months
afterward, in January, 1636, Williams was ordered by the General Court
to come to Boston and embark in a ship that was about to set sail for
England. But he escaped into the forest, and made his way through the
snow to the wigwam of Massasoit. He was a rare linguist, and had learned
to talk fluently in the language of the Indians, and now he passed the
winter in trying to instill into their ferocious hearts something of the
gentleness of Christianity. In the spring he was privately notified by
Winthrop that if he were to steer his course to Narragansett bay he
would be secure from molestation; and such was the beginning of the
settlement of Providence. [Sidenote: From religious dissensions; Roger
Williams]

Shortly before the departure of Williams, there came to Boston one of
the greatest Puritan statesmen of that heroic age, the younger Henry
Vane. It is pleasant to remember that the man and Anne who did so much
to overthrow the tyranny of Strafford, who brought the military strength
of Scotland to the aid of the hard-pressed Parliament, who administered
the navy with which Blake won his astonishing victories, who dared even
withstand Cromwell at the height of his power when his measures became
too violent,--it is pleasant to remember that this admirable man was
once the chief magistrate of an American commonwealth. It is pleasant
for a Harvard man to remember that as such he presided over the assembly
that founded our first university. Thorough republican and enthusiastic
lover of liberty, he was spiritually akin to Jefferson and to Samuel
Adams. Like Williams he was a friend to toleration, and like Williams
he found Massachusetts an uncomfortable home. In 1636 he was only
twenty-four years of age, "young in years," and perhaps not yet "in
sage counsel old." He was chosen governor for that year, and his
administration was stormy. Among those persons who had followed Mr.
Cotton from Lincolnshire was Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, a very bright and
capable lady, if perhaps somewhat impulsive and indiscreet. She had
brought over with her, says Winthrop, "two dangerous errors: first, that
the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person; second, that
no sanctification can help to evidence to us our justification." Into
the merits of such abstruse doctrines it is not necessary for the
historian to enter. One can hardly repress a smile as one reflects
how early in the history of Boston some of its characteristic soc