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was fundamentally inconsistent with his program. The Puri. tan was trying a lofty experiment, for which he sacrificed home and ease; but he could not try it at all without driving out from his "City of the Lord" those who differed with him (Source Book, No. 84). And so the Massachusetts government assumed power to regulate immigration.

In the first fall after Winthrop's arrival, two "gentlemen " from England came to Massachusetts by way of Plymouth. They were introduced by Miles Standish; "but," says Winthrop, "having no testimony, we would not receive them." 2 In the following March, the Assistants shipped back to England six men at one time, without trial, merely upon the ground that they were "unmeete to inhabit here"; while for years there were occasional entries in the records like the following: "Mr. Thomas Makepeace, because of his novile disposition, is informed that we are weary of him, unless he reform"; and "John Smith is ordered to remove himself from this jurisdic tion for divers dangerous opinions which he holdeth."

Such cases help us to understand the famous expulsions of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson.

115. Roger Williams was one of the most powerful and scholarly of the great Puritan clergy. He had rare sweetness of temper; but, along with it, a genius for getting into bitter controversy. He was broad-minded on great questions; but he could quarrel vehemently over fantastic quibbles. The kindly Bradford describes him as possessing "many precious parts, but very unsettled in judgment.”3

1 The Puritans used this word for "evidence" of religious character.

2 The government was especially cautious because these two were "gentlemen," and so sure to be influential, if taken into the colony. Probably they were thought to be Separatists.

3 Bradford didn't like Williams: "I desire the Lord to show him his errors and reduce him into the way of truth, and give him a settled judgment and constancy in the same; for I hope he belongs to the Lord." Eggleston hits off Williams' weakness well in saying that he lacked humor and sense of proportion, and "could put the questions of grace after meat and of religious freedom into the same category."

§ 116]

AND RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION

99

Driven from England by Laud, Williams came to Massachusetts in the supply ship in the winter of 1631 (§ 80). He was welcomed warmly by Winthrop as "a godly minister"; but it was soon plain that he had adopted the opinions of the Separatists. He scolded at all who would not utterly renounce fellowship with English churches, and he preached against any union of church and state, holding that the magistrate had no right to punish for Sabbath-breaking or for other offenses against "the first table" (the first four of the Commandments). Thus his welcome at Boston quickly wore thin. He went to Plymouth for a time, but soon returned to the larger colony as the pastor of Salem.1 Just at this time that town wanted more lands. The court of Assistants paid no public attention to the request, but let it be known privately that, if Salem expected the grant, it had

[graphic]

STATUE OF ROGER WILLIAMS, at Providence.

best dismiss Williams. On his part, Williams referred to the other churches of the colony as "ulcered and gangrened," and called the clergy "false hirelings."

116. An opportunity soon offered to get rid of him. All land in America, he urged, belonged to the Indians until bought from

1 In the hard winter of 1629 (§ 80), before Winthrop's arrival, the perishing Salem colony were fed, and their sick cared for, by a " relief expedition " from Plymouth. Salem seems at this time to have received an impulse toward Separatism (or Congregationalism) which it took the later towns of the Bay Colony many years to catch up with.

them. He denied the title of the colony, and said that the King had told "a solemn lie" in the charter in claiming right to give title. Such words, unrebuked, might embroil the little colony with the home government, with which it was already in trouble enough (§ 84). The magistrates seized the excuse, and ordered Williams back to England.

On account of the bitter winter season, the order was suspended until spring. The magistrates seem to have understood that Williams agreed meantime not to teach these troublesome doctrines. He continued to do so, however; and an officer was sent to place him on board ship. Forewarned secretly by Winthrop, he escaped to the forest, and found his way to the Narragansett Indians. The next spring a few adherents joined him: and the little band founded Providence, the beginning of the colony of Rhode Island (1636).

