ghost, with direct, expresse, presumptuous or high handed blasphemie,
or shall curse god in the like manner, he shall be put to death.
THE FINAL VICTORY IN THE LONG STRUGGLE
Two Baptist organizations in close sympathy with each other contributed
much toward the final victory. They made appeals to their immediate
constituency and also to the larger following of all Baptists and other
lovers of religious liberty. These were the Warren Association in New
England, and the General Committee in Virginia. Each had a committee
of grievances. The Baptists were nobly assisted by Presbyterians and
Quakers in the final stages of the great conflict. Isaac Backus wrote
his immortal work on “A History of New England, with Especial Reference
to the Baptists.” He drafted appeals for the Association and for the
committee on grievances to the General Assembly, published addresses on
religious liberty, and inserted advertisements in leading papers. He
believed that partial history and false statements regarding Baptist
history and doctrines should be removed by scattering impartial and
true knowledge. He was a Baptist giant and had his share in forming
sentiment, which eventually made religious intoleration impossible in
America.
Isaac Backus, with President Manning, of Brown University, then Rhode
Island College, went to Philadelphia and with Quakers and others
appealed to John Adams and other Massachusetts delegates in Carpenter
Hall, Philadelphia. These advocates of soul-liberty took the position
that to pay taxes to support a church clergy in which they did not
believe was as much a wrong as to pay taxes for a government in which
they had no representation. It was not the paltry tax of fourpence a
man that the colonists in Massachusetts rebelled against. It was the
principle that was back of paying the pence which they opposed. They
were greatly amazed when John Adams told them that their own colony,
Massachusetts, had “the most mild and equitable establishment of
religion that was known in the world.”
[Illustration: William Rogers James Manning Isaac Backus These men were
all connected with the opening of the first Baptist college in America.
James Manning was the first president; Isaac Backus, a member of the
original board of trustees; William Rogers, the first student.]
The Virginia Baptists, through their General Convention, organized in
1784, united the efforts of the Baptists there and in New England for
the final phases of the war against religious tyranny. For four years
they had worked for liberty in their State laws and had won a complete
victory. Then, in 1788, they turned to the national issue. The Federal
Constitution had provided in Article VI, “No religious Test shall ever
be required as a qualification to any Office or public Trust under the
United States.” This did not satisfy the Baptists, because religious
tests might be imposed for other purposes than those specified. In a
noble letter, drafted by John Leland, a Baptist minister, they appealed
to Washington. They paid a high compliment to his achievements and
then stated their grievance, closing with these words:
If religious liberty is rather insecure in the Constitution the
administration will certainly prevent all oppression, for a WASHINGTON
will preside. Should the horrid evils that have been so pestiferous
in Asia and Europe, faction, ambition, war, perfidy, fraud, and
persecution for conscience sake, ever approach the borders of
our happy nation, may the name and administration of our beloved
President, like the radiant source of day, scatter all the dark clouds
from the American hemisphere.
Washington replied that his ideals were the same, assuring them of
this, in the following words:
No one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual
barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny and every species of
religious persecution.
He complimented the Baptists and said that they
have been, throughout America, uniformly and almost unanimously, the
firm friends to civil liberty, and the persevering promoters of our
glorious revolution.
His assurance was not empty words. In a short time James Madison, with
the President’s approval, submitted certain amendments. Article VI was
superseded by the First Amendment to the Constitution, which specified:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and
to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Thus the long fight was won in America, and now people generally
appreciate the importance of the victory gained. Rhode Island may
have hesitated to accept the imperfect Constitution, with its lack of
assurance for complete religious liberty. In this connection we should
not forget that Massachusetts and Connecticut were the last to ratify
the First Amendment.
VII
THE WORLD-WIDE INFLUENCE OF ROGER WILLIAMS’ IDEAL
“The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted
upon trusted foundations of political liberty.”--_President Wilson’s
War Message to Congress, 1917._
Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.
