superior in industry, energy,
principle, and character to those who usually left their English homes
to seek their fortunes in new countries. That religion, for which they
had made so great a sacrifice, was the main-spring of all their social
and political systems. They were, however, too blindly zealous to
discriminate between the peculiar administration of a theocracy and the
catholic and abiding principles of the Gospel. If they did not openly
profess that the judicial law of Moses was still in force, they at any
rate openly practiced its stern enactments.

The intolerance of these martyrs of intolerance is a sad example of
human waywardness.[331] In their little commonwealth, seceders from the
established forms of faith were persecuted with an unholy zeal.
Imprisonment, banishment, and even death itself, were inflicted for that
free exercise of religious opinions which the Pilgrim fathers had
sacrificed all earthly interests to win for themselves. In those dark
days of fanatic faith or vicious skepticism, the softening influence of
true Christianity was but little felt. The stern denunciations and
terrible punishments of the Old Testament were more suited to the iron
temper of the age than the gentle dispensations of the New--the fiery
zeal of Joshua than the loving persuasiveness of St. John.

As the tenets of each successive sect rose into popularity and
influenced the majority, they became state questions,[332] distracted
the Church, and threatened the very existence of the colony. The first
schism that disturbed the peace of the settlements was raised by Roger
Williams at Salem. (1635.) This worthy and sincere enthusiast held many
just and sound views among others that were wild and injurious: he
stoutly upheld freedom of conscience, and inconveniently contested the
right of the British crown to bestow Indian lands upon Englishmen. On
the other hand, he contrived to raise a storm of fanatic hatred against
the red cross in the banner of St. George, which seriously disturbed
the state,[333] and led to violent writings and altercations. At length
Williams was banished as a distractor of the public peace, but a popular
uproar attended his departure, and the greater part of the inhabitants
were with difficulty dissuaded from following him. He retired to
Providence, Rhode Island[334] (1636), where a little colony soon settled
round him, and he there lived and died in general esteem and
regard.[335]

The Antinomian