e most
extreme doctrines on all points of Christian belief were discussed
without other or more serious results of the _odium theologicum_ than
the building of many meeting-houses and the multiplication of sects.
Among these sects was one which played an important part in the local
theology of that day and for many years afterward, that known as the
"Seventh-Day Baptist," to which, it seems, John Maxson belonged. It
was not a new invention of the colonists, but had existed in England
since the days of early dissent, and it is possible that John Maxson
had brought the doctrine with him from England. Adhering to the
practice of baptism by immersion, the sect also maintained the
immutable obligation of the Seventh-Day Sabbath of the Ten
Commandments, the Jewish day of rest.

The grave disabilities imposed on them in Massachusetts by the
obligatory abstention from labor on two days, on one day by conscience
and the other by the rigorous laws of the Puritans, made Roger
Williams's little state the paradise of the Sabbatarians, and the sect
flourished greatly in it, while the social isolation consequent on
the practice of contracting marriages only in their church
membership--made imperative if family dissensions were to be avoided
on a question of primary importance to that community, which had
sacrificed all worldly advantages to what it believed to be obedience
to the Word of God--at once knit together their church in closer
relations, and drew to it others from the outside, attracted by the
magnetism of a more ascetic faith.

Amongst the emigrants from England on the Restoration were a family by
the name of Stillman, who, having had relations with the regicides,
went into what was then the most obscure and remote part of New
England and settled at Wethersfield, in Connecticut. One of the
brothers,--George,--hearing of this strange doctrine denying the
sanctity of the "Lord's Day," came to Newport to convert the erring
brothers; but, convinced by them, remained in the colony, where
he became a shining light. Thus it happened that both lines of my
ancestry became involved in the mystic bonds of a faith which was
shut off in a peculiar manner from all around them. The consequent
isolation, I fear, made much for self-righteousness. In their eyes it
was this observance which maintained continuity between the Christian
church and the institutions imposed in Paradise, and therefore made
them peculiarly the people of God. This