--_Alfred Tennyson._
A day will come when bullets and bombs shall be replaced by ballots,
by the universal suffrages of the people, by the sacred arbitrament
of a great Sovereign Senate.... A day will come when we shall face
those two immense groups, the United States of America and the United
States of Europe, in face of each other, extending hand to hand over
the ocean, exchanging their products, their commerce, their industry,
their art, their genius clearing the earth, colonizing deserts, and
ameliorating creation under the eye of the Creator. To you, I appeal,
French, English, Germans, Russians, Slavs, Europeans, Americans,
what have we to do to hasten the coming of the great day? LOVE ONE
ANOTHER.--_Victor Hugo._
I asked him (Premier Lloyd George) what message he would send to
American Baptists. Quick as a flash, he turned and said: “Tell them
that it is Baptist principles that we are fighting for in this
great struggle. All that Baptists count dear is at stake in this
issue.”--_Lloyd George to George Coleman, President, Northern Baptist
Convention. From the latter’s speech at Atlantic City, N. J., May,
1918._
THE WORLD-WIDE INFLUENCE OF ROGER WILLIAMS’ IDEAL
Roger Williams, as a man of vision, was experimenting with a new
idealism. His ideas, now generally accepted, have made absolute
religious liberty, with its complete separation of Church and State, an
idea almost synonymous with the name of the United States of America.
That lonely man, in the smallest of the colonies, set the pace for the
other twelve original commonwealths and established a national pattern
for the forty-eight States in the present Union. Our cup of blessing
has overflowed, and today the whole world is awaking to the blessings
in store for them if they partake of the same privileges.
“Mankind has pursued liberty over mountain and across valley,” writes
Pres. E. Y. Mullins,
by land and by sea, through fire and through flood, since the
first man caught a glimpse of liberty’s white robes leading on to
victory. The love of victory is now a volcanic fire which breaks out
into revolution and consumes and destroys the ancient fabrics of
government, and now it is a tide of life which rolls across the face
of nations, causing them to burst into the beauty and fragrance of a
new springtime. The spirit of liberty in its quest for the goal of its
desire has sounded all the notes in the gamut of human experience,
from the minor notes of abject despair to the ringing pæan of victory
over every foe.
The Baptist churches of America, the torch-bearers of religious
or soul-liberty, have grown from the one church which Williams
founded in Providence into a mighty host. From twelve members in one
church organization in 1639 that denomination has grown in America
until today, according to the latest government statistics, it has
the largest membership of any Protestant denomination in America,
7,236,650. Its one preacher has become a great host of 39,734, serving
53,133 churches. Instead of one college with one student in 1764,
it now has 463 schools in America, with 68,513 students. Instead
of one lone missionary to the Indians, it now has a large army of
missionaries in the home and foreign fields.
Doctor Masters, Secretary of Publicity of the Home Mission Board
of the Southern Baptist Convention, in tabulating the figures from
the preliminary statistics furnished by the United States Census
Department, calls our attention to the fact that the approximate
Baptist population of America, including members and other adherents,
is twenty-two millions. The Baptists are thus in the lead of every
denomination, Catholic or Protestant, in America; our net gain for ten
years is the greatest of all denominations, 28 per cent, compared with
10.8 per cent of the Roman Catholics. He gives the comparative strength
of Romanists and evangelicals in America as eighty million evangelicals
to 15,700,000 Roman Catholics.
Before the days of the great war, Pres. E. Y. Mullins, with prophetic
vision wrote:
We are approaching the Baptist age of the world, because we are
approaching the age of the triumph of democracy. Like a vine growing
in the darkness of some deep cavern, and slowly stretching itself
toward the dim light shining in through the distant mouth of the
cavern, so has humanity slowly crept on toward freedom. The mighty
hordes of the Asiatic and European world, weary and sad yet courageous
and resolute, are hastening forward with unresting feet toward the
gates of destiny. Toward those gates these hundreds of years the
Baptists have been pointing, and today in the foremost files of time
they lead the way. As humanity enters they will shout with the full
knowledge that God in Christ has led all the way.... And the goal
of human progress shall be realized in an eternal society wherein
absolute democracy is joined to absolute monarchy, God the Father
being the monarch, and his people a vast family of free children.
