d, imprisoned, and,
after a summary trial, were sent to the gallows. The two men were
executed; but at the moment when Mary Dyer was standing, calm and
resigned, with the rope around her neck, expecting to be launched into
eternity, a reprieve arrived, and the victim was released. But it was
only for a little time. She was again banished; and again returned, as
if to seek her fate. A second trial took place, and she was again
condemned. Her husband, who knew not of her return to Boston until it
was too late, appeared before the magistrates, and pleaded with all the
eloquence of affection and anguish. But he wept and prayed in vain. His
young and lovely wife was led to the scaffold, where she met her fate
with a pious and even cheerful resignation; but her blood has left a
dark stain on the history of the Church of Boston, that no time will
ever efface. This dreadful event occurred about forty years after that
period of which we are now treating.]

Roger Williams was a man comparatively unknown in his own country, but
he was destined to exercise considerable influence in the land of his
adoption, by his peculiar views of religious freedom which went far
beyond those of the generality of his fellow Puritans. He desired to
extend to others that liberty of conscience which he claimed as his own
privilege, and for the attainment of which he had become a wanderer and
an exile. But he soon found that many of his countrymen had forgotten
in America the principles of spiritual freedom, for which they had so
nobly contended in England, and were ready to employ against those who
differed from them, the same 'carnal weapons' that had already driven
them from their mother-country. His sufferings were indeed light, in
comparison of those which were afterwards inflicted on the miserable
Quakers by the government of Massachusetts; but still they were hard
for flesh and blood to bear, and galling to a free spirit to receive
from those who boasted of their own love of freedom.

Roger Williams was not more than thirty-two years of age when he
arrived in New England. He had boldly separated himself from all
communion with the high church of his native country; and, before he
would attach himself to the Church of Boston, he demanded from its
members a similar declaration of independence. The fathers of the
colony were, however, by no means prepared to take so decided a step,
which would lay them open to the attacks of the English hiera