Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/255

 SEPARATION OF CONGEEGATIONALrSTS. 201 house. Here the town built a new meeting-house in 1680, which continued for nearly a quarter of a century, the only place of worship. Pastor Myles died in February, 1683, universally beloved and lamented. Elder Samuel Luther was his successor, 1685. He caused changes in the Church Covenant, with reference to baptism and communion, which destroyed the basis of Christian fellowship between Anabaptists and Pedo- baptists enjoyed by Mr. Myles and his associates, and made the church distinctly Baptist. This change, so distasteful to the Congregationalists, opened a religious controversy which, twenty-five years later, split Swansea, on sectarian lines, into two townships. The first response to this change in the Covenant came from Boston Quarter Session, August 28th, 1693, requiring Swansea to choose a minister accord- ing to law. Swansea came (1692) under the new government of the united colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, and was no longer under liberal Plymouth. Led by their able Elder, Samuel Luther, Swansea people fought heroically for their rights of conscience. About the year 1700 the Baptist meeting-house was moved from Tyler's Point to North Swansea, to accommo- date the majority of the people. This left the southwest portion of the town, where the Congregational element was centered, without a place of worship. Here, soon after 17 10, a Congregational Church was formed, and a meeting-house was built a little north of the present residence of the late Mr. George Gladding. Very little is known of this early Church, all records having been lost. The name of only one Pastor, Rev. James Wilson, has come down to us. New life and vigor were shown in a petition to the General Court in Boston, made on the thirtieth day of May, i7ii,and signed by Samuet Low and twenty-eight others, asking for the "inhabitants on the westward end of Swansea," "a township according to the limits of Captain Samuel Low's military company, thereby enabling us to settle and main- tain a pious, learned and orthodox minister for the good of