True political liberty is the child of religious liberty. It must
look to freedom of the soul as a child does to its mother for birth,
protection, and provision. Political anarchy is the usual result of a
people seeking full liberty by ignoring or neglecting the support which
religion brings to man’s moral nature. It is a long road to political
liberty, but it is a road which has run parallel with religious
liberty. It is interesting to note the Americanization of the world.
There were few democracies when our Republic was born. Our victory over
tyranny was an inspiration to oppressed peoples. The French followed
shortly afterward. Wherever Napoleon went, he held aloft the banner of
equality and liberty. He granted the latter under a form of government
by which he became emperor. After almost a century, France gained
both. Napoleon’s exile to St. Helena did not usher in a restoration
of the older European order. National sovereignty and constitutional
government were the constituent parts of a liberty the people would
not be denied in almost all the countries of Europe. In Italy, Charles
Albert, King of Savoy, Sardinia, and Piedmont, gave his people a
constitutional form of government. Though opposed by the papal States
and Austria, this movement grew until, under King Emmanuel, Cavour, and
Garibaldi, all Italy was united and free. Denmark followed in 1849,
Greece in 1866, and Spain the following year. The Christians of the
Balkan Peninsula revolted from the Turks in 1875, and were recognized a
power by the greater powers and were given a constitutional government.
In 1910 Portugal banished royalty and welcomed democracy. Russia, in
1917, threw off the shackles of autocracy for those of anarchy. When
she awakes from her delirium she will doubtless see the true light and
follow it.
The Americanization of Asia is moving rapidly forward. In 1852
Commodore Perry--by a strange providence from Rhode Island--forced open
the door into Japan. The shoguns, masters for centuries, lost their
power. Then the Mikado for twenty years took their autocratic powers
to himself but was compelled after that to give his people a liberal
constitutional form of government. The Chinese nation, hoary with age,
entered the list of democracies in 1911, becoming the United States
of China. The Shah of Persia, after a broken promise which brought
on a revolution, gave his people, in 1906, a constitutional form of
government. The Young Turks in 1909, after compelling Abdul Hamid II
to abdicate, placed Mohammed V on the throne as his successor. Prior
to the Great War they had what is at least an approach to the newer
constitutional ideals of the modern world.
The lands to the south of us have their struggle toward the same
desired goal. The Republic of Mexico needs a religious and educational
preparation which will largely solve, among that unassimilated
conglomeration of Indians, negroes, and mestizos, the problem of stable
government. Let the religious leaders of Mexico, who have tried for
centuries with their religious autocratic systems, give way for a
single generation to the evangelical churches with their democratic
idealisms and the unchained Bible, and then revolutions and immorality
will fade away, and the land, so desolated in recent years, will
blossom like the rose.
When Napoleon defeated the monarchs of Europe and their system, he
shook the confidence of the people of Central and South America in
their absent monarchs across the seas. South American nations followed
one by one into the class of democracies. Central American States also
broke away from their European masters. These lands need the open Bible
of the evangelical Christian churches more than our battleships and
marines. When superstition is banished by the light which radiates from
the Bible, then the republics to the south of us will vie with us in
advancement and prosperity.
Absolute monarchy is doomed in Europe and throughout the world. The
sword unsheathed by America must not rest in its scabbard until
democracy is safe in the world and the world is made safe for
democracy. Belgium outraged, France desecrated, Great Britain drained,
Russia bleeding slowly to death, and all Europe a shambles, may find in
the ideals of Roger Williams healing for their wounds and health for
the coming years.
Due honor should be given to every colony builder of the New World.
Great were their suffering and sacrifices.
All praise to others of the vanguard then,
To Spain, to France, to Baltimore and Penn.
To Jesuit, Quaker, Puritan, and Priest,
Their toils be crowned, their honors be increased.
Give praise to others early come or late,
For love and labor on our ship of state.
By faith the Pilgrims left old England, and sojourned in Holland as
in a strange country. By faith they trusted their all to God and the
Mayflower. By faith they endured the hardships of that first winter and
founded their colony in which they sought to honor God according to the
truth as they saw it. All honor to the faith of our Pilgrim Fathers.
