In one of his letters describing these drawbacks, Roger Williams did not forget to send his love to his Indian friends. The correspondence was not all one-sided. The people of Providence, in turn, kept Roger Williams in touch with affairs at home. Though they did not always appreciate the great, whole-souled man while he lived quietly among them, whenever they were left to their own devices, they awoke to some realization of his worth. They passed their troubles on to him and asked his advice, as if the poor man had not already enough burdens of his own to carry! They did not stop here. They wrote an earnest letter asking him to accept the governorship of the colony for a year in case the charter should be confirmed.
A more ambitious man would eagerly have grasped the opportunity thus offered. He would have seen in it the possibility of power, influence, perhaps riches. Not so Roger Williams. In his own humble, modest way, he was content to go on as before, sacrificing his own interests for those of the colony, whether repaid for his efforts or not.
Cromwell was not the only prominent man in England with whom Roger Williams was on intimate terms. He renewed his friendship with Sir Henry Vane and was a frequent visitor at his house—either in his lodgings at Whitehall or at his beautiful country estate Belleau in Lincolnshire. This tried and true friend, having lived in both old and New England, could understand and sympathize with Roger Williams as perhaps nobody else could. He was not only his personal friend, but a friend of the Providence colony as well. “The sheet anchor of our ship,” wrote Roger Williams, “is Sir Henry, who will do as the eye of God leads him.”
John Milton was another brilliant man with whom Roger Williams associated during this period. He was the secretary of the Council of State and later became world-famous as the author of “Paradise Lost.” The condition of the great man at this time was pitiable. He was fast growing blind. He said of his affliction in after years:
“...., My light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless....”
He and Roger Williams exchanged languages, Roger Williams reading to him in Dutch and receiving in return instruction in other languages. Roger Williams’ familiarity with other tongues than his own was truly remarkable. We have seen how he had studied and conquered the Indian dialects. Now during his stay in the mother country, he practiced Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French and Dutch.
The study of languages, however, was not all that occupied Roger Williams during the two years and a half that he awaited the triumph of his charter. He wrote several books and pamphlets that represent some of the best literary work of his life. It will be remembered that when in England before, he had published a book called “The Bloody Tenent of Persecution,” in which he voiced his views on toleration. This was later answered by John Cotton, who, borrowing a portion of Roger Williams’ title, added to it and called his work “The Bloody Tenent Washed and Made White in the Blood of the Lamb.” Roger Williams could not let the matter rest here—he was too ardent an apostle of liberty of conscience.
So now he took the opportunity to get ready for publication a reply to his antagonist, this time under the overwhelming heading of “The Bloody Tenent Yet More Bloody by Mr. Cotton’s Endeavor to Wash it White in the Blood of the Lamb.” If the controversy had been carried any further, who knows what cumbersome and unwieldy titles might not have been inflicted upon the reading public! Roger Williams, in referring to the above book in its relation to Mr. Cotton’s arguments, said it had “unwashed his washings.”
England at this period was divided on the question of toleration. There were those who favored only partial religious liberty, others who took the stand that Roger Williams had supported all these years—absolute soul liberty without interference from the civil power. These broad-minded men argued that the Jews, who had been persecuted time and again by the rulers of England and had been excluded from the land for several hundred years, should be allowed to live freely and peaceably in the forbidden country.
Here was a chance for Roger Williams to strike another blow at oppression. The despised race could have had no better champion. Writing in their behalf, he said: