nce of the
recent act of the community with regard to Roger Williams's election,
the claim was unjustly rejected. The Salemers then, by the advice of
their pastor, wrote to all the other churches in the Bay, and requested
them to unite in a remonstrance to the government. This act was in
perfect accordance with the spirit of the puritanical principles, which
distinctly separated the church from the state; and it ought not,
therefore, to have given offence to any one. But their practice
differed greatly from their theory; and the feeling against Williams
was so strong that all the churches--the elders of which were opposed
to his opinions--now took part with the government of Boston against
him.

This treatment so irritated the warm feelings of Williams, and so
keenly wounded his sense of justice and love of liberty, that he
required the Church of Salem to renounce all connection with the other
congregations; and even went so far as to refuse all intercourse with
his own church until this separation was agreed to. But strongly as the
Salemers were attached to their pastor, they could not consent to so
decisive a measure as he demanded; and, being vexed and dispirited by
the general disapprobation which their conduct had excited in the rest
of the colony, the greatest part of the congregation fell away from
him.

This desertion grieved the heart of the zealous minister but it did not
discourage him, or subdue his determined spirit. He began to hold
spiritual meetings at his own house, which were attended by those
members of the church who fully concurred in his views, and who
considered that he had been treated with injustice. This proceeding
naturally aroused a strong party spirit in the town, and even
threatened to produce a permanent division in the church, as the
followers of Williams held themselves entirely aloof from the rest of
the congregation.

Deeply did Edith lament this unhappy state of affairs. Her devotion to
her noble-minded husband, and the natural tendency of her own mind, led
her to sympathize entirely in his opinions and feelings; and her strong
sense of right and wrong caused her to condemn the injustice of the
government, and the weak, truckling spirit of the sister-churches. But
her judgement was more calm and dispassionate than that of Roger, and
her temper far less excitable. She therefore saw the impropriety, as
well as the danger, of, causing a schism in the church; and she used
all her po