to _The Voice of Peace_. Zerah C. Whipple undertook its

publication and continued it until 1874, when it was transferred to

a committee of The Universal Peace Union. It is now published in

Philadelphia as the official organ of that Society, under the title

of _The Peacemaker_.

The call of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe for a woman’s Peace Society was

heartily responded to by the Connecticut Peace Society, and the 2d

of June was for years celebrated, by appropriate exercises, as

Mother’s Day.

The annual grove meeting increased rapidly in attendance and

interest. The number present at the tenth meeting was estimated at

2,500. In 1875, it was decided to prolong the time of the convention

to a second day’s session, and the two day’s session was attended

with unabated interest.

Jonathan Whipple, first president of the Connecticut Peace Society,

died in March, 1875. Shortly before the end, he was heard to say:

“Blessed are the peacemakers; but there has been no blessing

promised to warriors.”

The grove meeting is now held three days annually. It is the largest

gathering of the kind in the world. The large tent used at first was

replaced some years since by a commodious wooden structure, which is

the property of the Universal Peace Union.

From the first, some of the most noted speakers on peace and kindred

topics have occupied the platform, among them Belva Lockwood, Mary

A. Livermore, Julia Ward Howe, Aaron M. Powell, Rowland B. Howard,

Robert T. Paine, Delia S. Parnell, George T. Angell, H. L. Hastings,

William Lloyd Garrison, etc. The Hutchinson family used frequently

to sing at these meetings. The only one now remaining of that gifted

choir, a gentleman as venerably beautiful as any bard of ancient

times, has, in recent summers, favored the audience in the grove

with several sweet songs appropriate to the occasion.

It is said that the winding road leading about Quakertown is in the

shape of a horseshoe. May this be an omen of honors yet to come to

this little battlefield, where an isolated, despised, yet

all-devoted band have striven for nearly two centuries to be true to

the pure and simple precepts of the New Testament as taught them by

sufferers for obedience to those truths, beside many a fireside

where tales of woes for past endeavors, mingled with prayers for

future victories, have nerved young hearts to the old-time

endurance, for His name’s sake.

Many are the noble men and women who, from first to last, have been

content to live and die in this obscure locality, unhonored by the

world and sharing not its luxuries or pleasures, consoled by the

promises of the New Testament: promises which are not to the rich

and honored (as such), but chiefly to those who for obedience to the

teachings of this Word are outcast and despised, poor and unlearned,

and even, if need be, persecuted and slain.

Not because that good man, Jonathan Whipple, was more conscientious

or talented than many another of the Rogerenes of this locality, but

because he was a good specimen of the kind of men that have from

time to time been reared in this Society, there is given in the

following note[185] an abstract from a published account of his

life, a copy of which was forwarded to us by his daughter, Mrs.

Whaley, in 1893. In the letter containing this enclosure she said:

“I hope that justice will at length be done our so long

misunderstood and misrepresented people.”

Footnote 185:

Jonathan Whipple was born in 1794. He never attended school, but

it was not from lack of inclination, for he most ardently desired

an education. The reader from which his mother taught him his

letters he learned so thoroughly that he could repeat it verbatim.

In arithmetic he had no instruction further than the fundamental

rules, but while he was yet a boy he learned enough of numbers to

answer for ordinary occasions. His father set him his first copies

in writing, but he improved so rapidly that he soon needed better

instruction and got neighboring school-teachers to write copies

for him. Ere many years had elapsed, he had no need of copies,

since he ranked in penmanship among the first.

Although Mr. Whipple was a hard-working mason, he so much felt the

need of more education than he possessed, that, after he had

married and settled down in life, he set about informing himself

more thoroughly than his previous opportunities had allowed. He so

far qualified himself, that he was employed several terms to teach

a school of over seventy pupils. In point of discipline and

promptness of education his school ranked first in town.

He contributed many articles to various papers, touching on the

great topics before the public. The temperance cause received his

hearty support, for he was a total abstinence man, at a time when

even the most respectable men regularly took their “grog.”

He was an abolitionist of the most radical type long before the

names of Garrison and Phillips were known in the land.

As an advocate for universal peace, he was found among the

pioneers in the cause. In short, he was a philanthropist in the

broadest and truest sense of the word; he labored all his life for

the good of his fellow-creatures. He was kind and generous; was

never engaged in a law-suit in his life, and spent more time with

the sick than any other non-professional man of our acquaintance.

In the summer of 1820 the typhoid fever raged in his neighborhood;

he spent his whole time, without a thought of reward, among the

sufferers.

His blameless and useful life made him respected and beloved

wherever he was known.

The fame, however, that he acquired was chiefly due to his

remarkable success in teaching the deaf to talk.

When the youngest of his five children was old enough to walk, he

noticed that, although the boy seemed active and intelligent, he

made no effort to speak. The discovery that his little Enoch was

actually deaf, was a trial which seemed greater than he could

endure. To think that this (his youngest) son must be forever shut

out of the world of sound and doomed to endless silence was

unendurable. After many fruitless trials to make the boy hear and

repeat what he heard, the father gave it up as useless.

Mr. Whipple had never heard of the schools in Europe where the

deaf are taught articulation and lip-reading; but, at length,

noticing that Enoch would sometimes attempt to repeat a word, if

he was looking directly at the speaker’s mouth, the thought

occurred to the father that perhaps every word had a shape, and

that by learning the shape of each letter, as moulded by the

mouth, the boy might be taught to imitate it. The task was begun.

Every moment Mr. Whipple could spare,—for he was a poor man, and

besides his own family there were some orphan children depending

upon him,—he devoted to teaching his little son. It was

astonishing what progress was made. Other members of the family

also acted as teachers, and as Enoch grew towards manhood, he was

not merely on par with his associates, but acknowledged by all to

be a superior youth. He could read, could write a nice hand, and

for deciphering poor penmanship there was scarcely his equal for

miles around. He could also talk. To such perfection was his

instruction carried by his energetic father that this deaf man has

done business with strangers, bought goods of merchants, etc., and

has gone away without leaving a suspicion of his infirmity.

As has been seen, the efforts of Mr. Whipple did not end with

teaching his own son. He made many successful experiments with

other deaf mutes, which led to the founding of The Home School for

the deaf at Mystic.

After Jonathan Whipple had passed his seventieth year, his

faculties remained unimpaired, and he was as indefatigable in his

efforts to improve the condition of the afflicted as when his

theory was first put in practice. His life was a useful and

beautiful one; not a struggle to gain wealth or to win fame; but

simply to do good. His declining years were cheered by the

knowledge that he had wronged none and bettered many.—_Abstract

from Life of Jonathan Whipple in “Men of Mark.”_

Presentation of facts belongs to the historian; but the effect and

uses of the information thus afforded is for the reader. We have

collected and set in order such attested facts as we have been able

to discover relative to the history of the Rogerenes, of which sect

the people of Quakertown are the only distinct representatives of

the present day.

