The Pilgrims of New England / A Tale of the Early American Settlers

by Mrs. J. B. Webb

Deeply did Edith lament this unhappy state of affairs. Her devotion to her noble-minded husband, and the natural tendency of her own mind, led her to sympathize entirely in his opinions and feelings; and her strong sense of right and wrong caused her to condemn the injustice of the government, and the weak, truckling spirit of the sister-churches. But her judgement was more calm and dispassionate than that of Roger, and her temper far less excitable. She therefore saw the impropriety, as well as the danger, of, causing a schism in the church; and she used all her powerful influence to induce her husband to give up these irregular assemblies; and, without compromising his own opinions, to endeavor to ward off the enmity of the men of Boston.

She earnestly besought him again to leave the Congregation of Salem— the greater portion of which had already deserted him and his cause— and to return to Plymouth, where a safe and a happy home might yet be afforded to them, and where no persecution for conscience' sake, need be feared. But all her arguments and her persuasions were alike ineffectual. On this one point she found her Roger firm and inflexible—for on this point he felt that his honor and his conscience were both concerned; and, even for Edith's sake; he could not act contrary to their dictates. He knew that danger hung over his head; and, though he would not shrink from it himself, he besought her to seek a temporary refuge with her parents, and remain at Plymouth until the threatened storm had blown over. But it was now Ediths turn to show herself firm and decided; and so clearly did Roger perceive that separation would be to her a far greater trial than any other that could befall her in his company, that he forbore to urge a measure that it wrung his own heart to propose.

At length the boding storm began to break over his head. For all his supposed offences he was again summoned before the General Assembly at Boston; and, in fear and anxiety, Edith saw him depart. She knew full well that he would never renounce, or even soften down, his opinions, through any fear of man; and she did not, for a moment, desire that he should thus lower himself in her estimation and his own. But she also knew the bitterness of the enmity felt towards him by the authorities at Boston, and she could not repress her apprehensions of its consequences.

As she anticipated, Roger refused to acknowledge himself guilty of an offence against the church or state; nor would he even yield one point of his religious or political opinions, during a long disputation with the celebrated pastor Hooker. He was, therefore, declared contumacious by the government: and, with the assent of all the assembled clergy, except his friend Elliot, he was banished from the territory of Massachusetts.

Six weeks were allowed him by the General Assembly to make his preparations, and remove beyond the boundary of their dominions: but as this term would have brought the time of his banishment to the winter season, when such a journey would have been impracticable, he was afterwards permitted to remain at Salem until the spring.

With great apparent unconcern he returned to his home, where his fond and admiring wife welcomed him with joy, and strengthened his spirit by the cheerful manner in which she received the news of their sentence of banishment. She had felt an undefined dread of something much more hard to bear—of something which might possibly separate her husband from her: but banishment with him was only a change of home, and, let their lot be cast where it might, she could be happy. Indeed, she entertained a hope that. Roger would consent to remove to Plymouth, and take up his abode there, which would have, given her extreme satisfaction. But she soon found that this hope could not be accomplished; for her enthusiastic husband had formed a design of founding a church of his own, and of being entirely independent of all government in spiritual matters. In order to carry out this purpose, he daringly continued to hold the obnoxious assemblies in his own house, and to instill his opinions into the minds of the many young and zealous friends who gathered around him. These meetings were even more numerously attended after his return from Boston than they were before he was summoned to the bar of the General Assembly; for persecution and injustice naturally recoil on the perpetrators of it, and the victim of such harsh measures is sure to gain friends and supporters among the warm-hearted and the generous.

A report of these proceedings was carried to Boston, and also a rumor of Williams's supposed plan for founding an independent church and settlement in Narragansett Bay. It was even declared that some of his friends had already gone off to the south, and were seeking, a fitting spot on which to commence building.

This information roused the fears, as well as the wrath, of the government. The eloquence and abilities of Williams were well known to the rulers, and they dreaded the influence that he would inevitably exercise over the neighboring churches, if he established himself and his followers in a district so contiguous to their own. They, therefore, resolved to employ still more harsh and stringent measures than had yet been attempted, in order to put a stop to his disorderly proceedings, and prevent the further dissemination of his opinions. He was, accordingly, once more summoned to the chief town; and, had he obeyed the summons, he was to have been forcibly conveyed on board a vessel then in the harbor, and sent off to England as a rebel and schismatic, unworthy to dwell in the new settlement.

When the summons arrived at Salem, Roger was ill, having caught a fever from some members of his flock on whom he had been attending; and he therefore replied, with truth, that it would endanger his life to attempt the journey to Boston. His serious indisposition had occasioned to Edith much anxiety and alarm; but now she was made to feel how often those events which we regard as misfortunes are really 'blessings in disguise'; and how frequently our merciful and all-seeing Father renders them the means of our preservation from far greater evils. It would be well if the conviction of this blessed truth were constantly present to our minds. How many anxious cares would it disperse or soothe, and how many thanksgivings would it call forth.

Edith felt its truth, and its consolation, as she sat by the side of her husband's couch, and wrote, from his dictation, the reply that saved him from immediate compliance with the dreaded summons. Nothing would have induced Roger to plead illness as an excuse for disobedience unless it had actually existed: and his fearless spirit would probably have led him into the snare that was laid for him. Edith knew this secret danger; for Governor Winthrop, who had seen and admired her on one of his visits to Plymouth, and who now kindly sympathized in her feelings, had sent her a private note by the messenger, in which he warned her of the danger that waited Williams at Boston, and desired her, by some means, to prevent his appearing before the General Assembly. Winthrop highly disapproved of the young minister's bold and independent conduct; but he shrunk from so cruel an act as was resolved on by his council. He did not, however, choose to declare his more lenient judgement; and he adopted the plan of informing Roger's wife of the fate that was designed for him, and leaving it to her judgement and affection to take the proper measures to avert it.