the colonies against king and parliament, against royal menace and muskets, and for years before the Continental Congress pronounced for freedom every election sermon was a declaration of independence.

CHAPTER VII.

Where Conscience Was Free-Roger Williams and His Providence Colony--Driven by Persecution from Massachusetts-Savages Receive Him Kindly--Coddington's Settlement in Rhode Island-Oliver Cromwell and Charles II. Grant Charters-Peculiar Referendum in Early Rhede Island.

"Take heart with us, O man of old,
Soul-freedom's brave confessor,
So love of God and man wax strong,
Let sect and creed be lesser.

"The jarring discords of thy day
In ours one hymn are swelling;
The wandering feet, the severed paths
All seek our Father's dwelling.

"And slowly learns the world the truth
That makes us all thy debtor.-
That holy life is more than rite,
And spirit more than letter.

"That they who differ pole-wide serve
Perchance one common Master,
And other sheep he hath than they
That graze one common pasture."

WHITTIER.

One New England community stood apart from all the rest. Roger Williams, a learned and able minister, supposed to have been born in Wales, came to Boston in 1630, accompanied by his wife, Mary, an Englishwoman. Williams denied the right of the magistrates to interfere with the consciences of men, and also held that the Indians should not be deprived of their lands without fair and equitable purchase. His stand in favor

of soul-liberty was a novelty in that age when State and Church were regarded as inseparable, the only difference on this question between Massachusetts and England being as to the character of the public worship which the State should enforce upon consciences willing and unwilling. The doctrine of Roger Williams, therefore, seemed to the Boston authorities to strike at the very foundation of all government, and in particular of their government. In the autumn of 1635, when Roger Williams was pastor of the church at Salem, the General Court of Massachu setts ordered him to quit the colony within six months. Afterward suspecting that Williams was preparing to found a new colony, the Boston magistrates resolved to deport him to England, and a vessel was sent to Salem to take him away. Williams received timely warning, and fled from his home in mid-winter, and made his way through the wilderness to the shores of Narragansett Bay. He was joined by five companions, and at a fine spring near the head of Narragansett Bay they planted a colony, and Williams called the place Providence," in grateful acknowledgment of God's providence to him in his distress. Williams and his companions founded a pure democracy, with no interference with the rights of conscience. Indeed, they carried this principle to an extreme at which even in these days most people would hesitate, for one member of the colony was disciplined because he objected to his wife's frequent attendance on the preaching of Mr. Williams to the neglect of her household duties. Rhode Island became a refuge for the victims of Puritan intolerance, without regard to their belief or unbelief, and was therefore held in hatred and contempt by the Boston people. This very hatred was the salvation of Rhode Island, the government of England being favorably inclined to the colony on account of the

stubborn and independent attitude of Massachusetts toward the home authorities.

The name "Rhode Island" requires mention here of the fact that Rhode Island and Providence Plantations were originally separate settlements. In 1638 William Coddington, a native of Lincolnshire, England, and for some time a magistrate of Boston, was driven from Massachusetts along with others who had taken a prominent part on the side of Anne Hutchinson, in the controversy between that brilliant woman and the dominant element of the church. Coddington and his eighteen companions bought from the Indians the island of Aquitneck, or Rhode Island, and made settlements on the sites of Newport and Portsmouth. A third settlement was founded at Warwick, on the mainland, in 1643, by a party of whom John Greene and Samuel Gorton were leaders. Roger Williams went to England in the same year, and in 1644 he brought back a charter which united the settlements at Providence and on Rhode Island in one colony, called the Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. The charter was confirmed by Oliver Cromwell in 1655, and a new charter was granted by Charles II. in 1663. Under the Parliament charter of 1664 Providence, in 1647, sent a "committee' to Portsmouth to join with committees from other towns in order to form a government. The fifth "act and order' established by this convention provided that each town should send a committee to every general court, and these, like the deputies in Massachusetts and Plymouth, could exercise the powers of the freemen in all matters excepting the election of officers. The committee from each town was to consist of six members.

A peculiar feature of early Rhode Island government was the jealousy with which the people retained in their own control the law-making power. Matters of general concern were proposed

in some town meeting, and notice of the proposition had to be given to other towns. Towns which approved of the proposition were ordered to declare their opinion at the next general court through their committees. If the court decided in favor of the proposition a law was passed which had authority only until ratified by the next general assembly of all the people. The general court was also allowed to debate matters on its own motion, but its decisions must be reported to each town by the committee representing that town. A meeting of the town was held to debate on the questions so reported and then the votes of the inhabitants were collected by the town clerk and forwarded with all speed to the recorder of the colony. The latter was to open, in the presence of the governor, all votes so received, and if a majority voted affirmatively the resolution of the court was to stand as law until the next general assembly. This complex method was repealed in 1650, and instead, it was ordered that all laws enacted by the assembly should be communicated to the towns within six days after adjournment. Within three days after the laws were received the chief officer of each town was to call a meeting and read them to the freemen. If any freeman disliked a particular law he could, within ten days, send his vote in writing, with his name affixed, to the general recorder. If within ten days the recorder received a majority of votes against any law, he was to notify the president of that fact and the latter in turn was to give notice to each town that such law was null and void. Silence as to the remaining enactments was assumed to mean assent.

After 1658, the recorder was allowed ten days instead of six, as the period within which the laws must be sent to the towns. The towns had another ten days for consideration, and then if the majority of the free inhabitants of any one

of them in a lawful assembly voted against a given enactment, they could send their votes sealed up in a package to the recorder. If a majority from every town voted against the law it was thereby nullified; but unless this was done within twenty days after the adjournment of the court the law would continue binding. In 1660, three months were allowed for the return of votes to the recorder. Instead of a majority of each town, a majority of all the free inhabitants of the colony was sufficient to nullify a law. The charter of King Charles II. restricted the privilege of voting to freeholders and the eldest sons of freeholders.

CHAPTER VIII.

Puritans and Education-Provision for Public SchoolsPuritan Sincerity-Effect of Intolerance on the Community-Quakers Harshly Persecuted-The Salem Witchcraft Tragedy-History of the Delusion-Rebecca Nourse and Other Victims--The People Come to Their SensesCotton Mather Obdurate to the Last-Puritan MoralsComer's Diary-Rhode Island in Colonial Times.

It is to the credit of the Puritans that promptly upon their settlement in Massachusetts they made provision for education. Many of the Puritans were learned men, and some of them graduates of Cambridge in England, and when a school was established at Newtown for the education of the ministry, the name of the place was changed to Cambridge. When John Harvard endowed the school in 1638 with his library and the gift of one half his estate-about $4000, but equal to much more than that amount at the present day— the school was erected into a college and named Harvard College after the founder. The central aim and purpose of Puritan education was religious. The schools were maintained so that the children could learn to read the Bible, and also