ROGER WILLIAMS
[Illustration: Statue of Roger Williams in Roger Williams Park,
Providence, R. I.]
ROGER WILLIAMS
PROPHET AND PIONEER OF SOUL-LIBERTY
_By_
ARTHUR B. STRICKLAND
[Illustration]
THE JUDSON PRESS
BOSTON CHICAGO ST. LOUIS NEW YORK
LOS ANGELES KANSAS CITY SEATTLE TORONTO
Copyright, 1919, by
GILBERT N. BRINK, SECRETARY
Published June, 1919
TO
My Wife
SYMPATHETIC HELPER
AND
INSPIRING COMPANION
IN ALL MY WORK
THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY
INSCRIBED
BAPTIST SPARKS FROM A HEBREW ANVIL
“Even the absence of a definite experiment must not deter him. He
would create a society where the principles would be put to the
test. He would fashion a State where the Church and the crown would
be mutually helpful though independent. He would create a condition
of humanity where the sovereignty of the soul before God would be
respected, and where every man, believer or disbeliever, Gentile,
Jew, or Turk, would have untrammeled opportunity for the display and
exercise of the faith within him. Here lies the core of his heroism!”
CONCERNING THE MONUMENT AT ROGER WILLIAMS PARK
“This one monument speaks the gratitude of one State. But the whole
country has an eloquent voice of appreciation. Even as the tombstone
of Sir Christopher Wren, the builder of St. Paul’s Cathedral, intones
the larger praise when it says, ‘If you would see his monument, look
around you,’ so would we point to the great principles of equal and
religious freedom, written into the Constitution of forty-eight
States, and engraven on the minds of ninety millions of people in our
country and making their moral and civic influence felt all over the
civilized globe, as worthy tributes to the genius of Roger Williams.”
--_Extracts from Thanksgiving Address on “Roger Williams,” delivered
by Rabbi Abram Simon, Ph. D., to Reformed Congregation Keneseth
Israel, Philadelphia, November 24, 1912._
PREFACE
The four years of the great war have witnessed two astounding facts,
namely, the recrudescence of an ancient barbarism and the world-wide
application of the ideals of Christianity. During these momentous times
the frontiers of barbarism and of civilization were clearly marked. The
greater part of the world declared its position and took sides with one
or other of the contestants. The whole world was either for or against,
either friend or foe to, the essential principles of a Christian
civilization.
It was no accident that the torch of the Hun and the Cross of the
Christ should meet again on the old historic battle-ground between
the Somme and the Rhine, and especially at the Marne. We thank God in
victory’s hour that the Cross of the Christ is again triumphant, and
we trust the torch of the Hun is extinguished forever. Autocracy’s
serpent head has been crushed beneath the heel of a militant democracy.
That bruised heel is our reminder of the cost of victory. It staggers
the imagination to state in terms of manhood, materials, and money the
price we have paid to make a world safe for democracy.
The eyes of a world have been opened. Men have thought of Calvary, the
price the Son of God paid to redeem the wayward, wicked world. Men
through their Calvary have come to understand the message of Christ’s
Cross--that all men are of equal value in the sight of humanity’s
God, and therefore are entitled to equal privileges in the world he
has made for their happiness. Out from the shambles of these war-torn
years there has come forth, slowly and certainly, with ever-increasing
clearness, the shining form of the ideal supreme, the truth triumphant,
the principle of full, free, absolute soul-liberty.
As the thirsty caravan turns to the springs, as the mariner turns to
his compass in the darkest night, so the war-weary world--all parts
of it, both that of friend and that of foe--looks beseechingly to
America and to the ideal of which she is the great exemplar. From her
shores there went forth an army which under God turned the tide against
barbarism and made possible the final victory for civilization.
That army was composed of men whose fathers represented every nation
under heaven. Some who received the highest honor for distinguished
service were born under the very flags they sought to overthrow. It was
humanity’s army, dominated by ideals distinctly American, which fought,
not for military glory, not for hellish hatred, not for selfish gain,
but as the crusaders of a new order, of an international fraternity.
The distinctive feature of America’s greatness is not her boundless
wealth, not her limitless resources, not her inimitable versatility.
It is the ideal which she has inherited from her fathers. That ideal,
in the forefront of the world’s thought today, had its yesterday of
suffering and of sacrifice.
It is timely in the hour of democracy’s triumph to turn our thoughts
toward the genesis of soul-liberty in America. Today millions of
men espouse her sacred cause. In the dawn of American history, in
the early colonial times, a misunderstood, maligned, and persecuted
refugee, Roger Williams, stood almost alone as her defender. Driven
from motherland and from adopted home, he found among the savages
of the wilderness a place where he could live out his principles of
soul-liberty and grant freely to others what he desired for himself. He
has been rightly called “The First American,” because he was the first
to actualize in a commonwealth the distinctively American principle of
freedom for mind and body and soul.
Roger Williams was not the discoverer of the principle of soul-liberty.
What Jesus did and said was the torch of truth destined to illumine the
whole world. His death on the cross was the voice of God in eloquent
terms, telling us that all men were equal sharers in his love and
entitled to equal opportunities and privileges in the world which he
had made for man’s well-being. Christ taught clearly that men should
not force others to belief in him or to Christian conduct, nor destroy
those who failed to follow his teachings as they saw them.