In hope the Puritans left their native land, seeking not a separation
from the mother Church but rather purification of the Established
Order. In hope they founded Salem and Boston and other towns about
the Massachusetts Bay. In hope they laid strong the foundations which
afterward led to the victories of Lexington and Bunker Hill. All honor
to the Puritan builders of a great commonwealth, the New America.
Through charity Roger Williams fled into the depths of snowy forests
and crossed frozen streams, to form among savage tribes a new colony
where no man would be denied political privileges because of religious
belief. Through charity he forgave those who exiled him and at the
risk of his own life saved Puritan and Pilgrim from an impending
Indian massacre. Through charity he shared his purchased possessions
gratuitously with others. Through charity he formed the immortal
compact binding men together “only in civil things.” Through charity he
sacrificed his humble patrimony, his home at Salem, and the earnings of
his lifetime to safeguard and protect the colony he had founded for the
joys of others. Through charity he extended for the first time in our
national history a loving welcome to men of all beliefs into the new
fraternity of human hearts founded for human helpfulness.
Roger Williams possessed the faith of the Pilgrim and the hope of the
Puritan. Faith and hope getteth, but charity giveth. Roger Williams
possessed the charity of Christ. He followed in the footsteps of
his Master along a pathway of pain. Like the Man of Galilee, in the
olive orchard and vine-clad garden, and on the bleak skull-shaped
hill without the walls of Jerusalem, his humble servant, the man of
Providence, had his Gethsemane and Golgotha in the frozen forests and
on the snow-clad hills under the wintry skies of New England.
Aye, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod,
They left unstained what there they found,
Freedom to worship God.
And now in these United States of America, there abideth the faith
of the Pilgrim, the hope of the Puritan, and the charity of Roger
Williams; but the greatest of these is charity.
STUDY OUTLINE OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ROGER WILLIAMS
I
ROGER WILLIAMS AND HIS TIMES
1. _Rise and Development of English Puritanism_: Reformation in
England, from Wyclif to Henry VIII. Reformation under Henry VIII,
Edward VI, and Elizabeth. Influence of the Marian exiles. Rise of
English Puritanism. Influence and mission of Thomas Cartwright and
Robert Browne. Growth of Presbyterianism and independency. Origin of
British Baptists (in Wales and England).
2. _Contemporaneous Colonial Settlements_: The Plymouth Pilgrims. The
Dorchester Adventurers. Naumkeag settlers. Endicott Company at Salem.
Winthrop Company at Boston. Connecticut settlers. Early Dutch and
Virginia settlements. (Study idealism, origin, vitality of each.)
3. _Indian Predecessors of Roger Williams and Puritans_: Tribal
settlements, their ideas, customs, and moral status. Ideas of
soul-liberty among the Indians. Priority of Williams’ Indian missionary
work. Labors of Eliot and others.
II
ROGER WILLIAMS, HIS LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS
1. _Life Prior to Exile from England, 1602-1629_: His birth and
education. Religious ferment in England. His love affairs, marriage,
and exile.
2. _In New England Prior to Settlement in Providence, 1629-1636_:
Experiences in Boston, Salem, Plymouth, the wilderness, and Seekonk.
3. _Providence Plantations Prior to First Charter, 1636-1644_:
Arrival. Reception by Indians. First deeds to property. Baptism.
Early government. Indian troubles. Neighbors at Pawtuxet, Warwick,
Portsmouth, and Blackstone. Williams’ first visit to England. First
charter. Indian trading-post near Wickford. His first writings.
4. _Providence under the First Charter, 1644-1663_: Growth of colony.
Indian difficulties. Coddington’s claims. Opposition from the United
Colonies. Williams’ second visit to England. His writings. Work of his
colaborer, John Clarke, of Newport, in securing second charter.
5. _Growth, Destruction, and Rebuilding of Providence, 1663-1676_:
General pre-Indian War prosperity. The Quakers. The debate and
Williams’ writings. Indian War with King Philip. Reconstruction.
6. _Closing Days and Death of Roger Williams_: Official position.
Retirement and death. Burial. Later removal of dust.
7. _Providence after the Death of its Founder_: Commercially,
religiously, educationally, and politically. Its glorious share in the
Revolutionary War. Its glory among the brotherhood of States. Growth of
its ideal throughout the world.
