ocratic state came Roger Williams,
afterward the founder of Rhode Island. Born in London, England, about
1607, of good family, he was placed by his patron, Coke, at the Charter
House School. From there he went to Pembroke College, Cambridge. In 1631
he arrived in Boston. Somewhat finical in his political, moral, and
religious ideas, he found it impossible, having separated from the
Church of England, in which he had been reared, to harmonize here with
those still favoring that communion. At Salem he was invited by a little
company of Separatists to become their teacher. His views soon offended
the authorities. He declared that the king's patent could confer no
title to lands possessed by Indians. He denied the right of magistrates
to punish heresy, or to enforce attendance upon religious services. "The
magistrate's power," he said, "extends only to the bodies, goods, and
outward state of men."

Alarmed at his bold utterances, the General Court of Massachusetts,
September 2, 1635, decreed his banishment for "new and dangerous
opinions, against the authority of magistrates." His fate was not,
therefore, merely because of his religious views. The exile sought
refuge at Seekonk, but this being within the Plymouth jurisdiction, he,
on Governor Winslow's admonition, moved farther into the wilderness,
settling at Providence. He purchased land of the natives, and, joined by
others, set up a pure democracy, instituting as a part thereof the
"lively experiment," for which ages had waited, of perfect liberty in
matters of religious belief. Not for the first time in history, but more
clearly, earnestly, and consistently than it had ever been done before,
he maintained for every man the right of absolute freedom in matters of
conscience, for all forms of faith equal toleration.

[Illustration: Roger Williams' House at Salem.]

[1638]

[Illustration: Edward Winslow.]

Some friends of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson established a colony on Aquidneck,
the Indian name for Rhode Island. Williams went to England and secured
from Parliament a patent which united that plantation with his in one
government. Charles II.'s charter of 1663 added Warwick to the first two
settlements, renewing and enlarging the patent, and giving freest scope
for government according to Williams' ideas. Mrs. Hutchinson, a woman of
rare intellect and eloquence, who maintained the right of private
judgment and pretended to an infallible inner light of revelation, was,
l