For centuries faithful witnesses kept alive in the world these precious
truths. In fact, for a millennium the name Anabaptist or Baptist was
synonymous with soul-liberty. Baptists on the Continent and in England
sowed broadcast these seeds which led to a glorious harvest in the new
world. After the death of Roger Williams the Baptists in the colonies
continued the work so nobly begun by him. In the face of bitterest
persecution they labored for a century before the much-desired
principle of soul-liberty was interwoven into our National Constitution
and protected by the First Amendment.
Our Western Hemisphere represents two types of civilization. The Rio
Grande is the dividing line between a civilization which is Baptist in
its distinctive and essential character and one which is non-Baptist.
To the north we see what the democracy of the soul can do when
associated with the democracy of political rights. To the south we see
but the twilight of civilization, a place where there is political
democracy in name, but where it is rendered powerless because the
mind and soul do not enjoy full freedom. It is the difference between
religious democracy and religious autocracy. To the north the Bible is
loved, it is studied freely, and its principles are followed. It is a
land where the Bible is unchained and where the prevailing religions
are of a church without a bishop in a land without a king. To the south
the Bible is practically suppressed, its study is discouraged, and its
truths go unheeded.
Europe, thou art looking across the seas to America. Look to all three
Americas. Political democracy is universal in North, Central, and South
America. Ask thyself the question, Why is the civilization of the north
so attractive? It is because Religious Liberty is married to Political
Liberty. Dost thou want our blessedness? Then see to it that thy
new-born democracies and thine ancient ones have complete soul-liberty.
Give the Bible a chance to bless thy stricken lands. Let the truths
from God’s book do their revolutionary work for thee as they have for
God’s liberty land on this side of the sea.
Religious liberty has unchained the Bible, scattered the darkness of
superstition, flooded our continent with light and blessing. It has
toppled selfish autocrats from their thrones, it has unlocked the
shackles from the feet of millions who were living in spiritual and
physical slavery. Religious liberty opens the doors and lets God’s
sunlight of truth enter to warm and bless the world.
To Roger Williams and the historic Baptist denomination we turn for
the story of the genesis and growth of this great blessing in America.
There is an effort, in evidence in the secular and religious press
of America, and, in some sections, in many of our public schools, to
rob both Williams and the Baptists of their crown of glory. In certain
quarters both Protestants and Catholics are attributing the honor of
giving birth to religious liberty to communions which centuries ago
persecuted our Baptist forefathers unto banishment and death.
The early American Colonies can be divided into three classes. One
class included those who sought for uniformity in religion. Exile and
death were resorted to to make that religious uniformity possible.
Baptists were martyred in Massachusetts and Virginia. Another class
included those who granted a toleration to other Christian religions,
but who denied political privileges to Jews, infidels, or Unitarians.
Maryland and Pennsylvania, although far advanced from the persecuting
spirit of some of the colonies, belong to this second class. There was
another class, represented at first by the smallest of the colonies,
little Baptist Rhode Island, which gave full, absolute, religious
liberty. No political privilege was dependent on religious belief. The
attitude of the early colonists to the Jews is the acid test of their
claim to priority as the advocates of soul-liberty in America.
Hebrew scholars and statesmen do not hesitate to give their tribute of
honor to Roger Williams and the Baptists. The Hon. Oscar S. Straus,
twice American Ambassador to Turkey, Secretary of Labor and Commerce
in the late President Roosevelt’s Cabinet, and President of the League
to Enforce Peace, said on January 13, 1919, on the eve of sailing for
Europe and the Peace Conference:
If I were asked to select from all the great men who have left their
impress upon this continent from the days that the Puritan Pilgrims
set foot on Plymouth Rock, until the time when only a few days ago
we laid to rest the greatest American in our generation--Theodore
Roosevelt; if I were asked whom to hold before the American people
and the world to typify the American spirit of fairness, of freedom,
of liberty in Church and State, I would without any hesitation select
that great prophet who established the first political community on
the basis of a free Church in a free State, the great and immortal
Roger Williams.... He became a Baptist, or as they were then called,
Anabaptist, because to his spirit and ideals the Baptist faith
approached nearer than any other--a community and a church which
is famous for never having stained its hands with the blood of
persecutors.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE APOSTLE OF SOUL-LIBERTY 1
II. THE FOUNDING OF PROVIDENCE 27
III. THE HISTORIC CUSTODIANS OF SOUL-LIBERTY 57
IV. SOUL-LIBERTY AT HOME IN A COMMONWEALTH 79
V. FROM SOUL-LIBERTY TO ABSOLUTE CIVIL LIBERTY 103
VI. THE TORCH-BEARERS OF THE IDEAL OF ROGER WILLIAMS
UNTIL LIBERTY ENLIGHTENED THE WORLD 119
VII. THE WORLD-WIDE INFLUENCE OF ROGER WILLIAMS’
IDEAL 137
STUDY OUTLINE OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ROGER
WILLIAMS 145