117. Anne Hutchinson is described by Winthrop (who hated her) as a woman of " ready wit and bold spirit." She was intellectual, eloquent, and enthusiastic. Her real offense seems to have been her keen contempt for many of the ministers and her disrespect toward the magistrates; but she held religious views somewhat different from the prevailing ones. She spoke much of an "inner light"; and this phrase was twisted into a claim that she enjoyed special revelations from the Holy Spirit. For a time Boston supported her with great unanimity, but a majority in all the other churches was rallied against her.

Among Mrs. Hutchinson's adherents were the minister Wheelwright, and young Harry Vane, governor at the time. In the winter of 1637, Wheelwright preached a sermon declaiming violently against the ministers of the opposing faction. For this the next General Court (in March) "questioned" him, and voted him "guilty of sedition," in spite of a lengthy petition from Boston for freedom of speech.

1 At one time Winthrop confessed, "Except men of good understanding, few could see where the differences were; and indeed they seemed so small as (if men's affections had not been formerly alienated. . .) they might easily have come to a reconciliation."

§ 118]

ANNE HUTCHINSON

101

The majority adopted also a shrewd maneuver. To lessen the influence of heretical Boston, they voted to hold the approaching "Court of Elections" not at that town as usual, but at Newtown (Cambridge). When that Court assembled, in May, "there was great danger of tumult." "Those of that side," says Winthrop, "grew into fierce speeches, and some laid hands on others; but seeing themselves too weak, they grew quiet." The orthodox faction finally elected Winthrop over Vane, and even dropped three magistrates of the other party off the Board of Assistants. To prevent the minority from receiving expected reinforcements from England, they then decreed that newcomers should not settle in the colony, nor even tarry there more than three weeks, without permission from the government. A few weeks later, a brother of Mrs. Hutchinson arrived, with many friends;

[graphic]

From a portrait

SIR HARRY VANE.
painted in England probably by Van
Dyck. Soon after the events told in this
paragraph, Vane went back to England,
and there took a leading part in the Long
Parliament, the overthrow of King
Charles, and the work of the Common-
wealth.

but Winthrop compelled them to pass on at once to the New Hampshire wilderness.

118. In the following summer a synod of clergy solemnly condemned the Hutchinson heresies; and at the General Court in November the majority, " finding that two so opposite parties could not contain in the same body without hazard of ruin to the whole," determined to crush their opponents. Mrs. Hutch

inson and Wheelwright were banished after a farcical trial; and "a fair opportunity" for destroying their party was discovered in the petition, nine months old, regarding Wheelwright. The three Boston deputies, because they had "agreed to the petition," were expelled from the Court and banished from the colony. Six other leading citizens were disfranchised. The remaining signers, seventy-six in number, were disarmed.

119. In all this persecution the Massachusetts Puritans were not behind their age: they merely were not in advance1 in this respect. In England the Puritan Long Parliament in 1541, demanding reform in the church, protested that it did not favor toleration: "We do declare it is far from our purpose to let loose the golden reins of discipline and government in the church, to leave private persons or particular congregations to take up what form of divine service they please. For we hold it requisite that there should be throughout the whole realm a conformity to that order which the laws enjoin.”

On the other hand, a few far-seeing men did reach to loftier vision. In that same year, Lord Brooke 2 wrote nobly in a treatise on religion: "The individual should have liberty. No power on earth should force his practice. One that doubts with reason and humility may not, for aught I see, be forced by violence. . . . Fire and water may be restrained; but light cannot. It will be at every cranny. Now to stint it is [tomorrow] to resist an enlightened and inflamed multitude. Can we not dissent in judgment, but we must also disagree in affection?" In America Roger Williams caught this truth clearly, and made it the foundation principle of Rhode Island.

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FOR FURTHER READING. — The best general account is in Channing, I, 356-380. Eggleston's Beginners of a Nation has excellent treatments of the Williams and Hutchinson episodes.

1 See Source Book, Nos. 84-86, on this whole matter.

2 Lord Brooke, with Lord Say, thought for a time of settling in Massachusetts. Their correspondence on the matter with Winthrop and Cotton is given in part in the Source Book. After giving up this plan, the same two Puritan nobles tried in partnership to establish a colony in the Connecticut valley, where Saybrooke was named for them.

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