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with intense delight. "The people were much taken with the apprehension of his godliness."

The fear of his contagious opinions determined the government to end the matter in a summary way. He was condemned to sail immediately for England. But once more, as God willed, he would disobey. In the midst of winter he went out, not knowing whither he went; and, "for fourteen weeks, he was sorely tossed in a bitter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean."

But God had made him friends among the savages. He had, some time before, risked his rights as a citizen to affirm in a pamphlet that they were not to be forcibly dispossessed of their lands, but were to be bargained with for their homes, like white men. He had gone out into their wigwams and hunting-grounds to preach to them Jesus and the resurrection; and his deep sympathy and holy sacrifice in their behalf had awakened in these savage bosoms the most ardent gratitude and affection. Exiled from Massachusetts, "he was welcomed by Massasoit;" and "the barbarous heart of Canonicus, the chief of the Narragansetts, loved him as his son to the last gasp." "The ravens," he said, " fed me in the wilderness." It was thus that the grand pioneer of freedom was disciplined for his task.

In June of 1636, we find this prince of exiles, with only five companions, landing from a frail Indian canoe, in a wilderness, outside of any patent claims of civilized men, and very thankful, he said, "that ever-honored Gov. Winthrop wrote to me to steer my course to the Narragansett Bay, encouraging me from the freeness of the place from English claims or patents. I took this prudent motion as a voice from God."

The spot on which these Pilgrims from "the land of Pilgrims" first placed their feet is marked, by tradition, as sacred to liberty. Williams named it Providence; and so it is to this day, the beautiful and capital city of the State founded by his enlightened philanthropy. "I desired," said he,

"it might be for a shelter for persons distressed for conscience." Noble monumental record of a noble man!

Now, for a time, he cannot study much.. He has no slaves, like Virginians, to fell the trees, and raise him bread. He has no great colony, like Cotton or Davenport, to see that he is supported from government tithes. "My time,” he writes, was not spent altogether in spiritual labors; but day and night, at home and abroad, on the land and water, at the hoe, at the oar, for bread."

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His title to the soil of his colony came legitimately, and by fair stipulation, from the Narragansetts, and bore the signatures of the Indian princes, Canonicus and Miantonomoh. It is a large, splendid territory, he thought, as he looked out upon his domain of freedom, and said it is "my own as truly as any man's coat upon his back." But he would be no grand monopolist of the gifts of God; indeed, he "reserved to himself not one foot of land, not one tittle of political power, more than he granted to servants and strangers." The government he founded was to be "a pure democracy," controlled by the will of a majority; but this should be "only in civil things," and over all was the sovereignty of God.

In 1643, Williams goes to England to settle the relations of his colony with "the mother-country." The colonies were under control of Warwick, with a council of five peers and twelve commons. Fortunately for Rhode Island, that noble philanthropist, Henry Vane, was of the latter. Parliament was surprised and deeply interested by the "printed Indian labors of Roger Williams, the like whereof was not extant from any part of America." The favorable impression made by the great missionary led "both houses of Parliament to grant unto him, and friends with him, a free and absolute charter of civil government for those parts of his abode." Thus the oppressed of all lands would, it seemed, be guaranteed a home for "soul-liberty, with full power and authority to rule themselves."

Roger Williams returned from England under "the Protectorate," free to pass unharmed through the land of his banishment; to be met on the waters of his own Narragansett by a fleet of boats bearing the freemen of his colony, who with gratitude, and shouts of welcome, hailed him as the founder and defender of their liberties, so that he was really "elevated and transported out of himself." Let oppressed, persecuted Virtue learn to dare and to wait. The time of her triumph will surely come.

