But apart from his mental endowments, the grand simplicity and purity of the man deserves the highest commendation. He hated vice. He lived in virtue. His faith might not have been that of the creed follower, but he had a sublime and unshaken confidence in God and belief in His love for him and all true followers of His rules. Simple, sincere, innocent as a babe of wrong thought or act, John R. Bolles ended his long life a firm believer in the goodness and mercy of the Creator whom all that life he had worshipped with the worship of faith and act and example. In Christ he lived and in Christ he fell asleep.
PART II.
HISTORY OF THE ROGERENES.
BY
ANNA B. WILLIAMS.
THE GREAT LEADERSHIP.
CHAPTER I.
1637-1652.
Among noticeable young men in the Colony of Connecticut, previous to 1640, is James Rogers.[[27]] His name first appears on record at New Haven, but shortly after, in 1637, he is a soldier from Saybrook in the Pequot war.[[28]] He is next at Stratford, where he acquires considerable real estate and marries Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Rowland, a landed proprietor of that place, who eventually leaves a valuable estate to his grandson, Samuel Rogers, and presumably other property to his daughter, who seems to have been an only child. A few years later, James Rogers appears at Milford. His wife joins the Congregational church there in 1645, and he himself joins this church in 1652.
He has evidently been a baker on a large scale for some time previous to 1655, at which date complaint is made to the General Court in regard to a quantity of biscuit furnished by him, which was exported to Virginia and the Barbadoes, upon which occasion he states that the flour furnished by the miller for this bread was not properly ground. The miller substantially admits that he did not at that time understand the correct manner of grinding.