had no authority from God to regulate or control the affairs of religion. He also insisted that the princes of Europe had no right whatever to dispose of the possessions of the American Indians.

4. The magistrates, apprehending from his peculiar talents and address, that his opinions would extend themselves, made several attempts to convince him of his supposed errors; but, being unsuccessful in these attempts, in October 1635, they passed upon him the sentence of excommunication and banishment. Permission, however, was given him to remain within the jurisdiction of the colony till Spring, on condition "that he would not go about to draw others to his opinions." But it being reported to the governor and assistants, that he held meetings in his house for the purpose of inculcating "such points as he had been censured for;" and that he had already drawn about twenty persons to these opinions, intending with them to establish a plantation about Narraganset Bay, "from which the new infection might easily spread into their churches, the people being much taken with the apprehension of his godliness," it was resolved that he should be sent back to England in a ship then ready to depart. They accordingly sent for him to come to Boston; but he made some excuse for not complying with their request, upon which they issued an order to apprehend and convey him on board the ship. Mr. Williams, however, aware of their designs, had been three days gone before the officer reached the house.

5. The next that was heard of him was on Sekonk plain, a few miles east of Providence. Here he obtained a grant of land from the chief sachem at Mount Hope, now in Bristol, R. I. but being informed by a letter and messenger from Plymouth, that this place was within their patent, it was resolved to cross the Pawtucket river and take up their abode more immediately with the savages. It is said, that when Mr. Williams and his friend Olney, and Thomas Angel, a hired servant, approached the opposite shore in their canoe, they were met by the savages and saluted by the Indian word, that signifies, what cheer? They then pursued their course till they came to a pleasant spring upon the side of a hill, which is the northerly part of what is now the large and

Who accompanied Roger Williams when he went to Providence, after being banished from Massachusetts ?

lourishing town of Providence. In this place they resolved settle, and from a sense of the goodness of God to them, give it the name by which it has ever since been called, The spring still remains, and is nearly opposite St. John's Church.

6. Here he found that favor among the savages which Christians had denied him. Many of his friends and adheents soon repaired to his new habitation. He had the hapiness to gain the friendship of two powerful Narraganset rinces, of whom he made a formal purchase of a territory sufficient for himself and his friends. He soon acquired a sufficient knowledge of the Indian language to transact the affairs of trade and other necessary negotiation, and perhaps no man ever had more influence over the savage tribes than Roger Williams. This influence enabled him to sooth the irritable Indian chiefs, and break up their confederacies against the English; and the first act of this kind was performed in favor of the colony from which he had been banished. It is not necessary in most cases for the historian to sit in judgment upon the conflicting claims to divine authority, between different religionists, for the support of their respective peculiarities, whether in faith or worship; but in the present case it is too obvious to escape observation, that in practice the religion of Mr. Williams was more conformable to the precepts of Jesus Christ than that of his perse

cutors.

7. But if, from a view of these unhappy divisions, it should be supposed Mr. Williams exercised more of the Christian temper than his enemies, it should always be remembered, that it is nearly a matter of course, such is the imperfection of human nature, for dissenters from any established religion, to fall into unnecessary peculiarities, and into a seeming disposition to irritate the feelings of the majority when no conscientious scruple requires it. It is possible that may have been the case with Mr. Williams, and the other dissenters from the religion that prevailed in New England at that time. As good a man as Mr. Williams is supposed to be by ligious liberty-and it cannot be pretended that they were less correct than the opinions of any other man living at that

By whom, and for what reason, did Providence receive its name

P

time his greatest admirers will acknowledge him no more than human. Nor is it necessary, as already intimated, suppose that all the censure is just which was cast upon the persons, who, in this country, at the time under considera tron, exercised a persecuting spirit; for, then, as has been observed, religious liberty was but imperfectly understood→→ and had they lived in this enlightened age of the world, no unlikely they would abhor such a spirit as much as ourselves

8. Shortly subsequent to the banishment of Roger Will iams, it was found that Massachusetts was much convulsed by religious discords, which caused a synod to be holden a Newton, now Cambridge, which adjudged sundry religious opinions to be heretical, and passed sentence of banishment upon such as held the most obnoxious of them. These dis turbances induced John Clark, an eminent physician, Will jam Coddington, and several others of their friends, in the year 1638, to resolve on a removal out of the jurisdiction of that state; and by the advice of Roger Williams they were induced to settle at Aquidneck, now called Rhode Island On the 7th of March, 1638, the men of this party, to the number of eighteen, united themselves into a body politic and chose William Coddington their judge or chief magis trate. At the commencement of this settlement on Rhode Island, Dr. Clark became the minister of a society of Bap tists then formed; and he continued to act in this character till his death, which happened in 1676, in the 66th year of his age. The particulars of his imprisonment at Boston, of his being sentenced to pay a fine of twenty pounds or be publicly whipped, for preaching at Lynn where he had occa sion to go on business, and of the important part which he took both at home and in England in the concerns of his infant colony, are minutely detailed in the biographical notices of his life.

9. The hardships and privations endured by the first settlers of the other New England colonies, have drawn forth the warmest sympathies of the Christian and philanthropist. When we see persons, solely for religious considerations, willing to forsake the scenes and companions of their youth, to cross the wide ocean amidst perils and sufferings, and then to settle for life in a region surrounded by savages and wild beasts of the most ferocious kind, in a region almost destitute of the elegancies and delights of civilized life, we cannot