Page:What cheer, or, Roger Williams in banishment (1896).pdf/221

 STANZA XIX.

''And there this eve some reasoning, I opine, (For all may err) a weighty theme upon, May not be deemed amiss.''

It was the first intention of the author to have drawn the materials of the conversation in the text from the controversy between Williams and Cotton; but, on examination, he was satisfied that it was not suited to a performance of this kind. This controversy originated as follows: A prisoner (one who was doubtless suffering for heretical opinions) addressed a letter to a Mr. Hall, in which he discussed and argued against the right of government to persecute for matters of conscience. Hall sent this letter to Mr. Cotton, who answered it. Hall, dissatisfied with the answer, transmitted it to Williams. In the hands of Williams it remained some time; for he was struggling with all the difficulties incident to his situation at Providence. He however composed a reply to Cotton's answer, which he entitled the Bloody Tenent. He says it was written whilst engaged at the hoe and oar, toiling for bread—whilst attending on Parliament—in a change of rooms and places; in a variety of strange houses; sometimes in the field, in the midst of travel; where he had been forced to gather and scatter his loose thoughts and papers. And, certainly, considering the circumstances in which it was composed, it is a work calculated to increase our admiration of the man. The Bloody Tenent, together with Mr. Cotton's answer to the prisoner's letter, was published in London, at a time when his Puritan brethren in England were addressing him and others in Massachusetts, with most earnest remonstrances against their cruel persecutions of other denominations.

He, in his replies, had been endeavoring to extenuate and excuse the conduct of the civil government, and had taken particular care to exculpate himself. It is easy, therefore, to conceive what a shock this reverend dignitary must have suffered, when his answer to the prisoner's letter, which went in principle the full length of the most unsparing persecution, together with Williams' reply, was published and circulated among the brethren there. He instantly raised a cry, that Williams was persecuting him, by publishing his answer to the prisoner's let