* * * * *

If at the end of this history it should be asked: “How can the

Rogerene sect be described in briefest terms?” we reply:—

“The doctrines and customs of this sect were patterned as closely as

possible after the early church of the Gentiles, instituted under

apostolic effort and direction; hence it included the evangelical

portions and excluded the unevangelical portions of the doctrines

and customs of every sect known to Christendom. Should a new sect be

brought into existence on strictly evangelical lines, it would, to

all intents and purposes, be the same as the Rogerene Society.” It

is evident, however, that a marked feature of the Rogerene sect

would be lacking to such a church in modern times, viz., the

constant need of withstanding ecclesiastical laws whose unimpeded

sway would have prevented the existence of any truly evangelical

church. It is easy to perceive that the growth of such a spirit of

close adherence to New Testament teachings as animated the Rogerenes

would tend to the obliteration of sects.

Should the churches of Christendom ever awake to the fact that not

one of them but has made and countenanced signal departures from the

teachings of Christ and his apostles, both in principles and modes,

and that their differences one from the other are founded upon

variations from the first divinely instituted church, and should

they, on thus awakening, join hands, in council assembled, with the

purpose of uniting in one church of the apostolic model, fully

devoted to the cause of peace on earth and good will to men, then

would dawn the millennium.

It is plain that John Rogers had faith in the people at large for

the realization of such a church universal, could adequate

leadership be procured. He believed that of existing societies of

the evangelical order having in his day a fair start, that of the

Quakers (by its peace principles and dependence on the Holy Spirit)

was best fitted to take the lead. For such an end he had urged upon

that Society the instituting among them the ordinances of Baptism

and the Lord’s Supper, which they had rejected, and he expressed his

opinion forcibly when he said to Mr. Bownas in 1703 that if the

Quakers would take those two ordinances they could “carry all before

them.” (As quoted by Mr. Bownas.)

CHAPTER XIV.

DRAGON’S TEETH.

Mr. J. R. Bolles has aptly compared the falsehoods sown by the

author of “The Prey Taken from the Strong,” to dragon’s teeth

constantly springing up anew (Part I, Chapter I). When Peter Pratt

wrote the book thus entitled, he was evidently stimulated and

encouraged by the ecclesiastical demand for such a publication, and

trusted that lack of correct information on the part of the general

public would secure credence for it. The falsities evident in the

work, through its contradictions in one part of statements made in

another, must have been due either to lack of careful observation on

the part of the writer or to his confidence of such lack on the part

of the public to whom it was addressed.

There was an evident personal object in this deliberate attempt to

malign the character of John Rogers three years after his death; by

statements which Peter Pratt of all men knew to be false; he having

himself been a Rogerene, closely allied and attached to one of the

leaders of that Society. Having since become a prominent member of

the ruling church, and intimate with leading ecclesiastics of that

church, in what better way could he prove to his influential friends

his regret at having been associated with the hated nonconformist

than by lending himself to the ruling order in their endeavors to

stamp out whatever respect for and interest in the Rogerenes and

their cause had found lodgement in the minds of the public?

On the ecclesiastical side, who could address the public with better

chance of being heard and credited than a popular lawyer, known to

have had intimate acquaintance with the obnoxious sect? For despite

the blunder in regard to computation of longitude (Part I, Chapter

IV), Peter Pratt was a man of considerable note in Connecticut, both

as a lawyer and speaker, at the time he wrote this singular book.

Joshua Hempstead says in his Diary: “Nov. 25, 1730. Melancholy news

of the death of Mr. Peter Pratt of ys Town,[186] Attorney at Law, is

confirmed, who died at Hartford on Saturday last,—the finest Orator

in the Colony of his Profession.”

Footnote 186:

Peter Pratt appears to have lived in East Lyme, then a part of New

London.

The literary ability of this man is shown to be far below that

ascribed to his oratory, the style of this sole book of his

authorship being very ordinary; while the reply of his half-brother

John Rogers, 2d, as well as other works of that author, will bear

comparison with some of the best works of his time, for clear,

vigorous logic and expression, enlivened by sparkles of wit and

acumen, which qualifies are not observable in the literary effort of

this other son of his mother.

The principal point to be secured being an impeachment of the

character of John Rogers, free use is made by Peter Pratt of the

accusation presented by the Griswolds in the petition for divorce,

by way of declaring that the separation of John Rogers from his wife

and children was on account of certain immoralities charged against

him, which pretended immoralities Peter Pratt names, on no other

authority than the entirely ambiguous statements of the records of

the General Court regarding the Petition of Elizabeth in 1675, which

Petition (according to said records) distinctly stated that the

chief reason of her plea did not relate to breach of the marriage

covenant, of which she admitted that she had small reason to

complain.

The exact charges manufactured by the Griswolds under the head of

“Breach of Covenant” may be found in the bill of damages still to be

seen in the Connecticut State Library (see Chapter II), which bill

was brought against John Rogers by Matthew Griswold during the trial

for divorce, and in which is no imputation regarding the moral

character of John Rogers. Peter Pratt, although avowing familiarity

with these records, declares a serious breach of the marriage

covenant to be one of the chief causes for this separation; while he

does not in any sort intimate to the reader that the charge brought

forward for the divorce related—as he well knew—to a period before

marriage, and to some fault known only to John Rogers himself, until

he divulged the same to his wife.

Peter Pratt also states that John Rogers owned out of court to the

charge against him, and that the person intrusted with that

confidence gave this evidence against him, for proof of which

statement the reader is referred to files of the General Court.

Evidently Peter Pratt did not expect any of his readers to consult

said files; for although it is to this day on the files of that

court that John Rogers was said to have owned out of court to the

charge against him, it is stated in the same connection that the man

who avowed this confidence on the part of John Rogers, upon being

asked the time and place of the confession, gave such reply that

John Rogers was able to prove an _alibi_.

The one other opportunity improved by Peter Pratt for an attack upon

the moral character of John Rogers, is in regard to his marriage

with Mary Ransford, twenty-five years after the charge made for the

purpose of obtaining the divorce. In his account of this marriage,

he not only falsifies and vulgarizes the circumstances in a very

singular manner, but, while in one place he represents the marriage

to Mary to have been less of choice than necessity, in another place

he avers that he himself was, at the very time of this marriage, on

friendly and intimate terms with John Rogers, and so continued, to

the extreme of actual discipleship, for years after that marriage.

It would seem that any careful and intelligent reader of “The Prey

Taken from the Strong,” however prejudiced, could but note this

singular inconsistency,—that Peter Pratt, while knowing to any such

irregularity as he claims on the part of John Rogers, should, at

that very time, have taken him as a spiritual guide, and continued,

for years after, under his leadership. The readers of that day, in

that locality, must have known that Peter Pratt’s connection with

the Rogerene Society was at a date following the marriage to Mary

Ransford, which latter occurred in 1699, while his own declaration

that when he was imprisoned with other Rogerenes in that cause he

had a young wife at home, fixes the date of this imprisonment as

late as 1709, which was the year of his marriage.

In order to appear to substantiate his calumnious intimations, Peter

Pratt states that, to the best of his recollection, the first child

of Mary Ransford was born “three or four months” after the ceremony

before the County Court. He also states that she was complained of

by the court on the birth of this child. As a lawyer in this town,

he dwelt, so to speak, among the court records, and could easily

have found the date of this child’s birth, had he intended to make a

truthful statement. The County Court record still remains distinct

and easily to be found, which says that this child was born in

January, 1700, exactly seven months after the marriage of John

Rogers to Mary Ransford, and, as stated by John Rogers, 2d, “within

the time allowed by law.” It was born at the date at which John

Rogers, 2d, brought his bride to Mamacock, to the great annoyance

and irritation of Mary. It is well known that less disturbances than

this have often hastened the birth of a child. Proof is evident that

neither John Bolles, nor any other of the highly honorable friends

and neighbors of John Rogers, who had the very best opportunity of

knowing the facts of the case, showed the slightest diminution of

allegiance to him at this date, and quite as evident that Peter

Pratt himself continued right on to full discipleship.