A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 149
AN ITINERARY FOR A HISTORIC PILGRIMAGE 151
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author desires to express his indebtedness to the John Carter Brown
Library, Providence, R. I., to the “Providence Magazine,” to the Rhode
Island Historical Society, to the Roger Williams Park Museum, and to
the New York City Public Library, for valuable assistance rendered in
securing illustrations for this book.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
_Statue of Roger Williams_ _Frontispiece_
_Copy of Shorthand Found in Indian Bible_ 4
_Sir Edward Coke_ 5
_Charterhouse School_ 9
“_A Key into the Language of America_” 12
_Boston, 1632_ 13
_The Fort and Chapel on the Hill Where Roger Williams
Preached_ 13
_Pembroke College_ 17
_Fac-simile from Original Records of the Order for the
Banishment of Roger Williams_ 20
_Original Church at Salem, Mass._ 21
_Site of Home of Roger Williams in Providence, R. I._ 21
_Sun-dial and Compass Used by Roger Williams in His Flight_ 30
_Spring at the Seekonk Settlement_ 31
_Tablet Marking Seekonk Site_ 31
_What Cheer Rock. Landing-place of Roger Williams_ 31
_Original Deed of Providence from the Indians_ 35
_Williams’ Letter of Transference to His Loving Friends_ 39
_The Original Providence “Compact”_ 41
_The First Division of Home Lots in Providence_ 45
“_Simplicities Defence_” 47
_The Arrival of Roger Williams with the Charter_ 49
“_Mr. Cotton’s Letter Lately Printed_” 52
“_The Bloudy Tenent, ... discussed_” 53
_Roger Williams’ Reference to “An Humble Supplication”
in His “Bloudy Tenent”_ 54
“_Christenings make not Christians_” 63
_First Baptist Church of Providence_ 65
_Roger Mowry’s “Ordinarie.” Built 1653, Demolished 1900_ 65
_Interior of First Baptist Church, Providence_ 69
_Bell of First Baptist Church, Providence_ 73
“_The Fourth Paper, ... by Maior Butler_” 82
“_The Bloudy Tenent, Washed_” 84
“_The Bloody Tenent yet More Bloody_” 85
“_The Hireling Ministry_” 87
“_Experiments of Spiritual Life and Health_” 88
“_George Fox Digg’d out of his Burrowes_” 90
_Models of Indian Village in Roger Williams Park Museum_ 91
“_A New-England Fire-Brand Quenched_” 94
_Rhode Island Historical Society Museum_ 95
_Apple Tree Root from the Grave of Roger Williams_ 95
_Grave of Roger Williams_ 95
_New Testament Title-page of Roger Williams’ Indian Bible_ 98
_Indian Bible Used by Roger Williams, the Pioneer Missionary
to the American Indians_ 99
_Original Home of Brown University, in Providence, R. I._ 109
_Brown University in Early Nineteenth Century_ 109
_Capitol Building in Providence, Where the Charter is Kept_ 113
_City Hall, Providence, Where the Compact, Indian Deed, and
Letter of Transference Are Kept_ 113
_Order Banishing the Founders of the First Baptist Church
in Boston_ 123
“_Ill Newes from New-England_” 125
_John Clarke Memorial, First Baptist Church of Newport, R. I._ 127
_Grave of John Clarke_ 127
_The Law in William Penn’s Colony_ 129
_The Law Concerning Religious Toleration in Maryland
Colony_ 130
_Puritan-Religious-Liberty!_ 131
_William Rogers_ 133
_James Manning_ 133
_Isaac Backus_ 133
I
THE APOSTLE OF SOUL-LIBERTY
That body-killing, soul-killing, state-killing doctrine of not
permitting but persecuting all other consciences and ways of worship
but his own in the civil state.... Whole nations and generations of
men have been forced (though unregenerate and unrepentant) to pretend
and assume the name of Jesus Christ, which only belongs, according to
the institution of the Lord Jesus, to truly regenerate and repentant
souls. Secondly, that all others dissenting from them, whether Jews or
Gentiles, their countrymen especially (for strangers have a liberty),
have not been permitted civil habitation in this world with them,
but have been distressed and persecuted by them.--_Roger Williams’
Estimate of Religious Persecution._
The principle of religious liberty did not assert itself, save in one
instance, at once that American colonization was begun. For the most
part, the founders of these colonies came to this country imbued with
the ideas concerning the relations between government and religion,
which had been universal in Europe.... This makes the attitude of our
American exception, Roger Williams, the more striking and significant.
More than one hundred years in advance of his time, he denied the
entire theory and practice of the past.--_Sanford Cobb._
Roger Williams advocated the complete separation of Church and
State, at a time when there was no historical example of such
separation.--_Newman._
THE APOSTLE OF SOUL-LIBERTY
A government of the people, formed by the people for the people, with
Church and State completely separate, and with political privileges
not dependent on religious belief, was organized and maintained
successfully for the first time in Christendom in Rhode Island, the
smallest of the American Colonies. Its inspiration and founder was
Roger Williams, the apostle of soul-liberty. Because he was the first
asserter of the principle which has since been recognized as the
distinctive character of our national greatness, he has been called
“The First American.”
Little is known of the personal appearance of Roger Williams. His
contemporaries describe him as a man of “no ordinary parts,” with “a
never-failing sweetness of temper and unquestioned piety.” They also
said he was a man of “unyielding tenacity of purpose, a man who could
grasp a principle in all its bearings and who could incorporate it in
a social compact.” “He was no crude, unlearned agitator, but a scholar
and thinker.” Governor Bradford speaks of him as “having many precious
parts.” Governor Winthrop refers to him as “a godly minister.”
