Roger Williams

“ For once, Providence Plantations had the grace to be ashamed of itself. For a while, at least, it was on its good behavior. The citizens of Providence appointed Roger Williams to send a reply to Sir Henry Vane, their friendly critic across the water. In this letter, they freely acknowledged their shortcomings, but with this excuse:
“Possibly a sweet cup hath rendered many of us wanton and too active, for we [Pg 145] have long drunk of the cup of as great liberties as any people that we can hear of under the whole heaven.” ”

“ Though I am not willing to deny that Roger Williams was, as you say, raised up to illustrate some important principles, and to help on the general cause of truth, I must say that he strikes me as a very unreasonable man in much of his behavior. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hospitality and neighborliness were common in early Providence days, for everybody was dependent upon everybody else. Roger Williams and his good wife kept open house for all. Now they took in a sick soldier and nursed him back to health and strength, once they sheltered an Indian with a hurt foot, and even went so far as to allow Miantonomo to hold his “barbarous court” under their roof! ”

“ The sequel of the unfortunate love affair is rather interesting. Of course Miss Jane married another man, but, as it happened, he was a clergyman like her former sweetheart. In turn she came to know the pioneer life of New England as did Roger Williams, being located for some years in Massachusetts and Connecticut. She later returned to old England, where her husband became chaplain to her cousin, Oliver Cromwell, who was also a friend of Roger Williams. In fact, Cromwell’s real family [Pg 13] name was Williams and some historians have even asserted that he was related to Roger Williams. ”

“ Governor Bradford of Mayflower fame, dignified and scholarly, comes next in order. There is nothing of the tyrant in his make-up. While believing Roger Williams “unsettled in judgment,” he is just enough to say that he is “a man godly and zealous, having many precious parts.” Though he does not entirely approve of him, he is “thankful to him, even for his sharpest admonitions and reproofs so far as they agree with truth.”
We linger long upon the next portrait—a kindly face, that of a good friend. It is another governor of Plymouth, Edward Winslow. ”

“ Another superstition was their childlike faith in the power of their priests and conjurers to work cures. To Roger Williams’ way of thinking, these “wise men” did nothing but “howl and roar” over them.
[Pg 85]
Still, Roger Williams, always just, took care to record the good points of the natives as well as their failings. This was unlike many Englishmen of his time, who looked down upon the savages as little better than animals. For one thing, hospitality was a common virtue among them. ”

“ His conscience is too sensitive. Thankful enough is he that the [Pg 34] call to the Salem church will prevent the further spreading of “dangerous” doctrine in Plymouth. It is the part of prudence to bid Roger Williams Godspeed.
Who is that eager, restless person who occupies the next place—whose flashing eyes and open face tell as plainly as words that he is the creature of impulse? He is always doing hasty things, being sorry for them, and then doing the next hasty thing that presents itself! Big-hearted, reckless, courageous, narrow John Endicott! It is no wonder he is often in disgrace. ”

“ 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. ”

“ While the Indians generally bore torture uncomplainingly, a jumping tooth would make a coward of the bravest. Says Roger Williams, “The toothache is the only pain which will force their stout hearts to cry.”
Canoes were fashioned from pine, oak and chestnut trees. After being felled, the trees were burned and hewed into shape. A single Indian working by himself in the forest could finish and launch his boat within ten or twelve days. Some of the larger canoes were big enough to hold thirty or forty men. ”

“ A more ambitious man would eagerly have grasped the opportunity thus offered. He would have seen in it the possibility of power, influence, perhaps riches. Not so Roger Williams. In his own humble, modest way, he was content to go on as before, sacrificing his own interests for those of the colony, whether repaid for his efforts or not. ”

“ He took with him to Blue no less a person than Roger Williams—not the original, redoubtable Roger who discovered Rhode Island, but a descendant of his family. Williams was a man of twenty-five. Boston was his home, and he was the son of a father Williams who manufactured ploughs, spades, wagons, and other agricultural implements. The young man was his father's western representative, and Fisher sold his goods in the Indianapolis district. He dressed well and was affable with his homespun friends. In truth, he was a gentleman. He made himself at home in the cabin ”

“ There was only one course open. Acting on the same principle as their more fortunate [Pg 99] neighbors, they decided to unite and to make that union firm and lasting by appealing to England for a charter. The man best suited to undertake this delicate mission was, of course, Roger Williams, and he was appointed to visit the mother-country for this purpose.
At the time he sailed (June, 1643) , the principal Narragansett Bay settlements were Providence, those on the island of Aquidneck—Portsmouth and Newport—and the infant settlement of Warwick. ”

“ Men who do spectacular things have many biographers, while quiet lives often remain unrecorded. We are apt to forget that it may take as much bravery to stand abuse and loss of friends as to face the cannon’s mouth, that even more courage is required to fight for disagreeable truths than to win battles. So while Roger Williams never did anything to startle the world, he will remain one of the great moral soldiers of all time. Lacking appreciation in the day in which he lived, he deserves the honor of our own age. ”