The two chief calumnies in this work of Peter Pratt having been

presented, attention is now called to two of a different character.

I saw him once brought into court,—he had contrived the matter so

as to be just without the door when he was called to answer. His

features and gestures expressed more fury than I ever saw in a

distracted person of any sort, and I soberly think that if a

legion of devils had pushed him in headlong, his entrance had not

been more horrid and ghastly, nor have seemed more preternatural.

John Roger’s declaration that the indictment was a lie is brought

out in similar style, also the exclamations of other Rogerenes

present in the court-room.

This plainly refers to the trial before the County Court in

November, 1719, when John Rogers is said (by court records) to have

come into court “in a violent manner,” etc., and, when the

indictment was read, to have exclaimed that it was “a devilish ly”

(see Chapter IX), for which contempt of court he was fined only

twenty shillings, which nominal sum was never collected. Taking into

consideration the evident sympathy of the jury on this occasion of

“violent entrance,” etc., and the great ease with which Peter Pratt

is proven capable of misstating and exaggerating facts, the reader

will admit the probability that this entrance of John Rogers into

the court-room, and his words there spoken, together with those of

his followers, were neither more nor less than impassioned

expressions of indignation and protest regarding the terrible

cruelty to which the wife of John Bolles was then being subjected.

She was, as will be remembered, at that moment lying in a critical

condition in New London prison, where the death of her child had

just occurred. Peter Pratt, then present in that court-room, by his

own avowal, knew all of these facts, and knew also that the life of

this woman was saved only by such determined efforts at full

publicity on the part of the Rogerenes and their sympathizers. Yet

he utterly conceals these circumstances from the reader, while he

exaggerates the Rogerene protests, and represents them as being

simply senseless and grotesque.

It is from this description by Peter Pratt that historians have

borrowed their statements regarding the loud voice of John Rogers,

and that Rogerenes were accustomed to charge dignitaries with lying,

etc.[187]

Footnote 187:

To this statement of Peter Pratt is traceable the following from

Miss Caulkins: “Suppose at the present day a man like Rogers

should enter, etc., accompanying all this with violent

contortions, coarse expletives, and foaming at the mouth, would it

not require great forbearance,” etc.

Nothing was more foreign to the teachings of John Rogers and his

followers, or more abhorred by Rogerenes in general—as will be

readily attested by those familiar with their principles—than any

vulgarity, or even ordinary coarseness, of speech or manner.

Miss Caulkins also states (“History of Norwich”) that John Rogers

accosted Dr. Lord (over one hundred years before) in a very loud

voice, asking him if they wore wigs in heaven, giving her story

from “tradition.” This is evidently a mixture of the Peter Pratt

court scene, and the contribution of the wig to Mr. Saltonstall.

The singularly false and indecent statements made by Peter Pratt—in

regard to the divorce of John Rogers and the marriage to Mary

Ransford—and his exaggerated description of the scene in the

court-room, form almost the entire portion of the account of the

Rogerenes contained in Trumbull’s “History of Connecticut,” which is

the standard history (first published, 1818) from which, as has been

said, later historians have derived their ideas and representations

in regard to this sect.

Of the many lesser aspersions cast by Peter Pratt upon the character

and teachings of John Rogers, one of the most astonishing (seeing

that Peter Pratt himself refutes it) is to the effect that John

Rogers held that “a man dies even as a dog.” In another place he

says John Rogers “held both to the resurrection and the day of

judgment, although doubted whether the body to be raised would be

the same that fell, yet owned it would have the same consciousness.”

The author guilty of the above (and many another)

self-contradiction, says of the writings of John Rogers: “For that

they are so perplexed and ambiguous, that he that will attend the

rules of reason and speech can prove scarcely anything of the chief

articles of his faith by his books.”

Careful perusal of the many extant writings of John Rogers will

prove to any candid person that they are written in the clearest

manner, having in them nothing which cannot be understood by the

most ordinary reader. Peter Pratt, being unable to quote from these

writings anything that could substantiate his statements concerning

them, had need to manufacture some excuse for such omission of

evidence.

It would be exceedingly difficult, if not wholly impossible, to find

another book from which historians have condescended to quote which

contains so many contradictions in itself, so many utterly and

needlessly vulgar expressions, and so many easily proven falsehoods,

as does this calumnious work of Peter Pratt. The favor it received

in ecclesiastical quarters is proof that there was almost no device,

however underhanded, of which the enemies of the Rogerenes would not

stoop to avail themselves in branding this daring opponent of

ecclesiastical rule.

Yet Peter Pratt’s baldly dishonest account is not the only source of

Rogerene calumny.

Backus, among others, in his “History of the Baptists,” makes the

statement that the Rogerenes were a sect whose practice it was to

take work into meeting-houses. The Rogerenes were a sect nearly a

century before 1764, when they first took work into a meeting-house,

and have been a sect more than one hundred years since 1766, when

they ceased to take work into a meeting-house, making in reality

less than two years, of their more than two hundred years of

existence, in which they (their women), in defence of their Society,

took work into a meeting-house.

The same historian asserts that it was their regular practice to

enter the churches and interrupt the ministers, although it would

have been evident, upon careful examination of the case, that they

never entered any church in this manner except under stress of

bitter persecution, and that, as a non-resistant people, they had in

such emergencies no other efficient means of defence.

Historians have generally stated that the Rogerenes imitated the

Quakers in dress and speech, apparently on no further evidence than

that the name of Quakers had become attached to them.

That the Rogerenes did not imitate the Quakers in speech is shown by

the testimony of those of their descendants most likely to be well

informed in regard to the early customs of their people. That they

did not imitate the Quakers in dress is proven by their inventories,

which show the usual style of dress, wherever the wardrobe is

itemized.

In the countermove of 1764-66, the men kept on their hats in the

Congregational meeting-house. John Crandall and other early members

of the First Baptist church in Newport had no affinity or sympathy

with the Quakers; yet, when attending service in a Congregational

church, they kept on their hats, in token of dissent.

Historians inform us that the Rogerenes did not employ physicians,

surgeons, or midwives, or make use of remedies in sickness,

depending wholly upon the prayer of faith. As has been fully shown,

the Rogerenes did not feel authorized to neglect any New Testament

injunction; they undoubtedly believed in healing by the prayer of

faith; yet, being a logical and discriminating people, they

perceived that the prayer of faith is often a remedy most difficult

to procure at a moment’s notice, and that other modes of relief

obtainable, in absence of this superior agency, are not to be

despised. As opposed to statements that the Rogerenes had nothing to

do with remedies, we have evidence that they were very attentive to

the sick, which presumes aid of various kinds. They appear not to

have disapproved of natural, ordinary means of restoration and

alleviation. A striking proof is furnished in the description given

by John Rogers of his illness, through cold and neglect, in the

inner prison. On this occasion, we do not find his son standing by

the prison window praying, though this son is a Rogerene of the

Rogerenes; but we find him running out into the streets, crying

loudly for help, and when help comes, in the form of hot stones,

wine and cordial, as well as speedy removal to warm quarters, there

is no indication of any lack of ready acceptance of these means of

restoration. We find afterwards a grateful acknowledgment by John

Rogers himself to Mr. Adams and wife for the wine and cordial.