The artist’s conception, based upon these characteristics, is best
expressed by a monument in Roger Williams Park, Providence, R. I.
It is the work of Franklin Simmons, and was erected by the city of
Providence in 1877. In a beautiful park of over four hundred acres
with hills and drives and lakes, surrounded by trees and shrubbery,
and on land originally purchased from the Indians by Williams, the
illustrious pioneer of a new order is seen in heroic form. He seems to
be looking out over the very colony he formed. In his hand he holds a
volume, entitled “Soul-Liberty, 1636,” a title which has since become
synonymous with his name. History is seen writing “1636,” the birth
year of soul-liberty in America. She continues to write with increasing
appreciation of the far-reaching influence of this illustrious hero of
religious and political democracy.
[Illustration: Copy of Shorthand Found on Fly-leaf of Roger Williams’
Indian Bible]
For many years scholars thought that Roger Williams was born at the
close of the sixteenth century at Gwinear, Cornwall, England. Now it
is generally believed that he was born in London, England, in the
opening years of the seventeenth century. He had two brothers and a
sister. His father was a tailor. About this time Timothy Bright and
Peter Bales introduced into England a new method of writing which was
called “shorthand.” The boy Roger Williams learned it and visited the
famous Star Chamber to put it into practice. The judge noticed the lad
and inspected his work. To his amazement, the record was complete and
accurate. This judge, Sir Edward Coke, the most distinguished lawyer
and jurist of his day, immediately took an interest in the lad, and
became his patron, securing for Williams admission to the Charterhouse
School. This was the school where John Wesley, Thackeray, Addison, and
others were educated. He was admitted as a pensioner, in June, 1621.
Later, through Coke’s influence, he was admitted to Pembroke College,
Cambridge, in June, 1623. He was graduated with the degree of bachelor
of arts in 1627, and the year following was admitted to holy orders.
About this time he was disappointed in a love affair, the lady of his
choice being Jane Whalley. He sought permission of her aunt, Lady
Barrington, to marry her. When refused, he wrote a striking letter
in which he predicted for Lady Barrington a very unhappy hereafter
unless she repented.
[Illustration: Sir Edward Coke Courtesy of “Providence Magazine”]
In 1629, we find him at High Laves, Essex, not far from Chelmesford,
where Thomas Hooker, later the founder of Hartford Colony, was
minister. Here he also met John Cotton. Men’s views at that time were
changing. The people of the Established Church were divided into three
classes. One stood by the Established Order in all things; another
class of Puritans sought to stay by the Church, but aimed to purify the
movement; the third class was for absolute separation. Williams, with
hundreds of others, was disturbed. The anger of Lady Barrington and the
suspicions of Archbishop Laud started a persecution which drove him out
of England. He said:
I was persecuted in and out of my father’s house. Truly it was as
bitter as death to me when Bishop Laud pursued me out of the land,
and my conscience was persuaded against the national church, and
ceremonies and bishops.... I say, it was as bitter as death to me when
I rode Windsor way to take ship at Bristol.
Many years later he wrote:
He (God) knows what gains and preferments I have refused in
universities, city, country, and court in old England, and something
in New England, to keep my soul undefiled in this point and not to act
with a doubting conscience.
Before leaving England, he was married. The only information we have
in regard to his wife, up to that time, is that her name was Mary
Warned. They sailed on the ship Lyon, from Bristol, England, December
1, 1630. After a tempestuous journey of sixty-six days they arrived off
Nantasket, February 5, 1631. Judge Durfee speaks thus of this flight:
He was obliged to fly or dissemble his convictions, and for him, as
for all noblest natures, a life of transparent truthfulness was alone
an instinct and a necessity. This absolute sincerity is the key to
his character, as it was always the mainspring of his conduct. It was
this which led him to reject indignantly the compromises with his
conscience which from time to time were proposed to him. It was this
which impelled him when he discovered a truth to proclaim it, when he
detected an error to expose it, when he saw an evil, to try and remedy
it, and when he could do a good, even to his enemies, to do it.
Upon his arrival in Boston he was invited to become the teacher in
the Boston church, succeeding Mr. Wilson who was about to return to
England. To his surprise, he discovered that the Boston church was a
church _unseparated from_ the Established Church of England, and he
felt conscientiously bound to decline their invitation. The Boston
people, who believed their church to be the “most glorious on earth,”
were astonished at his refusal. Williams would not act as their teacher
unless they publicly repented of their relation to the Established
Order. It was perfectly natural that a soul with convictions, such as
Williams possessed, should desire to be absolutely separated from the
Established Order. One incident from many will show the spirit of the
Established Church in England toward those within its ranks who had
become Puritan, let alone Separatist. Neal, in his “History of the
Puritans,” tells, of Doctor Leighton’s persecution in England. He was
arrested by Archbishop Laud and the following sentence was passed upon
him: That he be
committed to the prison of the Fleet for life, and pay a fine of ten
thousand pounds; that the High Commission should degrade him from his
ministry, and that he should be brought to the pillory at Westminster,
while the court was sitting and be publicly whipped; after whipping
be set upon the pillory a convenient time, and have one of his ears
cut off, one side of his nose split, and be branded in the face with a
double S. S. for a sower of sedition: that then he should be carried
back to prison, and after a few days be pilloryed a second time in
Cheapside, and have the other side of his nose split, and his other
ear cut off and then be shut up in close prison for the rest of his
life.
