Since travel was so difficult, there was very little communication between distant villages unless they happened to touch upon the sea. But frequently this was not the case, for many of the settlements, following the courses of rivers, extended inland rather than along the coast.
When a stranger did appear, however, he was always welcome, for he was sure to bring some bit of news from the world outside. Perhaps, if he had travelled through the woods, he might tell of some dangerous adventure with wild beasts or Indians. If in midwinter he dared to make the journey, he might tell how he spent a cold night in some deserted wigwam, into which he had been driven by howling wolves. Such thrilling chapters from the book of every-day life were of special interest to people whose experience was very narrow and monotonous. For in those days there were no newspapers and few books.
We should make a great mistake, however, were we to imagine that the Puritans did not value books and reading. They appreciated reading and education so much that every town was required to have a school. As a consequence of this excellent system, there were very few people who could not read and write.
Roger Williams's Meeting-House.
The study of the Bible was an important feature in all this school training, and absorbed much of the thought of the Puritan mind, especially on the Sabbath. The Puritan Sabbath, which began at sunset on Saturday and ended at sunset on Sunday, was largely given up to church worship. All work and travel, not absolutely necessary, were suspended, and no playing on a musical instrument was allowed. Two instances will illustrate the severity of the Puritan ideas of Sabbath observation. The first is that of two lovers, who were brought to trial because they were seen sitting together on the Lord's Day under an apple-tree. The second tells us of a Boston sea-captain who was put into the public stocks for two hours because he kissed his wife on the Sabbath Day upon the doorsteps of his house. He had just returned after a two years' absence on a sea-voyage.
In all this strictness about Sabbath observance, the Puritans were wholly sincere. To them purity of religion was the supreme interest of life. They had left their old homes in England that they might worship according to their own belief in a community under the control of Puritan ideas.
But it was no easy matter for them to arrange the affairs of Church and State just as they wished, even in this new Puritan commonwealth. For they found some of the settlers unwilling to believe and act in accordance with Puritan ideas of right and wrong.
One of these troublesome persons was a young man who came with his bride to Salem in 1631. This young man was Roger Williams. He was born in England in 1599. An Englishman of influence secured for the clever lad a scholarship in the Charter-House school, from which young Roger later went to Cambridge University. Having become a Puritan, Roger Williams, like so many others of his faith, found it wise to leave England. He came to America in order that he might escape religious persecution and enjoy religious freedom.