Remarkable cases of divine healing appear to have occurred in this

Society at an early date. The account given of the healing of a

later day Rogerene in Quakertown (Chapter XIII) indicates that this

was a result of faith, through teachings and experiences that had

been in operation long before this man’s day, descending from the

first headers through intervening generations. The bringing of their

sick, by the Rogerenes of New Jersey, to the “holy men” from

Ephrata, to be healed, is also indicative of former experiences that

had strengthened their faith even to a point like this.

As for surgery, there is no reason to suppose that the Rogerenes did

not use the ordinary methods for a cut finger and for more serious

wounds. These people must have had broken bones, yet we hear of none

lame among them, except one who was “born lame.” They had no New

Testament directions regarding surgical cases. As for midwives, the

size of their families of children by one mother prove that,

whatever their mode, mothers and babes thrived to a very uncommon

degree. We hear nothing of the prayer of faith in such cases, except

in unauthenticated statements of “historians.” There is abundance of

traditional evidence that the Rogerenes were trained in the care of

the sick, not only that they need not call for aid from without, but

that they might assist in ministering to others.

The fact that it is appointed to all men once to die, of itself

precludes the possibility of continual and invariable healing, even

by the prayer of faith. But to suppose that such prayer is not as

efficient as human remedies, is to declare incredible certain

passages of Scripture which are as authentic as any other portion of

the New Testament. Thus reasoned the Rogerenes.

While referring to Backus, we will note a statement made by him to

the effect that some of the Rogerene youth having put an end to

their own lives, this was a cause of the decline of their Society.

Here is a curious dragon’s tooth, and it is difficult to see how it

was manufactured. Suffice it to say that, in extensive historical

and genealogical researches for the purposes of this history (and in

researches by the authors of the Rogers and the Bolles Genealogies,

both of which works largely include allied families), there has been

found but one instance of suicide among the Rogerenes, and this was

that of a young man who took his own life while under the influence

of melancholia which came upon him during a period of religious

revival. This young man was not of Rogers descent. There was,

however, in New London, at a somewhat later date, a young man of

Rogers and Rogerene descent, who became hopelessly insane. Because

of the devotion of his mother to a church in New London he was

brought up in that church. It is said that he was a very bright and

promising youth, and that no cause could be assigned to his

derangement other than excitement induced by a revival in that

church. This is mentioned to show that such instances are not

confined to any denomination.

Backus also says that “as late as 1763” some Rogerenes “clapped

shingles and pieces of wood together around the meeting-house” in

Norwich. Since he gives no authority for this statement, it is

likely to be one of the many fabrications imposed upon the public as

“history.” If any such thing occurred, it was doubtless a Rogerene

warning to that church to desist certain meddling or persecutions.

It will not only be remembered that the date given is during the

height of the persecution that induced the great countermove, but

that from the Norwich church had issued those who apprehended and

scourged the party of Rogerenes on their way to Lebanon.[188] Mr.

Backus, with the real or assumed lack of perception common to

ecclesiastical historians when treating upon the Rogerenes, adds

that “the rulers having learned so much wisdom as only to remove

these people from disturbing others, without fines or corporeal

punishment,” they had ceased from such things in a great measure. It

would have been contrary to the inclination of such writers to

perceive that the Rogerenes disturbed no one but in defense of the

truth for which they stood, and that when persecution on account of

their own religion ceased, they had no further need to disturb the

religious observances of others.

Footnote 188:

J. Backus, the justice who apprehended and scourged the Lebanon

party in 1725, appears to have been grandfather of the historian

of the Baptists.

Barber, in his “Historical Collections of New Jersey,” states that

there is a tradition to the effect that, about eighty years before

the date of the writing (which would give us the date of the great

countermove at New London), some of the Rogerenes of Schooley’s

Mountain came into a neighboring meeting-house, bringing work and

interrupting the minister. The latter statement is couched in the

very words used by Miss Caulkins concerning the New London

countermove of 1764-66, indicating the exact origin of this New

Jersey “tradition,” which is simply in line with the erroneous

accounts of historians in general—derived from repetitions and

alterations of statements concerning the New London movement—which

represent the Rogerenes as always and everywhere taking work into

meeting-houses and interrupting the ministers.

Could any such disturbance be proven in regard to the Rogerenes of

New Jersey, it would show—as a known effect of a certain cause—that

they had been subjected to unbearable annoyances from members of

that church, on account of their own religious persuasion, and took

that method to check their enemies. But no proof of any such New

Jersey molestation or defense has been presented.

Rev. Mr. Field, in his “Bi-centennial Discourse,” says the Rogerenes

did not believe in the Sabbath “nor in public worship,” whereas,

from the first they held as regular public meetings as any of their

neighbors. Their meetings were open to friends and enemies alike,

even to Mr. Saltonstall and his fellow-conspirators. They had,

moreover, a regular organization with record books and clerk, proof

of which is still extant in Quakertown, by a book of records written

by said clerk. This erroneous statement regarding public meetings is

doubtless derived from the fact that the Rogerenes, in opposition to

the ecclesiastical law against meetings in private houses, persisted

in holding meetings in such houses, and also to the fact that the

Rogerenes held evening meetings for prayer, praise, and testimony,

which were particularly for believers.[189]

Footnote 189:

At that date the Congregationalists did not hold prayer-meetings,

or any evening services. They had, however, a religious “lecture”

on Friday afternoons.

There remain but two more principal fangs to be dealt with. One of

these is a fossil which was recently revived by Mr. Blake, minister

of the “First Church of Christ, of New London;” while the other is

quite a new production, which the same estimable gentleman himself

manufactured and circulated, through a natural desire not to be

behind other ministers and historians of that church, in endeavoring

to perpetuate the odium cast upon those who are reputed to have

suffered strange things from some of its members in times past.

The first of these statements is that it was the custom of the

Rogerenes to marry without a lawful ceremony, upon which Mr. Blake

undertakes to give a description of their manner of marrying, which

description is modelled after a familiar anecdote,—combined with a

current statement founded on the same anecdote, to the effect that

the marriage of John Rogers to Mary Ransford was a ceremony invented

for the Rogerene sect by its leader, regardless of the known fact

(“History of New London”) that upon his third marriage the

intentions were regularly published in New London and the ceremony

performed by a justice in Rhode Island. It may be seen by New London

records that his son John, two years after the death of his father,

was married by the Rev. Mr. Woodbridge, pastor of the Congregational

church of Groton. Mr. John Bolles, the noted Rogerene leader, was

married to his second wife, in 1736, by Mr. Joshua Hempstead,

justice of the peace, John Rogers, 2d, taking Mr. Hempstead and Mr.

Bolles over the river for that purpose. (“Hempstead Diary.”)

The New London town and church records and the “Hempstead Diary”

bear full evidence that the Rogerenes of New London were married by

the regular ministers or by justices of the peace, after a regular

publication.