In the district in which Roger Williams lived this sentence was carried
out in all its hellish cruelty just prior to Williams’ banishment from
England. Do we blame the exile Williams for repudiating the movement
which at that hour was so wicked in its persecutions? He meant to
have a sea between him and a thing so hateful. John Cotton said that
Williams looked upon himself as one who “had received a clearer
illumination and apprehension of the state of Christ’s kingdom, and
of the purity of church communion, than all Christendom besides.”
Cotton Mather said that Williams had “a windmill in his head.” Well for
America that such a windmill was there and that he was a prophet with
clear visions of truth.
[Illustration: Charterhouse School Courtesy of “Providence Magazine”]
After refusing the Boston church, Roger Williams was invited by the
Salem church to be assistant to Mr. Skelton, their aged teacher.
He accepted their invitation and became Teacher, April 12, 1631.
The General Court in Boston remonstrated with the Salem church. The
persecution of this court led doubtless to his retirement from Salem at
the close of that summer.
He left the Massachusetts Bay Colony and became assistant to Ralph
Smith, the pastor at Plymouth. The Plymouth people, being strict
Separatists, were more congenial company, since they had withdrawn
from the Established Order to form a church after the pattern of the
Primitive Church model. Williams remained in Plymouth for about two
years. Governor Bradford soon detected his advanced positions, relative
to separation of Church and State, but considered it “questionable
judgment.” He praised his qualities as a minister, writing thus of him:
His teaching, well approved, for þe benefit whereof I still bless
God, and am thankful to him, even for his sharpest admonitions and
reproofs, so far as they agreed with truth.
Governor Winthrop, with Mr. Wilson, teacher of the Boston church,
visited Plymouth at this time.
They were very kindly treated and feasted every day at several houses.
On the Lord’s Day, there was a sacrament which they did partake in;
and, in the afternoon, Mr. Roger Williams (according to their custom)
propounded a question, to which the Pastor, Mr. Smith, spoke briefly;
then Mr. Williams prophesied; and after the Governor of Plymouth spoke
to the question. Then the elder (Mr. William Brewster) desired the
Governor of Massachusetts and Mr. Wilson to speak to it, which they
did. When this was ended, the deacon, Mr. Fuller, put the congregation
in mind of their duty of contribution; whereupon the Governor and all
the rest went down to the deacon’s seat, and put into the box and then
returned.
Williams came in contact with the Indians who visited Plymouth from
time to time, and gained the confidence of Massasoit, the father of
the famous Philip. He studied their language and cultivated their
friendship. He writes in one of his letters, “My soul’s desire was
to do the natives good!” Near the close of his life he referred to
this early experience: “God was pleased to give me a painful patient
spirit, to lodge with them in their filthy smoke, to gain their
tongue.” Surely the Providence of God was thus preparing the way for
the founding of a new colony, to be made possible through these very
Indians who had implicit confidence in this man of God.
[Illustration]
A KEY into the
LANGUAGE
_OF_
AMERICA:
_OR_,
An help to the _Language_ of the _Natives_
in that part of AMERICA, called
_NEW-ENGLAND_.
Together, with briefe _Observations_ of the Customes,
Manners and Worships, _&c._ of the
aforesaid _Natives_, in Peace and Warre,
in Life and Death.
On all which are added Spirituall _Observations_,
Generall and Particular by the _Authour_, of
chiefe and speciall use (upon all occasions,) to
all the _English_ Inhabiting those parts;
yet pleasant and profitable to
the view of all men:
_BY_ ROGER WILLIAMS
of _Providence_ in _New-England_.
_LONDON_,
Printed by _Gregory Dexter_, 1643.
[Illustration: Boston, 1632 From an old print]
[Illustration: The Fort and Chapel on the Hill Where Roger Williams
Preached Used by permission of A. S. Burbank, Plymouth, Mass.]
Williams was Pauline in his self-supporting ministry. He wrote: “At
Plymouth I spake on the Lord’s Day and week days and worked hard at my
hoe for my bread (and so afterward at Salem until I found them to be
an unseparated people).” His ministry made friends and foes. His foes
feared he would run the same course of Anabaptist behavior as did John
Smith, the Se-Baptist, at Amsterdam. Early in August his first child
was born, and was named Mary after her mother. Later in the same month,
he became for a second time the assistant to Mr. Skelton, at Salem. A
number of choice spirits, who had been attracted to his ministry, went
with him. He requested a letter of dismission from the Plymouth church
to unite with the Salem church. This was granted, but with a caution
as to his advanced views. To advocate the separation of Church and
State placed a man at that time with the “Anabaptists,” as this was
considered their great distinctive doctrine.
He commenced his labors at Salem under this cloud and also with the
General Court in Boston very suspicious of his work. Already there was
the distant rumbling of a storm which would eventually drive him into
exile.
