Williams

“ Without opening the book, Williams began slowly:
“Man that is born of woman has but a short time to live and is full of misery. He comes up and is cut down like a flower. He flees as from a shadow, and never continues in one place. ”

“ How he would have scorned a short story with such a situation in it! And he thought of Williams—poor old Williams!—and mentally begged his pardon.
For he understood now that real life was far stranger than fiction. He realised at last that Romance loitered ever around the corner; that Opportunity was always gently nudging one's elbow.
There lay his overcoat on the floor, trailing over her satchel. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Williams had been a chaplain to the forces, and considered Christianity the finest sport going. A breezy, hefty shepherd, he would feed his flock on football and billiards, as George had fed them on blankets and Parochial Church Councils. It was inconceivable that anyone in Leasan should miss the way to heaven.
“I believe in being a man among men,” he blew over Sir John, who was beginning to hate him, though he had chosen him out of twenty-one applicants—“that’s what you learnt in France—no fuss, no frills, just playing the game.” ”

“ Very reverend and godly he truly was, and a respect not merely ceremonious, but personal, a respect that savors of love, shows itself in the letters addressed to him. Charity and tolerance flow so naturally from the pen of Williams that it is plain they were in his heart. He does not show himself a very strong or very wise man, but a thoroughly gentle and good one. ”

“ Surely, thought Williams, the girl could not kill a mouse. Where, then, would she find strength to kill a man? But she told him, in meagre outline, her story, and he learned that a great, self-controlled, modest strength nestled side by side with ineffable gentleness in the heart of this young girl; and that was the moment of Roger Williams's undoing, and the beginning of Rita's woe. ”

“ Added to these reasons of state was a passionate love on the part of Williams of which any woman might have been proud. Williams was, ordinarily, sure-footed, and would have made fewer mistakes in his wooing had his love been less feverish. He also had a great fund of common-sense, but love is inimical to that rare commodity, and under the blind god's distorting influence the levelest head will, in time, become conical. ”

“ It doesn't look a fair match at first glance: Williams is nearly two inches taller, and probably a long year older than his opponent, and he is very strongly made about the arms and shoulders—“peels well,” as the little knot of big fifth-form boys, the amateurs, say, who stand outside the ring of little boys, looking complacently on, but taking no active part in the proceedings. But down below he is not so good by any means—no spring from the loins, and feeblish, not to say shipwrecky, about the knees. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the fatal Saturday night, about half-past one o'clock, when Williams returned from his dreadful labors, he found the English and Scotch party asleep, but the Germans awake: one of them was sitting up with a lighted candle in his hands, and reading aloud to the other two. Upon this, Williams said, in an angry and very peremptory tone, 'Oh, put that candle out; put it out directly; we shall all be burned in our beds.' Had the British party in the room been awake, Mr. Williams would have roused a mutinous protest against this arrogant mandate. ”

“ The minister was as anxious as Williams himself to deal an effective blow against Spain. Williams urged the despatch of a fleet to the Spanish Indies, and in any case rapid and bold action in the Low Countries, where the cause of the protestants was at a low ebb. Williams's importunities at length bore fruit. In 1585 he was sent to the Low Countries with what promised to be an effective English army, under the Earl of Leicester's command. ”

“ Williams," said he kindly, "we all feel that you are rapidly sinking; do you die happy? Do you feel that there is a Jesus in heaven, through whose mediation you will be saved?"
There was a rustling of the bed-clothes, a faint murmur, and the sufferer languidly turned her eyes upon the speaker. A dimness was in those sunken orbs; a clamminess upon her wan brow, and her breast heaved wildly beneath the linen that lay in snowy waves across it. But she did not appear to have heard the inquiry of the minister.
"The Widow White—has she not come yet? ”

“ She was tensely interested in the fact that no person—and “person” was shaded by something subtle in her manner and voice to mean no woman—had ever been loyal to Williams. There was some kind of a story about how his own mother, at some time or other, had been fearfully prejudiced against him.
And I knew that deep within this tragic Sicilian was love of Williams—though she slid the word “love” scornfully from her lips when it came casually into her remarks.
Not knowing Williams, she had been alarmed by what Raikes and Davenant planned. ”

“ Walter answered, he could scarce be comforted even by such gracious words; but he acted his part ill, for though the King's goodness was too noble to suspect him, the courtiers nicknamed him the merry-mourner.
"Why speaks not my noble master," said Williams, observing the fixed posture and quenched eye of Evellin. At last he exclaimed—"I am not dead;" and bursting into an hysterical laugh, he swore De Vallance should find he was not dead.
"That is the point," replied Williams, "to which I have long wished to urge you. Only appear and prove your identity; nothing more is wanting. ”

“ From daylight on Williams fought his way about the main deck along life-lines, helping in the three or four men who had weathered it with lashings in the rigging.
When he had helped Brundage, still erect, immobile, though weak and ready to drop, up through the steep companionway McGuire, aloft, caught sight of him and screamed:
“Jake! Didn't I tell you? When ship 'r woman goes to hell she goes—an takes all hands with her!” ”