III
THE EVOLUTION OF THE ROGER WILLIAMS IDEAL OF SOUL-LIBERTY
1. _Prior to Days of Williams_: The pioneers, the predecessors of
Williams, and the continuity of the struggle for soul-liberty among the
early Christians. The work of the Anabaptists or Baptists in the Dark
Ages in northern Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, and England and
Wales. Study their published confessions on the subject of soul-liberty.
2. _Contemporaries of Roger Williams_: The General and Particular
Baptists of England. A consideration of the ideals of toleration,
liberty of conscience, and absolute soul-liberty in the settlements
of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts Bay Colony,
Connecticut; and the Indian’s position also. Compare all these with the
peculiar position of Roger Williams.
3. _Successors of Roger Williams_: The American Baptists. Study
especially the Warren Baptist Association with its committee on
grievances. Study the work of the Philadelphia Baptist Convention.
Study also the work of the Baptists in other States. Cooperation of
Quakers, Presbyterians, and others.
IV
THE WORLD-WIDE INFLUENCE OF ROGER WILLIAMS’ IDEAL
Political democracy, a fruit of religious liberty. The onward march of
democracy in America, Europe, Asia, and South America. The world war
and the world-wide struggle for democracy. Present status of the world
as to religious liberty and as to political democracy. (Take a map and
indicate the same.)
A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
_Biographies_:
Backus, “History of New England.” (First history in which Williams’
life-story is told at length.)
Knowles, “Memoir of Roger Williams.”
Gammell, “Life of Roger Williams.”
Elton, “Life of Roger Williams.”
Straus, “Roger Williams, Pioneer of Religious Liberty.”
Carpenter, “Roger Williams, A Political Pioneer.”
Hall, “Roger Williams.”
_Original Documents_:
“Complete Writings of Roger Williams,” Narragansett Club Publications.
Bradford, “The Bradford History.”
Winthrop, “History of the Puritans.”
Chapin, “Documentary History of Rhode Island.”
Early Colonial Records.
Early Records of the Town of Providence. Vols. III, IV, V, VIII.
Cotton, “Magnalia.”
_General Histories_:
Arnold, “History of Rhode Island.”
Staples, “Annals of Providence.”
Greene, “Providence Plantations for 250 Years.”
Richman, “Rhode Island, Its Making and its Meaning.”
_Evolution of Soul-liberty_:
King, “Religious Liberty.”
Ivimey, “History of English Baptists.”
General Baptist Church Histories, by Benedict, Armitage, Newman,
Cathcart, Vedder, etc.
Mullins, “Axioms of Religion.”
_Historic Spots_:
Guild, “Footprints of Roger Williams.”
Hopkins, “The Home Lots of the Early Settlers.”
State of Rhode Island, “Report of Committee on Marking of Historic
Sites in Rhode Island.”
Rider, “Lands of Rhode Island as They Were Known to Canonicus.”
_Fiction_:
Butterworth, “In the Days of Massasoit.”
Hall, “The Golden Arrow.”
Durfee, the epic poem, “What Cheer.”
_Other Books and Pamphlets_:
H. M. King, “Baptism of Roger Williams,” “Summer Visit of Three Rhode
Islanders,” “The Mother Church,” “The True Roger Williams,” “Life of
John Miles,” “Historical Catalog of First Baptist Church.”
Kimball, “Providence in Colonial Times.”
Dexter, “As to Roger Williams’ Banishment.”
Burrage, “Why Was Roger Williams Banished?”
Merriman, “Pilgrim, Puritan, and Roger Williams.”
Dorr, “The Planting and Growth of Providence.”
Burgess, “Reconciliation of Government with Liberty.”
Eaton, “Roger Williams, the Founder of Providence.”
Durfee, “Complete Works of Job Durfee.”
Backus Historical Society, “Elements in Baptist Development.”
_Notable Addresses_:
Z. Allan, “Memorial of Roger Williams.”
W. H. P. Faunce, “Roger Williams and His Doctrine of Soul Liberty.”
Mowry, “Concerning Roger Williams.”
Durfee, “Oration on 250th Anniversary.”