The beckoning hand appeared several years later—in 1891—and he passed quietly “over the river,” only nine years in advance of the death of the century with which he was born, having spent altogether one of the busiest, one of the most honorable, one of the most useful and the very longest life of all the celebrities in American literature. His fame is secure. His works will live after him—a proud and lasting monument.
CHARACTER OF ROGER WILLIAMS.
HILE the State was thus connecting by the closest bonds the energy of its faith with its form of government, there appeared in its midst one of those clear minds which sometimes bless the world by their power of receiving moral truth in its purest light, and of reducing the just conclusions of their principles to a happy and consistent practice. In February of the first year of the colony, but a few months after the arrival of Winthrop, and before either Cotton or Hooker had embarked for New England, there arrived at Nantasket, after a stormy passage of sixty-six days, “a young minister, godly and zealous, having precious” gifts. It was Roger Williams. He was then but a little more than thirty years of age; but his mind had already matured a doctrine which secures him an immortality of fame, as its application has given religious peace to the American world. He was a Puritan, and a fugitive from English persecution; but his wrongs had not clouded his accurate understanding; in the capacious recesses of his mind he had revolved the nature of intolerance, and he, and he alone, had arrived at the great principle which is its sole effectual remedy. He announced his discovery under the simple proposition of the sanctity of conscience. The civil magistrate should restrain crime, but never control opinion; should punish guilt, but never violate the freedom of the soul. The doctrine contained within itself an entire reformation of theological jurisprudence; it would blot from the statute-book the felony of non-conformity; would quench the fires that persecution had so long kept burning; would repeal every law compelling attendance on public worship; would abolish tithes and all forced contributions to the maintenance of religion; would give an equal protection to every form of religious faith; and never suffer the authority of the civil government to be enlisted against the mosque of the Mussulman or the altar of the fire-worshipper, against the Jewish synagogue or the Roman cathedral. It is wonderful with what distinctness Roger Williams deduced these inferences from his great principle; the consistency with which, like Pascal and Edwards,—those bold and profound reasoners on other subjects,—he accepted every fair inference from his doctrines; and the circumspection with which he repelled every unjust imputation. In the unwavering assertion of his views he never changed his position; the sanctity of conscience was the great tenet which, with all its consequences, he defended, as he first trod the shores of New England; and in his extreme old age it was the last pulsation of his heart. But it placed the young emigrant in direct opposition to the whole system on which Massachusetts was founded; and, gentle and forgiving as was his temper, prompt as he was to concede everything which honesty permitted, he always asserted his belief with temperate firmness and unbending benevolence.
DESTRUCTION OF THE TEA IN BOSTON HARBOR.
On the 28th day of November, 1773, the ship Dartmouth appeared in Boston Harbor, with one hundred and fourteen chests of tea. The ship was owned by Mr. Rotch, a Quaker merchant. In a few days after, two more tea-ships arrived. They were all put under strict guard by the citizens, acting under the lead of a committee of correspondence, of which Samuel Adams was the controlling spirit. The people of the neighboring towns were organized in a similar manner, and sustained the spirit of Boston. The purpose of the citizens was to have the tea sent back without being landed; but the collector and comptroller refused to give the ships a clearance unless the teas were landed, and Governor Hutchinson also refused his permit, without which they could not pass the “Castle,” as the fort at the entrance of Boston Harbor was called. The ships were also liable to seizure if the teas were not landed on the twentieth day after their arrival, and the 16th day of December was the eighteenth day after.
HE morning of Thursday, the 16th of December, 1773, dawned upon Boston,—a day by far the most momentous in its annals. Beware, little town; count the cost, and know well if you dare defy the wrath of Great Britain, and if you love exile, and poverty, and death, rather than submission. At ten o’clock, the people of Boston, with at least two thousand men from the country, assembled in the Old South. A report was made that Rotch had been refused a clearance from the collector. “Then,” said they to him, “protest immediately against the custom-house, and apply to the Governor for his pass, so that your vessel may this very day proceed on her voyage to London.”