osen for the office.
The preacher often dealt with public questions, and especially during the
troublous times which preceded the Revolution. Instead of pastors being
blamed for interference in politics the General Court sometimes sent a
general request to all ministers of the gospel resident in the colony
asking them to preach on election day before the freemen of each
plantation a sermon "proper for direction in the choice of civil rulers."
The pulpit in that age held the place now occupied by the newspaper
editorial page, so far as vital questions affecting the body politic were
concerned. The clergy were, as a class, learned and eloquent, and the
freemen looked to them for guidance in political as well as religious
problems, and it cannot be denied that the ministers never shrank from
the responsibility put upon them. They stood up for the colonies against
king and parliament, against royal menace and muskets, and for years
before the Continental Congress pronounced for freedom every election
sermon was a declaration of independence.

CHAPTER VII.

Where Conscience Was Free--Roger Williams and His Providence Colony--
Driven by Persecution from Massachusetts--Savages Receive Him Kindly
--Coddington's Settlement in Rhode Island--Oliver Cromwell and Charles
II. Grant Charters--Peculiar Referendum in Early Rhode Island.

"Take heart with us, O man of old,
Soul-freedom's brave confessor,
So love of God and man wax strong,
Let sect and creed be lesser.

"The jarring discords of thy day
In ours one hymn are swelling;
The wandering feet, the severed paths
All seek our Father's dwelling.

"And slowly learns the world the truth
That makes us all thy debtor.--
That holy life is more than rite,
And spirit more than letter.

"That they who differ pole-wide serve
Perchance one common Master,
And other sheep he hath than they
That graze one common pasture."

WHITTIER.

One New England community stood apart from all the rest. Roger Williams,
a learned and able minister, supposed to have been born in Wales, came to
Boston in 1630, accompanied by his wife, Mary, an Englishwoman. Williams
denied the right of the magistrates to interfere with the consciences of
men, and also held that the Indians should not be deprived of their lands
without fair and equitable purchase. His stand in favor of soul-liberty
was a novelty in that age when State and C