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But how will this grand little "democracie" succeed in its wild experiment? There are "hardiness and tumults,” we learn, at its "assemblies," called together "by the drum or the voice of a herald," under a tree, or by the sea-side. No wonder; for here were " Anabaptists and Antinomians, fanatics and infidels;" unpromising materials, one would say, out of which to construct a self-governing State. But one pure, clear, lofty mind will guide the whole. They will have good men for officers, and may safely put on to their records, *Ouer popularitie shall not, as some conjecture it will, prove an anarchie, and so a common tirannie; for we are exceeding desirous to preserve every man safe in his person, name, and estate."

There was still danger. Coddington had obtained from the executive council of State in England "a commission for governing the islands;" and Williams must go to England again to preserve the integrity of his prospective State. He succeeded, and the gratitude of the people would have made him governor ; but he was wiser than they. He refused all honors, but gave a true account of the valuable efforts of Sir Henry Vane in their behalf. Their letter to him sums up the history of the early colonization of Rhode Island, and will complete the presentation of those features of its history most important to our discussion. On the 27th of August, 1654, they wrote, " From the first beginning of the Providence Colony, you have been a noble and true friend to an outcast and despised people: we have ever reaped the

sweet fruits of your constant loving-kindness and favor. We have long been free from the iron yoke of wolfish bishops; we have sitten dry from the streams of blood spilt by the wars in our native country; we have not felt the new chains of the Presbyterian tyrants, nor, in this colony, have we been consumed by the over-zealous fire of the (so-called) godly Christian magistrates; we have not known what an excise means; we have almost forgotten what tithes are; we have long drank of the cup of as great liberties as any people that we can hear of under the whole heaven when we are gone, our posterity and children after us shall read in our town-record your loving-kindness to us, and our real endeavor after peace and righteousness."

Roger Williams is a Christian and a minister, and he will found a church. He is a Baptist, and his church will be exclusive immersionists; but he will rise above precedents, and take no pains to establish the line of succession. He and his simple-minded people will baptize each other, and go on to serve the Lord, and proclaim the doctrine of justification by faith with might and main, and God will be with them. His denomination will feel obliged to restrict "communion" to those baptized as they understand it, and will accept the decrees as they understand them; but the complete and stringent accountability of every man will be the ground of their practical appeals in all lands, and of their battle-cry of freedom to the end of the world.

As the central power of the Southern group removed from Virginia to South Carolina, where she arose as the only original and most intensely slave State, so the centre of the Northern group removed from Massachusetts to Rhode Island, where Roger Williams, her noblest representative of freedom, exiled from her territory for his brave protest against intolerance, unfurled the banner of unrestricted liberty on the banks of the Narragansett.

Every step of this advance movement in the clear assertion of the great American idea was made under the direc

tion of a high-souled, Christian minister, and indicates the divine control in the development and organization of freedom on the Western continent.

The colonial history of Vermont is included in that of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York, and evolves no additional principle for consideration in this part of our work.

New England, from the period of colonization, will go on with the development of her peculiar institutions under extreme difficulties. Her battles with prerogatives will pass her through the severest ordeals of suppression and tyranny, and lead to the union of her colonies, the development of her States, and her final incorporation into the grand union of freedom.

NEW YORK.

On the fourth day of September, 1609, just as Champlain was entering the future State of New York from the north, the gallant Henry Hudson rounded Sandy Hook, and "The Half-moon" cast anchor. He had sailed in search of "the north-west passage" to Asia, under direction of the famous East-India Company; and ended a long, perilous voyage in the discovery of the Hudson River.

This gave New York, with boundaries entirely undefined, to the Dutch by right of discovery. In 1610, Providence inspired the English with a wholesome dread of the "art and industry of the Dutch," and thus defeated a proposed alliance with the East-India Company for the joint colonization of Virginia, which would have probably destroyed English independence in America.

After long and characteristic hesitation, the States-General gave authority to private adventurers to make "four successive voyages to any passage, haven, or country they should thereafter find;" and in 1614 a fleet of "five small vessels" sailed for America, bearing as commanders the famous Hendrick Christaenson of Cleve, and "the worthy

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