At a comparatively late date it appears that some of the Rogerenes

prefer to have their marriages solemnized in their own public

religious meetings on Sunday, in Quaker fashion, a form allowable by

law, under condition that the marriage intentions be regularly

published. The first marriage of this kind which has been discovered

was recorded in 1764, by Joseph Bolles, clerk of the Rogerene

Society, in a church book.

By the will of Joseph Bolles (1785), it is shown that he left a

chest of Rogerene books and papers to Timothy Waterhouse of Groton.

The latter probably succeeded Joseph Bolles as clerk of the Society;

hence a remnant of this church book is in the Watrous family, and

from it was copied the following:—

At our public meeting in New London the 17th of the 6th month,

1764, Joseph Bolles was appointed clerk for our Society, to write,

etc.

* * * * *

This may certify all persons whom it may concern, that I, Timothy

Walterhouse[190], do take thee, Content Whipple, to be my lawful,

wedded wife, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in

sickness and in health, and I promise to perform to thee all the

duties of a husband according to the Scriptures, while death shall

separate us.

And I, Content Whipple, do take thee, Timothy Walterhouse, to be

my lawful, wedded husband, for better or for worse, for richer or

for poorer, in sickness and in health, and I promise to perform to

thee all the duties of a wife according to the Scriptures, while

death shall separate us.

TIMOTHY WALTERHOUSE.

CONTENT WALTERHOUSE.

The above named couple have been lawfully published, and now at

our public meeting in New London, the seventeenth day of the sixth

month, 1764, they both acknowledged and signed this paper, after

they heard it read. Thus they are man and wife, married, according

to the laws of God, in our presence.

JOHN WALTERHOUSE.

JOSEPH BOLLES.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

JOHN ROGERS (3d).

Among the various marriages in this church book are two well-known

New London Rogerenes,—Thomas Turner and Enoch Bolles (son of John).

Both of these are second marriages and the brides of Quakertown

affinity, one of them (bride of Thomas Turner) being widow of John

Waterhouse, 2d. John Waterhouse, 2d, lived in New London at, or

near, Quaker Hill.

Footnote 190:

The original name appears to have been Walterhouse, contracted

first to Waterhouse and then to Watrous.

By 1811, we find the paper to be signed reading as follows:—

GROTON, _August 4, 1811._

These lines certify all people whom they may concern that I,

William Waterous, and I, Clarissa Cushman, both of said Groton,

are joined together in a lawful covenant of marriage, not to be

separated until God who hath joined us together shall separate us

by death, and furthermore it is enjoined on us that we perform the

duty due to each other as the Scripture doth teach.

WILLIAM WATROUS.

CLARISSA WATEROUS.

_In presence of_

AMOS WATERHOUSE.

SAMUEL CHAPMAN.

Copies of these and other records were furnished us by Mr. Jabez

Watrous of Quakertown.

These marriages were, with the exceptions noted, of Rogerenes on the

Groton side, although the public meetings in which the earlier ones

were solemnized were held in New London, and most of the witnesses

were of New London. The New London Rogerenes continued to be married

by regular ministers or justices of the peace. Thus early, we find

an exclusiveness on the part of the Groton Rogerenes not

discoverable among those of New London. Yet all of the Rogerenes

considered marriage a strictly religious ceremony, consisting of

vows taken before God and not to be annulled save for the one cause

stated in the New Testament, while all know for how comparatively

slight causes marriages in other denominations have been set aside.

By the Quakertown method, the parties took each other for husband

and wife in the presence of their “elder” and the assembled

congregation; the elder did not pronounce them man and wife, they

having taken each other before God; but the marriage was recorded in

the church book, with names of several witnesses attached. We find

certificates of these marriages both on the New London and Groton

town records, further showing their legal character. Among them the

following:—

GROTON, _July 29, 1821_.

Personally appeared John Crouch and Rachel Watrous, both of

Groton, and were married in presence of me

ZEPHANIA WATROUS.

Where the antique marriage anecdote to which reference has been made

originated, or to what persons it was first applied, is a matter of

uncertainty; but, as it has frequently been attached to others

besides Rogerenes, it is likely to have originated in quite

different quarters. It appears to have become attached to the

Rogerenes through the fallacious notions previously mentioned. Even

the talented and scholarly author of the Bolles Genealogy (Gen. J.

A. Bolles) was misled by this anecdote, together with the current

statement in regard to lack of marriage ceremony among the

Rogerenes, and also by his failure to find a record of the marriage

of Joseph Bolles.[191]

Footnote 191:

Mr. Bolles also said that he could not find a record of the birth

or marriage of Joseph Bolles, Jr., on the town records, but we had

no difficulty in finding both of the latter upon those records;

and by close study of the New London records, we can affirm that

no families of New London were better represented by careful entry

of family records than were the Rogerenes, especially the Rogers

and Bolles families.

The following clause in the deed by which John Rogers, 2d, set

apart a burying-place for his descendants of itself sufficiently

indicates the attitude of the Rogerenes regarding the sanctity and

legal form of marriage:—

“I do give, grant, convey and confirm unto them my afores^d Sons

and to all the Children that are or may be born unto my afores^d

Sons or either of them _in Wedlock lawfully begotten_,” etc.

The most careful research and inquiry have failed to discover a

single child born out of wedlock in this Society during the

hundred years of its distinct existence. Joseph Bolles shows that

there were some candid people among their enemies in his day, when

he says: “Also the observers of this pretended Sabbath do allow

that there is more immorality amongst themselves than there is

among us who do not observe it.”

Marriage publications were not entered upon New London records; but

the publication of Joseph Bolles and Martha Lewis, in the

Congregational church, in 1731, is plainly recorded in the

“Hempstead Diary.” Mr. J. A. Bolles had no knowledge of the

existence of this Diary.

The anecdote which Mr. J. A. Bolles judged too good to be spoiled

for the sake of relationship, yet of which he said: “The story has

been told of so many that I doubt its authenticity,” has had so many

versions, even as attached to the Rogerenes, that it cannot well be

presented in this connection without laying before the reader

several of the Rogerene versions that have become current. Space is

given for these the more readily, because this is a good

illustration of the scurrilous stories that have been told regarding

this greatly abused sect.

ANECDOTE.

_Version No. I._ (_From the Half-Century Sermon of Rev. Abel M.

McEwen, 1857._)

Among the idols which it was the mission of these fanatics to

demolish, was the Congregational ceremony of marriage. One of

their sturdy zealots, a widower of middle age, announced his

intention to take for his wife, without any formality of marriage,

a widow in the neighborhood. Mr. Saltonstall remonstrated against

the design of the man, but he stoutly maintained and declared his

purpose. The clergyman, seeing him enter the house of his

intended, also went in that he might see them together. “You,

sir,” said he to the man, “will not disgrace yourself and the

neighborhood by taking this woman for your wife without marriage?”

“Yes,” he replied, “I will.” “But you, madam,” said the wily

watchman, “will not consent to become his wife in this improper

manner?” “Yes,” said she, “I do.” “Then,” said he, “I pronounce

you husband and wife; and I shall record your marriage in the

records of the church.”