“ In the great mental and moral activity of her generation she was instinctively liberal, and never questioned in others the complete soul-liberty, as Roger Williams called it, which she calmly and naturally maintained for herself. No reform could conceal from her its essential value as a high aspiration, a good impulse, if nothing more ”

“ The finest Puritan of them all comes last, Governor John Winthrop of the Bay Colony. A splendid, noble face is his. He is every inch a gentleman. He has brought the best of old England into the crude life of New England and is helping to build up so sturdy a race that the generations which follow will be proud of their descent from him and Puritans like him. He does not agree with Roger Williams, but a life-long friendship springs up between the two. ”

“ Was there never to be peace or rest for the banished one?
“And surely, between those, my friends of the Bay and Plymouth, I was sorely tossed for one fourteen weeks, in a bitter winter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean, beside the yearly loss of no small matter in my trading with English and natives, being debarred from Boston, the chief mart and port of New England. God knows that many thousand pounds cannot repay the losses I have sustained.”
With his face again set toward some new, unknown home, Roger Williams began reconnoitering. ”

“ That she looked upon her father’s former protegé as a dangerous advanced thinker is shown by her saying bluntly that she believed his “new lights would prove but dark lanterns.” In reply, Roger Williams referred her to the volumes covering his late controversy with John Cotton. Shocked beyond measure at the mere title “Bloody Tenent,” Mrs. Sadlier did not attempt to read further and tartly told her correspondent not to trouble her again. With more persistence than wisdom, Roger Williams did write still once [Pg 139] more. Mrs. ”

“ Yet there is an interesting tradition which would seem to show that nature at least did her best to save him from oblivion. He was buried in the family plot at the rear of his dwelling on the slope of the hill which led up from the bubbling spring where he first landed. When, in the rapid growth of the city, it became necessary to remove the graves of the early settlers, there was found in Roger Williams’ last resting-place only the spreading root of an apple tree which, in the passing years, had taken on a curious resemblance to the human form. ”

“ Cæsars, the declaration that the conscience should be free, and that men should not be punished for worshiping God in the way they were persuaded He requires.” In similar language Professor Masson declares that Roger Williams organized “a community on the unheard-of principles of absolute religious liberty combined with perfect civil democracy.” Such is the unanimous testimony of historians as to the character and service of the founder of Rhode Island. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When Jews and Christians off have sent
Christ Jesus to the manger.”
Family affection and loyalty were strong in the Indian, while drunkenness was an almost unknown vice. As for such crimes as robbery and murder, Roger Williams says that the red men have as good, if not a better, record than their white neighbors. In war, too, the example set by the English was hardly what we would expect from a superior race:
“The Indians count of men as dogs,
[Pg 87] It is no wonder then:
They tear out one another’s throats! ”

“ Williams died in 1683, at Providence, and was buried under arms, in his family burying ground, with every testimony of respect which the colony could manifest.
The religious sentiments of Williams seem to have become more and more liberal as he advanced in life. Whatever rigid forms those sentiments may have assumed, in the early part of his career, they gradually melted down, and blended themselves in that warm and deep feeling of universal benevolence, which had given birth to his great principle of Soul-Liberty. ”

“ And now did Williams in his mind debate;—
Should he that night cleave Narraganset’s flood,
Or on the Seekonk’s bank till morning wait,
And scour the while Mooshausick’s gloomy wood?
“Oh, would that Heaven might there predestinate
On earth, Soul-Liberty! thy first abode,”
(He often thought) “or where, in ocean’s arms,
Aquidnay smiles in her wild virgin charms.”
XIV.
While thus he ponders, down the stream he sees,
Where from th’ encroaching cove the wood retires,
Dark wreaths of smoke rise o’er the lofty trees,
And deems that there some village wakes its fires. ”

“ Nothing would have induced Roger to plead illness as an excuse for disobedience unless it had actually existed: and his fearless spirit would probably have led him into the snare that was laid for him. Edith knew this secret danger; for Governor Winthrop, who had seen and admired her on one of his visits to Plymouth, and who now kindly sympathized in her feelings, had sent her a private note by the messenger, in which he warned her of the danger that waited Williams at Boston, and desired her, by some means, to prevent his appearing before the General Assembly. ”

“ XXVII.
“Speed! Waban, speed!” with haste our Founder cried,
Soon as the hollow echoes died afar;
With lusty arm the hunter clove the tide,
The swift canoe seemed moving through the air;
One instant more and Williams, from her side,
Sprang on a rock, (thence giving it to share
His deathless fame,) and straight around him stood,
In cheerful throngs, the Indian multitude.
XXVIII.
Miantonomi, stepping from the crowd,
Stretched forth his brawny hand, and cried “Whatcheer!
Welcome, my brother! say, what lowering cloud,
O’er Seekonk’s eastern marge, impels thee here? ”

“ After Williams had built and planted at Seekonk, he was visited by a messenger from Plymouth with a letter from Winslow, then Governor. Professing his and others’ friendship for him, he lovingly advised Williams, since he had fallen into the edge of their bounds, and they were loath to displease the Bay, to remove but to the other side of the water, and there he had the country before him, and might be as free as themselves, and they should be loving neighbors together.—See Williams’ letter to Mason. Mass. His. ”