am not disposed to deny that you and your
friends, with their principles, of which you, erroneously, I think,
claim Mr. Williams as the great exponent, 'have a mission,' as you
say, to perform; but I do not feel called upon to join in it. Some
of your writers seem to me--shall I say it?--a little too sure of
having just the right pattern and patent-right in ordinances, and
somewhat too complacent in not being liked by other denominations,
and perhaps a little disposed to look for persecution. Now I was
pleased with a remark of Matthew Henry's, on Mark 10:28, that 'It
is not the suffering, but the cause, that makes the martyr.' But we
were brought up under different associations, and cannot see just
alike in all things. I cannot, however, contradict, by any step
which my feelings would incline me to take, the Christian
citizenship of those who are dear to Christ, and are so precious to
me. As much as I love you, I think you should feel perfectly free
to leave me in my happy home, if you cannot allow me to retain my
fidelity to my own conscientious convictions of truth, and to the
sacred rights of those whom nature and grace have conspired to make
inseparable from my own Christian hopes and joys."

[Footnote 3: "Can we blame the founders of the Massachusetts Colony for
banishing him from their jurisdiction? In the annals of religious
persecution is there to be found a martyr more gently dealt with by
those against whom he began the war of intolerance; whose authority he
persisted, even after professions of penitence and submission, in
defying, till deserted even by the wife of his bosom; and whose utmost
severity of punishment upon him was only an order for his removal as a
nuisance from among them?"--_Discourse before Mass. Hist. Soc._, 1843,
pp. 25-30.--[ED.]]

The gentleman agreed to allow her the largest liberty, and they were
married. He knew that she had a mind and heart that were more precious
than rubies, and that the heart of a husband could safely trust in her.
The sequel will show, however, how good it is to be matched as well as
mated, and, in the conjugal relation, to be "perfectly joined together
in the same judgment."

The object of my call, that evening, was to rejoice with her, and to be
the bearer of some congratulations at the recovery of their infant,
whose death had been expected for some time. The child was no