The marriage records of the Congregational church, all of which are

extant, give no record of any such Rogerene widower and widow. Any

marriage of an irregular nature in those times, and to a much later

date, would have been proven until this day by record of presentment

at the County Court of the woman upon the birth of every child, with

attendant fine or whipping. Since not a single such presentment in

the case of a Rogerene (with the exception of Mary Ransford) is to

be found on the court records, the opening statement of Mr. McEwen

is even by that one evidence disproved.

_Version No. II._ (_From Bi-Centennial Discourse (1870) by Rev.

Mr. Field, successor to Mr. McEwen._)

Mr. Field tells above story in substantially the same manner, but

causes the Rogerene to say, at the close: “Ah, Gurdon, thou art a

cunning creature!” Mr. Field adds, in a footnote to the printed

Discourse, that “there can be no authority for the story except

tradition,” but that it bears “so many marks of probability that

there can be no reason to doubt its correctness.” Doubtless it was

such “marks of probability” that induced Mr. Field to credit the

story that the Rogerenes entered the churches unclothed, which he

incorporated among the various erroneous statements relating to

these people contained in this Discourse, although he had abundant

means of knowing of its absence from all New London history or

tradition.

_Version No. III._ (_From Bolles Genealogy, 1865—concerning Joseph

Bolles, son of John Bolles, proof of whose marriage has been

given._)

There is a tradition in the family that Governor Saltonstall, who

had a high regard for Mr. and Mrs. Bolles, contrived to marry them

without their suspecting it. It is said that after Mr. and Mrs.

Bolles had had one or two children, and been threatened by “some

rude fellows of the baser sort” with prosecution, the Governor one

day invited himself to dine with friends Joseph and Martha. As the

dinner went on, friend Gurdon, in easy conversation, very adroitly

led both Mr. and Mrs. Bolles severally to declare that they had

taken each other as man and wife in a lifelong union, and regarded

themselves bound by the marriage covenant before God and man. As

Mrs. Bolles assented to her husband’s declaration, with her

smiling “Yea, yea,” the Governor rose to his feet and spreading

out his hands exclaimed: “By virtue of my office as civil

magistrate, and as a minister of God, I declare you lawful husband

and wife.” “Ah, Gurdon,” said Joseph, “thou art a cunning

creature!”

It is strange that so intellectual and scholarly a man as Mr. John

A. Bolles did not perceive that the best part of this joke was in

the extreme friendship displayed between the ardent Rogerene leader,

Joseph Bolles, and Governor Saltonstall, as well as in the fact that

the governor must have risen from the dead to marry Joseph Bolles,

the marriage of the latter having occurred seven years after the

death of Governor Saltonstall; also that had there been a child born

to such a couple in those days, no “fellows of the baser sort” of

any less consequence than the regular town authorities would have

needed to take them in hand.

_Version No. IV._ (_From an article regarding the Rogerenes, by a

talented historian of New London of the present date, which was

published several years since in a New York paper._)

There was incessant war between John Rogers and the town because

his wife had been divorced from him. Though she was twice married,

he attempted to capture her by force, but finally married himself

to his bond-servant Mary Ransford. This scandalized the community,

and the pair were hauled before the several courts. No persuasion

would induce them to be legally united, and almost in despair

Gurdon Saltonstall, then minister, sent for the pair. “Do you

really, John,” said he, “take this woman, your bond-servant,

bought with your money, for your wife?”

“Yes,” said Rogers defiantly, “I do.”

“Is it possible, Mary, that you take this man, so much older than

yourself, for your husband?”

“Yes,” said she doggedly, “I do.”

“Then,” said the minister solemnly, “I pronounce you, according to

the law of this colony, man and wife.”

“Ah, Gurdon,” said Rogers, “thou art a cunning creature!”

Had this historian never read the famous history of the place in

which she dwells, written by Miss Caulkins, wherein is proof

absolute that John Rogers and Mary Ransford had not the honor of

being married by Governor Saltonstall? Although Miss Caulkins

herself gives a version of this story (History of New London), she

calls attention to the fact that it could not be true, as proven by

court records.

_Version No. V._ (_In one of the editions of Barber’s “Historical

Collections of Connecticut.”_)

It is here stated that “one day as Gov. Saltonstall was sitting in

his room, smoking his pipe,” a man by the name of Gorton came in

with a woman, and announced that he had taken her for his wife

without any ceremony, upon which the governor, “taking his pipe

from his mouth,” went through the usual form in these anecdotes,

whereupon Gorton exclaimed: “Thou art a cunning creature!” Barber

gives this anecdote among his various false statements regarding

the Rogerenes.

_Version No. VI._ (_A solitary anecdote found in the Chicago

Tribune of April, 1897, showing how dragon’s teeth will spring up

again and again, in one form or another._)

Alexander Bolles, one of the early itinerant preachers, who

preached in three States among the Alleghany Mountains, says the

_Argonaut_, was much tormented by the influence of one John

Rogers, a Jerseyman, who openly taught atheism and the abolishment

of marriage. On one occasion, while holding a meeting in the woods

of Virginia, a young man and woman pushed their way up to the

stump which served as a pulpit. The man, interrupting the sermon

[of course], said defiantly:—

“I’d like you to know that we are Rogerenes.” The old man looked

at him over his spectacles and waited. “We don’t believe in God,

nor in marriage. This is my wife because I choose her to be; but

I’ll have no preacher nor squire meddling with us.”

“Do you mean to tell me,” thundered Father Bolles, “that you have

taken this girl home as your wife?”

“Yes, I do,” said the fellow doggedly.

“And have you gone willingly to live with him as your husband?”

“Yes,” said the frightened girl.

“Then I pronounce you man and wife, and whom God hath joined

together let no man put asunder. Be off with you. You are married

now according to the law and the gospel.”

This rehash of several aspersions, spiced by newspaper humor, has,

as is perceived, for the best part of its joke (to those better

informed than its writer) several amusing paradoxes; viz., that the

opposing preacher should bear the name of _Bolles_; that John

Rogers, instead of dying in New London a so-called religious

fanatic, had a Rip Van Winkle sleep in New Jersey where he awoke an

atheist and at the same time a Rogerene.

The dragon’s tooth which Mr. Blake appears to have manufactured

himself, with no assistance whatever, for his “History of the First

Church of Christ, of New London,” is of a more serious character

than even such anecdotes as these. This new production is to the

effect that the General Court (1684) granted Matthew Griswold and

his daughter Elizabeth further guardianship of John Rogers, Jr., “on

account Of the continuance of his father in _immoral practices_.”

The manner in which Mr. Blake so easily manufactured a statement

never before made by any historian in regard to John Rogers, is by

having (doubtless inadvertently) placed together as contexts two

court records which have no relation to each other. The continuance

of John Rogers, Jr., in the custody of Matthew Griswold and

Elizabeth, granted in 1784, because John Rogers was “continuing in

his evil practices,” etc., referred, as observed by previous

historians, to the giving the two children into the mother’s charge

in 1677, on account (as distinctly stated in the records) of John

Rogers “being so hettridox in his opinion and practice,” even to

breaking the holy Sabbath, etc. Mr. Blake went back of this the true

context, to the alleged cause of the divorce suit in 1675, which

cause was not so much as referred to by the court when the children

were assigned to the care of the mother and grandfather, which

assignment was wholly on the ground of the father’s “hettridoxy.” To

have given the children to the care of the mother and grandfather on

account of a charge against John Rogers of which he had been

acquitted by the grand jury, would have been an impossible

proceeding. His transgression of the ecclesiastical laws and usages

were “evil practices” to the view of Matthew Griswold, Elizabeth,

and the General Court.