The ministers of the Bay Colony, from the churches of Boston, Newtowne
(Cambridge), Watertown, Roxbury, Dorchester, Salem, and elsewhere, were
accustomed to meet for discussion and common interest. Roger Williams
feared that this might lead to a presbytery or superintendency, to the
prejudice of local church liberty. He loathed everything which might
make for intolerance.
In December, 1633, he forwarded to the governor and his assistants a
document which he had prepared at Plymouth, in which he disputed their
right to have the land by the king’s grant. Williams claimed, “they
have no title except they compounded with the natives.” He also accused
King James of telling a lie in claiming to be “the first Christian
prince to discover this new land.” This treatise had never been
published or made public. Its appearance now terrified the governor and
the assistants, for at that very time they were holding the possession
to their colony on a charter originally given for a different purpose.
It had been granted in England to a trading company, and its transfer
was questionable. They feared the king might withdraw it. This treatise
of Williams would be considered treason by the king. They met on
December twenty-seventh and counseled with Williams. Seeing the grave
danger to the colony, he agreed to give evidence of loyalty. Today we
do not question the ethical correctness of the advanced position held
by Williams.
It was not long before this pioneer of soul-liberty raised a new
question concerning “the propriety of administering an oath, which
is an act of worship, to either the unwilling or the unregenerate.”
Williams’ position was peculiarly obnoxious to the magistrates who
were then on the point of testing the loyalty of the colonists by
administering an oath of allegiance which was to be, in reality,
allegiance to the colony instead of to the king. The Court was called
to discuss the new objection to its policy. Mr. Cotton informs us that
the position was so well defended by Williams that “it threatened the
court with serious embarrassment.” The people supported Williams’
position, and the court was compelled to desist. On the death of
Skelton, in August, 1634, the Salem church installed Roger Williams
as their teacher. This act gave great offense to the General Court in
Boston. Williams commenced anew his agitation against the right to own
land by the king’s patent. The Salem church and Williams were both
cited to appear before the General Court, July 18, 1635, to answer
complaints made against them.
The elders gave their opinion:
He who would obstinately maintain such opinions (whereby a church
might run into heresy, apostasy, or tyranny, and yet the civil
Magistrates may not intermeddle) ought to be removed, and that the
other churches ought to request the Magistrates so to do.
The church and the pastor were notified “to consider the matter until
the next General Court, and then to recant, or expect the court to take
some final action.” At this same court, the Salem people petitioned
for a title to some land at Marblehead Neck, which was theirs, as they
believed, by a just claim. The court refused even to consider this
claim, “until there shall be time to test more fully the quality of
your allegiance to the power which you desire should be interposed on
your behalf.” Professor Knowles says:
Here is a candid avowal that justice was refused to Salem, on the
question of civil right, as a punishment for the conduct of church and
pastor. A volume could not more forcibly illustrate the danger of a
connection between the civil and ecclesiastical power.
[Illustration: Pembroke College Reduced from Loggan’s print, taken
about 1688]
Teacher and people at Salem were indignant, and a letter was addressed
to the churches of the colony in protest against such injustice. The
churches were asked to admonish the magistrates and deputies within
their membership. These churches refused or neglected to do this. In
some cases the letters never came before the church. Williams then
called on his own church to withdraw communion with such churches. It
declined to do this, and he withdrew from the Salem church, preaching
his last sermon, August 19, 1635. Here was a repetition of the first
conflict. Straus writes:
Here stood the one church already condemned, with sentence
suspended over it. Against it were arrayed the aggregate power of
the colony--its nine churches, the priests, and the magistrates.
What could the Salem church and community do, threatened with
disfranchisement, its deputies excluded from the General Court, and
its petition for land to which it was entitled, denied? Dragooned into
submission it had to abandon its persecuted minister to struggle alone
against the united power of Church and State. To deny Williams the
merit of devotion to a principle in this contest, wherein there was
no alternative but retraction or banishment, is to belie history in
order to justify bigotry, and to convert martyrdom into wrong-headed
obstinacy. This is exactly what Cotton sought to do in his version of
the controversy given ten years later in order to vindicate himself
and his church brethren from the stigma of their acts in the eyes of
a more enlightened public opinion in England. Williams pursued no
half-hearted or half-way measures. He stood unshaken upon the firm
ground of his convictions, and declared to the Salem church that he
could no longer commune with them, thereby entirely separating himself
from them and them from him.
He went so far as to refuse to commune with his own wife in the new
communion which he formed in his own home, until she would completely
withdraw from the Salem church.
The time for the next General Court drew near. The Salem church letter
and Williams’ withdrawal from his church made his foes determined to
crush him. They had thoughts of putting him to death.
[Illustration: Fac-simile from Original Records of the Order for the
Banishment of Roger Williams.]
[Sidenote: 1635. 3rd Sept.]
Whereas Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of the church of Salem,
hath broached and divulged dyvers newe and dangerous opinions against
the aucthorite of magistrates, as also with others of defamcon,
both of the magistrates and churches here, and that before any
conviccon, and yet maintaineth the same without retraccon, it is
therefore ordered, that the said Mr. Williams shall depte out of
this jurisdiccon within sixe weekes nowe nexte ensueing, wch if hee
neglect to pforme, it shall be lawfull for the Gouv’r and two of the
magistrates to send him to some place out of this jurisdiccon, not to
returne any more without licence from the Court.
