government on the doctrine of the liberty of conscience, the equality of
opinions before the law."(440) He declared it to be the duty of the
magistrate to restrain crime, but never to control the conscience. "The
public or the magistrates may decide," he said, "what is due from man to
man; but when they attempt to prescribe a man's duties to God, they are
out of place, and there can be no safety; for it is clear that if the
magistrate has the power, he may decree one set of opinions or beliefs
to-day and another to-morrow; as has been done in England by different
kings and queens, and by different popes and councils in the Roman Church;
so that belief would become a heap of confusion."(441)

Attendance at the services of the established church was required under a
penalty of fine or imprisonment. "Williams reprobated the law; the worst
statute in the English code was that which did but enforce attendance upon
the parish church. To compel men to unite with those of a different creed,
he regarded as an open violation of their natural rights; to drag to
public worship the irreligious and the unwilling, seemed only like
requiring hypocrisy.... 'No one should be bound to worship, or,' he added,
'to maintain a worship, against his own consent.' 'What!' exclaimed his
antagonists, amazed at his tenets, 'is not the laborer worthy of his
hire?' 'Yes,' replied he, 'from them that hire him.' "(442)

Roger Williams was respected and beloved as a faithful minister, a man of
rare gifts, of unbending integrity and true benevolence; yet his steadfast
denial of the right of civil magistrates to authority over the church, and
his demand for religious liberty, could not be tolerated. The application
of this new doctrine, it was urged, would "subvert the fundamental state
and government of the country."(443) He was sentenced to banishment from
the colonies, and finally, to avoid arrest, he was forced to flee, amid
the cold and storms of winter, into the unbroken forest.

"For fourteen weeks," he says, "I was sorely tossed in a bitter season,
not knowing what bread or bed did mean." But "the ravens fed me in the
wilderness," and a hollow tree often served him for a shelter.(444) Thus
he continued his painful flight through the snow and the trackless forest,
until he found refuge with an Indian tribe whose confidence and affection
he had won while endeavoring to teach them the truths of the gospel.

Making his way at last, after months of ch