He continues:—
The affirmation of the Rogerenes is that the shrub has never vegetated in this town since that irreligious and cruel use of it.[[18]] It is to be feared that the moral effect upon the boys was worse than the blasting effect upon the prim bush.
Mr. McEwen goes on to say, as palliating their conduct: “But our fathers had not the Sabbath School.”
Was the preaching of the gospel a less potent influence than the Sabbath School? They had Moses and the prophets and the teachings of Christ. The persecutors of the Christians in all former ages had not the Sabbath School; but who ever before offered this excuse in their behalf? And even this apology he does not extend to the Rogerenes; but holds them to the strictest account, notwithstanding that they also had not the Sabbath School.
“The Rogerenes,” he adds, “have dwindled to insignificance.”
Should he not know that the work of these reformers is accomplished? The principles for which they contended have become universal; their distinctive existence is no longer needed. The citadel of religious bigotry which they assailed has been demolished. While the dark night of superstition and intolerance overspread the land, the Rogerenes, like stars and constellations, pierced the gloom. Leo and the Great Bear shone in the heavens; but when the sun arose they made obeisance and retired. The trumpet of Luther is not now blown in Protestant churches. The Anti-Slavery Society, once potent, has ceased to exist; slavery is abolished. Would Mr. McEwen doom the Rogerenes to endless labor, like Sisyphus? He rolled up the stone to have it roll back again; they helped to roll the stone to the top of the mountain, the headstone, brought forth with shoutings, to rest there forever.
Mr. McEwen says: “A small remnant of their posterity, almost unknown, exists in an adjacent town, with hardly a relic of their earth-born religion. ‘A small remnant’ will be noted hereafter.”
“Earth-born religion!” In regard to doctrinal points in religion they differed not from the Congregational church. Mr. Field himself said, in the discourse from which we have before quoted, “In their opinions concerning the doctrines of religion generally they coincided with other Christians, and they did not abandon, as do the Quakers, the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.” And Miss Caulkins, in her history, says that John Rogers was strenuously orthodox in his religious views, as all his writings clearly show. The Rogerenes baptized by immersion, it is true, and much of their suffering was on that account. Benedict, in his Church History, speaks of them as “Rogerene Baptists.” This feature of their belief, ancient though it may be, against which the Congregational church a century or two ago set itself in such violent opposition, has now become current and popular. With the progress of religious freedom and of gospel truth, the Rogerenes have long since affiliated with other denominations and are as one with them. We shall, presently, show to the reader that prominent ministers, in different denominations, have been of Rogerene descent.
“But why,” says Mr. McEwen, “you may be ready to ask, rake from oblivion a sect devised for nothing but to destroy the religion of the gospel and destined to vanish away?”[[19]]
In view of what we have already said and shown, we are now somewhat at a loss which of Solomon’s rules to adopt (see Proverbs xxvi, 4 and 5), and therefore deem it the part of wisdom to make no answer at all. Had Mr. McEwen attempted to rear a monument to his own ignorance, he could not have succeeded better than by uttering the words above quoted.