There has now been demonstrated the unreliable character of the main

charges that have been brought against John Rogers and the

Rogerenes, to be repeated by succeeding “historians” and added to

not infrequently, through prejudice, humor, or lack of examination

into the facts. It is trusted that the evidence given in this

present work will sufficiently prove it the result of painstaking

research and studious investigation, with no worse bias than that in

favor of the undoing of falsehood and misapprehension and the

righting of grievous wrongs.

Is it too much to ask that every person who presents so-called

history to the public shall be expected to present as clear evidence

in support of his statements and assertions, as is demanded of a

witness in a court-room, or forfeit the reputation of a reliable

author? Only by such reasonable demand, on the part of readers, can

past history be sifted of its chaff and future history deserve the

name.

Times have changed since John Rogers, Jr., went “up and down the

colony” selling his little book; but a public at large, to which

this youth trusted for a fair hearing and for sympathy, still

exists,—a public which, as a whole, is never deaf to a call for

justice. In the hands of this court, of highest as of safest appeal,

is left the “HISTORY OF THE ROGERENES.”

APPENDIX.

EXTRACTS FROM “EPISTLES.”

JOHN ROGERS, SR.

_Christian Reader_:—

I direct this my book to thee, without any regard to one sect more

than another, for the unity and fellowship of God’s people is

Love, and this Love is the bond of perfectness, and by this Love

shall all men know that we are Christ’s disciples; and if this

Love be with us and dwell in us, by it we shall know that we are

translated from death unto life; for that faith that purifies the

soul works by this Love, and by this faith which works by Love we

come to have the victory over the world.

Beloved brethren, Since that great apostacy hath been, which the

holy apostles did in their day fore-tell of, which hath spread

over nations and kingdoms, so that the very names of things in

scripture hath been (and in many things yet are) wrongly applied

and generally believed to be that which they are not; and those

false customs which this great apostacy hath brought in hath been

received (and yet are in many things) for truths; but God hath in

these latter ages raised up such lights in the world at several

times as hath discovered much of the great mystery of iniquity;

but they have always been accounted (at their first appearing) as

deceivers and seducers and the like, by the dark world in general,

and met with great opposition from the powers of this world, even

from the powers of darkness; but the God with whom all power is

hath so borne them up, through their faith, that the gates of hell

were not able to withstand them, nor all the powers of darkness

able to gainsay them, so that Satan hath been forced to fit up a

new form of pretended holiness to deceive the world with, at

several times, yea, even at every such appearance of the light of

the gospel; for so often as the Lord hath been pleased to reveal

unto his Church the life and light of the gospel, by shining into

the hearts of his children, so often hath there been a falling

away, and that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which

deceiveth the whole world, hath at such times endeavored to work

in the hearts of governors and great men of the earth to set up

that which they imagine to be the worship of God, and to maintain

the same, and this hath ever been a snare and net whereby God’s

children have been ensnared and hypocrites set up; for the true

worship of God is in righteousness and true holiness in the inner

man, and none can thus worship God till he sets them free from the

Egypt of sin, and works this righteousness in their own hearts by

his own Spirit; and such as these cannot conform to any prescribed

form set up by the powers of darkness of this world, without

procuring the great displeasure of God; for they are to be God’s

witnesses of that worship which God hath set up in the hearts of

his own children, who alone can worship God in spirit and in

truth, and none else; and these are the light of the world, and

yet are but strangers and pilgrims in the world; for their kingdom

is not of this world. But those that fall away from the spirit of

truth into the spirit of the world are the false prophets and

antichrists, and these are they whom the world doth follow and

close with, according to scripture testimony; for saith the

scripture, They are of the world, and the world heareth them; he

that is not of God heareth not us; by this we know, the spirit of

truth and the spirit of error. Here is a plain description laid

down for us to know the false prophets by, to wit, “for the world

heareth them”; by this we know they are always the greatest

number, because the body of the people will hear and speak well of

them; but the world will not hear and speak well of the true,

saith the scripture; and this is the description the scripture

gives us to know them by. I John 4, 5, 6. Luke 6, 26. Mat. 5, 11,

12.

* * * * *

What I have written in this book to the churches of Christ called

Quakers I did present to the ministry of the said people in the

time of a general meeting at Rhode Island, desiring of them it

might be read to the congregation at the said meeting, and so

handed among them till it come to Wm. Penn and the rest of their

ministry. But after the ministry had perused it, some of them told

me that I knew they did look at water baptism useless after a

person came to be baptised with the Spirit. To which I replied,

Your argument is just contrary to the scripture; for said Peter,

“Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptised which

have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? And he commanded them

to be baptized in the name of the Lord.” Acts 10, 47, 48. Another

replied, saying, “Thou holds forth the light contrary to what we

have done, both in our public testimonies and printed books.” To

which I answered, “If you can shew me wherein I have held it forth

contrary to the holy Scriptures, it shall be rectified:” But I

heard no further reply to that. I then told them that if they

would be pleased to publish it among themselves, I should be

satisfied, and proceed no further with it, otherwise my purpose

was to print it. Whereupon, some of them asked me whether I would

be satisfied if they read it in their private meeting. I told them

Yes; for I directed it to them and not to the world. Upon which

they appointed me to come to the same place the next morning at

seven of the clock for an answer; accordingly I did, where my book

was returned to me again, some saying “It holds forth things

contrary to what we have done, both in our public testimonies and

printed books, and may make a division among us.” To which I

answered, “If truth make a division among you, it is such a

division as Christ came to make.” But they thus refusing to

publish it among themselves, I have thought it my duty to put it

to public view, believing there is yet a remnant among them which

have not defiled their garments.

I have also added something more at the end of that epistle which

I presented to them, to show the difference between the

ministration of the moral law (written in the hearts of all the

children of Adam) and of the ministration of the gospel of Jesus

Christ (written on the hearts of God’s children by the spirit of

the living God) the one being the light of condemnation, the other

being the light of life, or the light of our justification,

through faith in the blood of Jesus Christ, and both proceeding

from the self-same God.