The General Court convened in the rude meeting-house of the church
in Newtowne (Cambridge), on the corner of Dunster and Mill Streets.
Williams maintained his positions. He was asked if he desired a month
to reflect and then come and argue the matter before them. He declined,
choosing “to dispute presently.” Thomas Hooker, minister at Newtowne,
was appointed to argue with him on the spot, to make him see his
errors. Williams’ positions had a “rockie strength” and he was ready,
“not only to be bound and banished, but to die also in New England; as
for the most holy truths of God in Christ Jesus.” He would not recant.
So the Court met the following day, Friday, October 9, 1635, and passed
the following sentence:
Whereas Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of the church of Salem,
hath broached and divulged dyvers newe and dangerous opinions against
the aucthorite of magistrates, as also with letters of defamcon,
both of the magistrates and churches here, and that before any
conviccon, and yet maintaineth the same without retraccon, it is
therefore ordered, that the said Mr. Williams shall depte out of
this jurisdiccon within sixe weekes nowe nexte ensueing, wch if hee
neglect to pforme, it shall be lawfull for the Gouv’r and two of the
magistrates to send him to some place out of this jurisdiccon, not to
returne any more without licence from the Court.
[Illustration: Original Church at Salem, Mass.]
[Illustration: Site of Home of Roger Williams in Providence, R. I.]
Although Williams had withdrawn from the church at Salem, yet his
character was such that the town was indignant at this decree of the
court. About this time, his second child was born. Like the prophets
of old, he gave the child a significant name, calling her “Freeborn.”
Mr. Williams’ health at this time was far from being robust. A stay
of sentence was therefore granted, and he was to be allowed to remain
until the following spring. He did not refrain from advocating his
opinions, and soon the authorities heard of meetings in his house at
Salem and of twenty who were prepared to go with him to found a new
colony at the head of the Narragansett Bay. At its January meeting,
the Court decided to send him to England at once in a ship then about
to return. He was cited to appear in Boston, but reported inability
due to his impaired health. They then sent a pinnace for him by sea.
Being forewarned, he fled to the wilderness in the depths of which, for
fourteen weeks, he suffered the hardships of a New England winter.
* * * * *
The original Roger Williams Church is still preserved at Salem. The
first church in the first town of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was at
the corner of Washington and Essex Streets. There is a brick structure
there now and a marble tablet marks it as the site of the first church
in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. On another tablet, is the inscription:
The frame of the first Meeting House in which the civil affairs of the
Colony were transacted, is preserved and now stands in the rear of
Plummer Hall.
Plummer Hall is on Essex Street not very far from the First Church.
In the rear is the Roger Williams Church, a small building, measuring
twenty feet long by seventeen wide by twelve high at its posts.
Originally it had a gallery over the door at the entrance and a
minister’s seat in the opposite corner. On the wall opposite to the
entrance is a list of its succession of pastors and the years of their
service:
Francis Higginson 1629-1630
Samuel Skelton 1629-1634
Roger Williams 1631-1635
Hugh Peters 1636-1641 etc., etc.
It could accommodate about one hundred people. There were only forty
families in Salem in 1632. There were only six houses, besides that
of Governor Endicott, when Higginson arrived in 1629. Here in this
ancient meeting-house Roger Williams preached those truths which led to
his banishment. From its pulpit came, clearly stated, the ideals that
millions have since accepted. The glory of the Sistine Chapel in Rome,
or the Royal Sancte Chapella, of Paris, can never equal the glory of
this crude edifice, the cradle of religious liberty in the New World.
The Roger Williams Home at Salem is still preserved. It is better known
as “the Witch House” because it was occupied by Judge Carwin, one of
the judges connected with the tragedy of 1692. It stands at the western
corner of Essex and North Streets. It was built by the founder of Rhode
Island and was at that time second only to the Governor’s home. Though
it has been altered and repaired, the original rooms in this building
are as follows: The eastern room on the first floor, 18 × 21½, and
the room directly over it, 20 × 21½; the western room on the first
floor, 16½ × 18, and the room over it, 16½ × 20. The chimney is 8 ×
12. The part of the house which retains its original appearance is the
projecting corner of the western part, fronting on Essex Street. Roger
Williams mortgaged this house, “for supplies,” to establish the colony
at Providence.
Mr. Upham, in his report to the Essex Institution, says of this
wonderful house:
Here, within these very walls, lived, two hundred and fifty years
ago, that remarkable and truly heroic man, who, in his devotion to
the principle of free conscience, and liberty of belief, untrammeled
by civil power, penetrated in midwinter in the depths of an unknown
wilderness to seek a new home, a home which he could find only among
savages, whose respect for the benevolence and truthfulness of his
character made them, then and ever afterward, his constant friends.
From this spacious and pleasant mansion, he fled through the deep
snows of a New England forest, leaving his wife and young children to
the care of Providence, whose silent “voice” through the conscience,
was his only support and guide. The State which he founded may ever
look back with a just pride upon the history of Roger Williams.