“ Afterwards being reinforced by other English companies, he drove the whole body of the enemy with great loss to their entrenchments. ‘The king doth commend him very highly,’ wrote Sir Henry Unton [q. v.] , the English ambassador in France, ‘and doth more than wonder at the valour of our nation. I never heard him give more honour to any service nor to any man.’
Williams remained in France for most of his remaining years, though he occasionally brought news to London. At home he completely identified himself with the interests of Essex (cf. Cal. Hatfield MSS. vols. v. and vi.) . ”

“ During the next twenty years, in which he continued to serve as a missionary to the Wisconsin Oneidas, Williams was a well-known and picturesque character. His home was on the west bank of the river, about a mile below Little Kaukauna. Although a man of much vigor and strength of mind, he soon came to be recognized as an unscrupulous fellow by the majority of both whites and reds in the lower Fox, and his clerical brethren, East as well as West, appear to have regarded him with more or less contempt. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Because Williams was so much broader-minded than many other people of his time, he has often been called the "Apostle of Toleration"—a word which means letting others alone, or allowing others to do as they please. ”

“ Through all that crowd—“He speaks a manittoo!
Base Wampanoag! we’ll devour that clan,
And drive the Yengees back o’er ocean blue!”
And through the concourse motions mixed began,
With clash of arms, and twanging of the yew;
But when they saw our Founder rise again,
Mute stillness hushed the murmurs of the train.
XXXVIII.
“Brother,” said Williams, “thou art old and wise,
And know’st the pipe is better than the dart.
The barb can drink the blood of enemies;
But the pipe’s conquest is the foeman’s heart;
It gives to us his strength and energies,
And makes the Pequot from our path depart. ”

“ We are probably indebted to the name which Williams gave the first mentioned field, for the preservation of this tradition.
STANZA XXXVII.
Ay, almost hears the future pavements jar
Beneath a people’s wealth, and half divines
From thee, Soul-Liberty! what glories wait
Thy earliest altars—thy predestined state.
To show that Williams was not without a presentiment of the temporal advantages that might arise to his projected settlement, from a full liberty in religious concernments, I quote the following from his memorial to Parliament, prefixed to his Bloody Tenent made more bloody, &c. ”

“ Whate’er the goal, I tempt the heedless flight. Tiverton, R. I., September, 1832.
[p. 1]
WHATCHEER.
CANTO FIRST.
[Scenes. The Fireside at Salem—The Wilderness—The Wigwam.]
I sing of trials, toils and sufferings great,
Which Father Williams in his exile bore,
That he the conscience-bound might liberate,
And to the soul her sacred rights restore;—
How, after flying persecution’s hate,
And roving long by Narraganset’s shore,
In lone Mooshausick’s vale at last he sate,
And gave soul-liberty her Guardian State.
II.
He was a man of spirit true and bold ”

“ Williams was born in Tennessee, his father being one of the Virginian pioneers who crossed the Blue Ridge and settled in the state when it was swarming with Indians,—all eager to have the land for themselves alone—and not willing to allow the whites to get possession of it without a severe struggle. [214] His son grew up in surroundings of savagery and warfare. He took part in many of the Ohio campaigns against the red men in that state, and was invariably used as a scout, for his knowledge of woodcraft was excellent. ”

“ In 1913, with his faithful companion, he undertook the fourth journey to England and Wales, from which he was not to return. While traveling in England and meeting lecture appointments, his strength suddenly failed, and he returned to Mrs. Williams' old home in Wales where he died within a few days. The end came in the very house where youth's springtime began, with all its joyful promise. A fruitful life was finished. ”

“ Williams's ‘Letter to the Body of Protestant Dissenters,’ 1777, 8vo, is a plea for such breadth of toleration as would legally cover such services as his. All the expenses fell on Williams, who was saved from ruin only by the subscription to his ‘Lectures on the Universal Principles and Duties of Religion and Morality,’ 1779, 2 vols. 4to. These lectures (critical rather than constructive, and not eloquent, though well written) were read at Margaret Street in 1776–7. ”

“ Williams carried the philanthropy, which breathes in his great principle of Soul-Liberty, into all the important acts of his life. [p. 214] Although the munificent grant of Canonicus and Miantonomi had been made to him only, he shortly after made it the common property of his friends who joined him at Providence, reserving to himself no more than an equal share, and receiving from them the small sum of thirty pounds, not as purchase money, but as a remuneration for the gratuities which he had made to the Indians out of his own estate. ”

“ On 30 May 1831 Williams obtained a fellowship at Trinity College, took priest's orders, and went into residence as tutor in 1832. He was made dean of the college in 1833, and philosophy lecturer in 1832. From 1834 to 1840 he was rhetoric lecturer, and vice-president in 1841 and 1842, when he ceased to be tutor and left Oxford. ”

“ McGuire casually, idly, searched out the speaker.
The Finn, dream-like, stood as a blind man listens with eyes vague and focused at nothing. He turned his head slightly sidewise as though hearing the inaudible coming of a storm.
Williams's silence might mean anything. No man can be day after day inactively menacing, no matter what his reputation, without the suspicion, a little fearful but insistent, taking hold of those about him that it is all a mask. ”