Arthur Barsazou Strickland

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Rhode Island was the first to strike a blow for civil liberty as she was the first in the struggle for religious liberty. She was last, however, to adopt the Constitution of the United States. She hesitated to surrender to the federal government the liberties enjoyed under her charter, the most liberal ever granted to a colony. She has a right to be proud of her record, before, during, and after the Revolutionary war. ”

“ But this was not his purpose, nor was it directly or remotely the cause for which he suffered banishment and misery. Principle—not profit; liberty—not power; conviction—not ambition, were his impelling motives which he consistently maintained, theoretically and practically then, and at all times.
Williams’ own words were:
I desired it might be for a shelter for persons distressed for conscience. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Released from pastoral duties, Roger Williams gave himself completely to the task of establishing and guarding the sacred fires of soul-liberty which he had kindled in Rhode Island. For this sacred cause he sacrificed his comfortable home at Salem and devoted the earnings of a lifetime in trips to England to secure parliamentary protection for the colony when envious neighbors on all sides were coveting his purchased possessions. He sacrificed his opportunity to become wealthy and died a poor man. ”

“ The absolute supremacy of the word of God, the spiritual nature of the Christian church, the Christian ordinances for believing souls, the divorce of Church and State, full, unrestricted religious freedom for every man, these essential truths of the gospel of Christ found no room at the inn of the sixteenth century, and were thrust aside into the manger ... the inn was not open for it, but the manger was. The principle of religious liberty did not fail to get born.
The Anabaptists of Europe kept alive the ideals of religious liberty. ”

“ Today the college has more than a thousand students, about thirty buildings, and an endowment of more than four million dollars. Brown University was the pioneer of the hundreds of schools, colleges, and universities which the Baptists were destined to have in the years that followed. These are not limited to one State, but are scattered all over our country.
Pilgrims to Providence, the birthplace of religious liberty in America, should not fail to visit those buildings which contain sacred relics of the long and hard struggle for soul-liberty and political freedom in America. ”

“ The Master, in the parable of the Tares, taught the principle advocated by the Baptists and by Roger Williams. The field is the world; the good seed, the children of the kingdom; the tares are the evil-doers. Wheat and tares should be allowed to grow together in the world (not in the church) until the end of the age, when the angels, the reapers of God, will gather them together for reward or punishment. Force must never be used to make disciples for Christ.
In the early Christian centuries, the church longed for liberty to live for Christ and preach his gospel. ”

“ 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 [Pg xiv] 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. ”

“ Back of political progress there must be spiritual strength. Back of the final victory of religious liberty in America there was not only the glorious example of Rhode Island as a political demonstration but the persistent propagation of the ideals in all the States. This was chiefly the task of the Baptists, many of whose churches could trace their origin to settlers from Rhode Island.
During the Colonial period, the laws of Massachusetts and Virginia relating to soul-liberty were most severe; those in Maryland and Pennsylvania, the most lenient, outside of Rhode Island. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ He thus laid the foundation for the belief in America that the weaker and smaller powers have rights which the greater powers must respect, a belief which led us into the recent great war. While this principle is receiving world-wide application, let us not forget that Roger Williams was the pioneer of international justice in America, if not in the world. The land viewed from the top of the hill was owned by five distinct Indian tribes. The Narragansetts dominated over all the lands now occupied by Rhode Island, and ruled over all other lesser tribes in this territory. ”

“ Williams, who “always aimed to do the Indians only good,” recognized Indian ownership and secured his colony from them by purchase. Here among them he first sought to apply his doctrine of soul-liberty. To him they were humans with equal rights and privileges. He bitterly fought the Puritan position that the pagan heathen had no property rights which the Christian, with his superior culture, was bound to respect. Roger Williams insisted that the land should be purchased from the Indians, the original owners. ”