At this June court, John Bolles and his wife are arraigned for having disturbed the congregation “in February last” (upon occasion of the Congregational interference with the baptism of their son Joseph by John Waterhouse). The court, “having heard what each has to offer and the evidence against them, adjudge each to pay a fine of £20 and costs of prosecution £1.”
As for John Waterhouse, he is first tried for having disturbed the Congregational meeting (after the church interference with said baptism, February 26) and is to pay same fine and charges as John Bolles and wife for this offense. Accordingly the cost of Joseph’s baptism reaches £65. No wonder that Joseph Bolles is to become a leader among the Rogerenes and eventually prominent in a great countermove that is to shake the Congregational church of New London.
John Waterhouse is also tried for “assuming a pretended administration of the ordinance of baptism to one Joseph Bolles of New London” and “that in time thereof he made use of these words: ‘I baptize thee into the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.’” “The matter of fact against him being fully proven” and “he having been imprisoned” (apparently until the sitting of this court), he is now sentenced to be whipped ten stripes on the naked body for having performed this baptism.
It is well for the Rogerene Society that so courageous and talented a man as John Waterhouse has given himself to the Christian service in this contest for religious liberty. The days of their great leader are now numbered, although he is still, at seventy-three years of age, in full health and vigor, despite his fifteen years of imprisonment during the last forty-six years, and many other trials and sufferings induced by merciless punishments.
Prominent among the noticeable facts in this man’s history is his faithful Christian ministry, a ministry copied closely from New Testament precept and example. Here is a pastor who in obedience to the command to visit the sick has been ever ready to hasten fearlessly to the bedsides of victims of the most dreaded contagion, to render aid temporal or spiritual; although not himself an immune, unless God so decree. He could be called upon in any circumstance of misfortune, wherever a friend was needed, to serve, to comfort, or advise. He has assisted the poor from the earnings of his own hands. He has visited the widows and the fatherless and those in prison. He has been at all the charges of his own ministry, by the fruits of his own industry. Since it has been claimed by him and his followers, on Scriptural authority, that faith and prayer are more efficacious in the healing of the sick than are the advice and prescriptions of earthly physicians, how often for this purpose must his prayers have been required.
A few months later than the events narrated in previous portions of this chapter, occurs the great smallpox pestilence in Boston. At this time, John Rogers is having published in that city his book entitled “A Midnight Cry,” and also his “Answer to R. Wadsworth.” If he has need to go to Boston, on business connected with these publications, it is certain, by the character of the man, that he will not hesitate, but rather hasten, that he may, in the general panic there, render some assistance. Even if he has no business occasion for such a visit, it will not matter, provided he judges the Master’s command to visit the sick calls him to Boston. Since his conversion in 1674, he has made a practice of visiting those afflicted with this contagion so shunned by others, yet has never been attacked by the disease. He believes the promise that God will preserve His faithful children to the full age of threescore years and ten unless called to offer up their lives in martyrdom, and that when, at last, in His good pleasure, He shall call them, it matters not by what disease or what accident He takes them hence. Surely death could come in no better way than in some especial obedience to His command.[[139]]
If after an immunity of more than forty years, not only to himself but to his household, he takes cheery leave of family and friends, ere mounting his horse for the long journey, it is no wonder, nor if they take a like cheerful view of his departure. The Lord may bring him safely back, as so often before, even though his seventieth year is past. Yet—it may be that this call of the Master is to prove his faithfulness unto death.
His horse stands saddled by the roadside, with portmanteau packed for a brave and kindly stay, God willing, with the suffering and the forsaken. He is ready even to his jackboots, and his faithful watch tells him it is time for the start.[[140]] We look for no tremor here, even when he speaks the last farewell, but for the cheery word, the tender glance, the fervent grasp of the hand, the committal to God of those he holds dearest on earth, the agile spring to the saddle, and a still erect and manly figure vanishing at the turn of the road. It is not unlikely that a cavalcade of brethren accompany him some miles on his way.
On and on, from the health-giving breezes of Mamacock, towards the plague-stricken city. Once there,—would we might follow him in his ministrations, even to that day when he remounts his horse for the homeward journey. Has the contagion so abated by the middle of October that he is no longer needed, or can he indeed be aware that he himself is attacked by the disease? Would it be possible for a man, after he had become sensible that the malady was upon him, to take the journey on horseback from Boston to New London? All that is known for a certainty is that after he reaches home the disease has developed. It seems probable that he was permitted to complete his mission in Boston and to leave there unconscious of the insidious attack awaiting him. Why was he stricken down at the close of this faithful effort to obey the command of the Master in the face of scorn and peril? One important result is to ensue. The unfaltering trust of the Rogerenes in an all-powerful and all-loving God is to be shown remaining as firm as though John Rogers had returned to them unscathed, and this unswerving trust in God’s promises, under circumstances calculated to shake such a trust to the uttermost, is to be attested over and over by the records of Connecticut.
Fast and far is spread the alarm that John Rogers, just returned from his foolhardy visit to Boston, is prostrated at Mamacock with the dread contagion. There are in the house, including himself, thirteen persons. Adding the servants who live in separate houses on the place, it is easy to swell the number to “upwards of twenty.” The large farm, spreading upon both sides of the road, is itself a place of isolation. On the east is a broad river, separating it from the uninhabited Groton bank. On the north is wooded, uninhabited, Scotch Cap.[[141]] There is possibly a dwelling within half a mile at the northwest. A half-mile to the south is the house of John Bolles. What few other neighbors there may be, are well removed, and there are dwellings enough on the farm to shelter all not required for nursing the sick. To what degree the family might take the usual precautions, if left to themselves, or how efficacious might be their scriptural methods, can never be known; since the authorities take the matter in hand at the start.