II
THE FOUNDING OF PROVIDENCE
A community on the unheard-of principles of absolute religious liberty
combined with perfect civil democracy.--_Professor Mason._
Thus for the first time in history a form of government was adopted
which drew a clear and unmistakable line between the temporal and the
spiritual power, and a community came into being which was an anomaly
among the nations.--_Prof. J. L. Diman._
No one principle of political or social or religious policy lies
nearer the base of American institutions and has done more to shape
our career than this principle inherited from Rhode Island, and it
may be asserted that the future of America was in a large measure
determined by that General Court which summoned Roger Williams to
answer for “divers new and dangerous opinions,” and his banishment
became a pivotal act in universal history.--_Prof. Alonzo Williams._
In summing up the history of the struggle for religious liberty it
may be said that papal bulls and Protestant creeds have favored
tyranny. Theologians of the sixteenth century and philosophers of
the seventeenth, Descartes, Spinoza, and Hobbes, favored the State
churches. It was bitter experience of persecution that led jurists,
and statesmen of Holland and France, in face of the opposition of
theologians and philosophers, to enforce the toleration of dissent.
While there was toleration in Holland and France, there was, for the
first time, in the history of the world in any commonwealth, liberty
and equality and separation of Church and State in Rhode Island.--_W.
W. Evarts, in “The Long Road to Freedom of Worship.”_
In the code of laws established by them, we read for the first time
since Christianity ascended the throne of the Cæsars, the declaration
that conscience should be free and men should not be punished for
worshiping God in the way they were persuaded he requires.--_Judge
Story._
THE FOUNDING OF PROVIDENCE
Roger Williams left Salem on or about January 15, 1636, making the
journey alone through the forests. With a pocket compass, and a
sun-dial to tell the hours, he set out, probably taking the road to
Boston for some distance. Nearing Boston, presumably at Saugus, he went
west for a while and then straight south until he reached the home
of Massasoit, the Wampanoag sachem, at Mount Hope, near Bristol. The
ground was covered with snow, and he must have suffered sorely on this
journey of eighty or ninety miles. Thirty-five years later in a letter
to Major Mason, he refers to this experience:
First, when I was unkindly and unchristianly, as I believe, driven
from my house and land, and wife and children (in the midst of a New
England winter, now about thirty-five years past), at Salem, that
ever-honored Governor, Mr. Winthrop, privately wrote me to steer my
course to Narragansett Bay and the Indians, for many high and public
ends, encouraging me, from the freeness of the place from any English
claims or patents. I took his prudent notion as a hint and voice from
God, and waving all other thoughts and notions, I steered my course
from Salem (though in winter snow, which I feel yet) unto those parts
wherein I may say “Peniel”; that is, I have seen the face of God.
He also wrote: “I was sorely tossed for one fourteen weeks, in a bitter
winter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean!” In his old
age he exclaimed, “I bear to this day in my body the effects of that
winter’s exposure.” In one of his books he refers to “hardships of sea
and land in a banished condition.”
The precious relics of this flight are the sun-dial and compass, now in
the possession of the Rhode Island Historical Society.
Williams finally reached Seekonk Cove, about the twenty-third of
April. The spot was at Manton’s Neck, near the cove, where there was
a good spring of water. Here he was joined by four companions, his
wife, and two children. “I gave leave to William Harris, then poor and
destitute,” said Williams, “to come along in my company. I consented to
John Smith, miller at Dorchester (banished also), to go with me, and,
at John Smith’s desire, to a poor young fellow, Francis Wickes, as also
a lad of Richard Waterman’s.” The latter was doubtless Thomas Angell.
Joshua Verein came later. Some historians think that others joined them
at the Seekonk before they were compelled to leave. Here they remained
for two months. After providing rude shelters and sowing seeds, they
received a warning to move on. “I received a letter,” said Williams,
from my ancient friend, Mr. Winslow, the Governor of Plymouth,
professing his own and others’ love for me, yet lovingly advising me,
since I was fallen into the edge of their bounds, and they were loathe
to displease the Bay, to remove to the other side of the water, and
there, he said, I had the country free before me, and might be free as
themselves, and we should be loving neighbors together.
[Illustration: Sun-dial and Compass Used by Roger Williams in His
Flight Courtesy of “Providence Magazine”]
His removal cost him the “loss of a harvest that year.” Historians are
agreed that about the end of June he left Seekonk. The two hundred and
fiftieth anniversary was celebrated, June 23 and 24, 1886. Embarking
in a crude Indian canoe, Williams and his companions, six in all,
crossed over the river to a little cove on the west side, where they
were halted by a party of Indians, with the friendly interrogation,
“What cheer?” Here the party landed on a rock which has been known ever
since as “What Cheer Rock.” The cove is now filled and the rock covered
from sight. A suitable monument has been erected over the rock. It
is in an open park space at the corner of Roger and Williams Streets,
Providence. A piece of this rock is preserved at the First Baptist
Church of Providence, and another has recently been placed in cross
form in the lobby floor of the new Central Baptist Church of the same
city. It is hoped that a piece of this rock will be worked into the
National Baptist Memorial in our country’s capital.
[Illustration: Spring at the Seekonk Settlement]
[Illustration: Tablet Marking Seekonk Site]
[Illustration: What Cheer Rock. Landing-place of Roger Williams]