ss? A howling wilderness it is. The wolf and the bear meet
us within halloo of our dwellings. The savage lieth in wait for us in
the dismal shadow of the woods. The stubborn roots of the trees break
our ploughshares when we would till the earth. Our children cry for
bread, and we must dig in the sands of the seashore to satisfy them.
Wherefore, I say again, have we sought this country of a rugged soil
and wintry sky? Was it not for the enjoyment of our civil rights? Was
it not for liberty to worship God according to our conscience?"

"Call you this liberty of conscience?" interrupted a voice on the
steps of the meeting-house.

It was the wanton gospeller. A sad and quiet smile flitted across the
mild visage of Roger Williams, but Endicott, in the excitement of the
moment, shook his sword wrathfully at the culprit--an ominous gesture
from a man like him.

"What hast thou to do with conscience, thou knave?" cried he. "I said
liberty to worship God, not license to profane and ridicule him. Break
not in upon my speech, or I will lay thee neck and heels till this
time to-morrow.--Hearken to me, friends, nor heed that accursed
rhapsodist. As I was saying, we have sacrificed all things, and have
come to a land whereof the Old World hath scarcely heard, that we
might make a new world unto ourselves and painfully seek a path from
hence to heaven. But what think ye now? This son of a Scotch
tyrant--this grandson of a papistical and adulterous Scotch woman
whose death proved that a golden crown doth not always save an
anointed head from the block--"

"Nay, brother, nay," interposed Mr. Williams; "thy words are not meet
for a secret chamber, far less for a public street."

"Hold thy peace, Roger Williams!" answered Endicott, imperiously. "My
spirit is wiser than thine for the business now in hand.--I tell ye,
fellow-exiles, that Charles of England and Laud, our bitterest
persecutor, arch-priest of Canterbury, are resolute to pursue us even
hither. They are taking counsel, saith this letter, to send over a
governor-general in whose breast shall be deposited all the law and
equity of the land. They are minded, also, to establish the idolatrous
forms of English episcopacy; so that when Laud shall kiss the pope's
toe as cardinal of Rome he may deliver New England, bound hand and
foot, into the power of his master."

A deep groan from the auditors--a sound of wrath as well as fear and
sorrow--responded to this intelligence.

"L