Page:What cheer, or, Roger Williams in banishment (1896).pdf/192



CANTO FIRST.

STANZA I.

I of trials, toils and sufferings great,
 * Which in his exile bore,

That he the conscience-bound might liberate,
 * And to the soul her sacred rights restore.

" was born of reputable parents in Wales, A. D. 1598. He was educated at the University of Oxford; was regularly admitted to Orders in the Church of England, and preached for some time as a minister of that Church; but on embracing the doctrines of the Puritans, he rendered himself obnoxious to the laws against the non-conformists, and embarked for America, where he arrived with his wife, whose name was Mary, on the 5th of February, A. D. 1631." He had scarcely landed ere he began to assert the principle of religious freedom, and insist on a rigid separation from the Church of England. A declaration that the magistrate ought not to interfere in matters of conscience could not fail to excite the jealousy of a government constituted as that of Massachusetts then was; and this jealousy was roused into active hostility when, in the April following his arrival, he was called by the Church of Salem as teaching Elder under their then Pastor, Mr. Skelton.

"Of this appointment," says Winthrop, "the Governor of Massachusetts was informed, who immediately convened a Court in Boston to take the subject into consideration." Their deliberations resulted in a letter addressed to Mr. Endicot, of Salem, to this effect:—"That whereas Mr. Williams had re-*]