* * * * *

And as to what I have written to the observers of the Seventh Day

Sabbath, these may certify thee that after it pleased God, through

his rich grace in Christ Jesus, to take away the guilt of my sins

from my conscience and to send the spirit of his Son into my

heart, whereby he did reveal unto me his love and his acceptance

of me in Jesus Christ, this unspeakable mercy did greatly engage

my heart to love God and diligently to search the Scriptures, that

thereby I might know how to serve God acceptably, for then I soon

became a seeker how to worship God, though more zealous of the

tradition of my fathers till I saw them to be traditions and no

scripture precepts. I thus, upon diligent search of the

Scriptures, found that the First-day Sabbath was nowhere commanded

by any law of God, and the Scriptures telling me where no law is

there can be no transgression, and that it is but vain to worship

God by men’s traditions, Mat. 15, 9, and also finding by Scripture

that there was a commandment for the keeping of the seventh day, I

then openly labored on the first day of the week, in faithfulness

to God and my fellow creatures, and strictly kept the fourth

commandment, which commanded labor on the first day of the week,

and required rest on the seventh. But I continuing a diligent

searcher of the holy Scriptures, and begging at the Throne of

Grace for direction in the way of truth, it pleased God to open my

understanding to understand the Scriptures and to see that the

seventh day sabbath was but a sign (under the law) of a gospel

rest that Christ gives the soul, and that the shadowing part of

the law was nailed to the cross of Christ; I could then no longer

observe the seventh day without defiling my conscience; for saith

Christ, Mat. 10, 27: “What I tell you in darkness that speak ye in

light; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the

housetops.” I then wrote to those of my brethren that kept the

seventh day sabbath, showing them how it was but a sign or shadow

of a better thing that was to come by Jesus Christ, and since have

writ this following Epistle to them, wherein is opened the

covenant of the law and the covenant of grace, the first covenant

being a figure of the second; which covenant, with all the rites

and ceremonies of it, continued until the establishment of the new

testament by the blood of Jesus Christ; which testament contains

the substance of those things shadowed out in the first covenant;

and though the shadowing part of the law was nailed to the cross

of Christ, and so ceased, as they were signs and shadows, yet it

is as easy for heaven and earth to pass as it is for one tittle

(of what was shadowed out by the law) to escape of being fulfilled

by Christ in the substance of it; for what God had before

determined should be fulfilled by Christ was prophesied of by the

law, as well as by the prophets, as is to be seen, Mat. 2, 13. But

John the Baptist came so near to him that he pointed at him

saying, Behold the lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the

world.

I have thought it my duty to put these things to public view,

being sensible of the wiles of Satan, who is wont to work in the

darkness of men, to mislead them to make idols of such things

which God commanded to be observed as signs of instructions to his

church as is to be seen, Numb. 21, 9, compared with II Kings 18,

4, and what it was a sign of is to be seen, John 3, 14, 15.

Then follows the Epistle to the Quakers and that to the Seventh Day

Baptists.

EXTRACTS FROM “TWO MINISTRATIONS.”

JOHN ROGERS, SR.

... But before he came into the world, those that were under the

second ministration were led and taught by a shadowing law, and

were under typical judges, kings and priests, who were types of

Christ’s kingly, prophetical and priestly offices; but since his

coming in the flesh, they have ceased, and He himself is their

alone King, Priest and Prophet, to rule and teach them, in a more

evangelical or gospel way; and this was prophesied of before his

coming into the world, Deut. 18, 15, Isa. 7, 6, Psal. 110, 4. Thus

was He prophesied of before his coming in the flesh, to wit in his

prophetical, kingly and priestly offices; but He being now already

come, we are to hear Him in all things, and to follow Him in all

exemplary things, and He alone is to rule in his church, being

their King, Priest and Prophet.

... And although we are of another kingdom, and therefore are not

to be concerned in the kingdom we do not belong to, either to sit

in judgment with them, or to fight and kill under their kingdom,

yet, as being in their country and limits, rather than to offend

them we have liberty from our King to pay them tribute for the

carrying on the affairs of their kingdom and government, both by

his doctrine and example, Rom. 13, 6, 7 etc., Mat. 17, 24 etc....

But although the children of God are free, being of another

kingdom, yet they are not to use their liberty for a cloak of

maliciousness against them, but as they are the servants of God,

and proper subjects of his kingdom, they are to honour all men,

and to fear God and to honour the king, and to make conscience, as

Christ did, not to offend them, but rather to give them their

demand for carrying on their affairs in their own kingdom, ...

Can it stand with Christianity, according to Christ’s doctrine and

example since He came into the world, for his church and people to

join in with the powers of this world to resist evil, by judging

and condemning sinners, and to destroy men’s lives, by fighting

against flesh and blood with carnal weapons; or to lord it over

others by exercising authority over them, as the kings and judges

of this world do?

No: for both his doctrine and example forbid his church all such

things, as appeareth by these following Scriptures, ... And thus

are we to be followers of Him, and not to take the place of a

judge upon us, from the hands of the children of this world, and

to follow them in their kingdom, to sit with them in judgment, to

judge and condemn sinners, whom Christ did not come to judge, or

to condemn, but to save. And also seeing He who was without sin

hath not executed justice upon us who were sinners, but hath

extended his grace and mercy to us, in acquitting and forgiving

us, so ought we to be followers of Him, and not now become judges

and condemners of sinners, seeing he hath not judged nor condemned

us for our sins. And seeing he who was without sin did not cast a

stone at the woman taken in adultery, who was a sinner, so

likewise let us, who were once sinners, learn of him to be

merciful unto sinners, as he hath been merciful unto us, who came

not to destroy men’s lives but to save them....

... But Christ’s doctrine doth not give his disciples so much

liberty as to defend themselves by the law of justice from the

hands of earthly judges, Mat. 5, 38 etc. “Ye have heard that it

hath been said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’; but I

say unto you that ye resist not evil, etc,” “And if any man will

sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy

cloak also, etc.”... We are to love our enemies, and to bless them

that curse us and to do good to them that hate us, and to pray for

them that despitefully use us and persecute us, Mat. 5, 44, and to

do violence to no man, and to live peaceably with all men, as much

as in us lies, by suffering ourselves to be defrauded, Rom. 12,

18. I Cor. 6, 7.

Thus we may see, by the doctrine and example of Christ, that it

cannot stand with perfect Christianity to be either governor,

judge, executioner or jury man, or to be active in the making any

laws which may be useful in the body of the kingdoms of this

world, who are only under the ministration of the moral law, and

their weapons are carnal, with which weapons they fight against

flesh and blood only, punishing both the righteous and the wicked,

according to what is written, “And he was numbered with the

transgressors” (by the judges of this world) Mark 15, 28.

... And this His kingdom and peaceable government was before

prophesied of, and how he should put an end to wars, and reconcile

sinners to his church, ...

... Then said Jesus unto him, “Put up again thy sword into his

place, for all they that take the sword shall perish with the

sword.” Matt. 26, 52. “He that leadeth into captivity shall go

into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with

the sword.” Rev. 13, 10. Here He rebuketh the use of the sword,

according to what was before prophesied of him, threatening them

that use it to measure the same measure to them.... From hence it

appears plainly that the very reason why Christ bid them provide

swords was that He might fulfil those prophesies which prophesied

of him beforehand; that He should rebuke the use of the sword when

he should come, and cause them to beat their swords into

plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, and that they

should learn war no more. For when they told Him there were two

swords, He said, “It is enough;” but when they came to make use of

them, he rebuked the use of them, saying, “Put up again thy sword

into his place; for all they that take the sword shall perish with

the sword.” So that it appears he did not bid them provide swords

to kill and slay with them, but put an end to the use of them in

his church....

We thus seeing that Christ hath rebuked the use of the sword in

his church, and that they are to learn war no more, but are to

beat their swords into useful tools, for necessary uses, it is an

evil thing for a Christian to practice any gesture that tendeth to

war, as watching, warding or training, or exercising any posture

leading to war; for it is some degree of contempt to the doctrine

of Christ, who hath taught us to learn war no more, but to live

the life of faith and love, who hath promised us his protection

and preservation from famine, pestilence and sword, when we love

him and keep his commandments, as throughout the 91st psalm, Job

5, 19, 20. Isa. 26, 1, 2, 3, 4. Rev. 3, 10.