members of the church should be permitted to vote at the colonial elections. The choice of governor, deputy-governor and assistant councilors was thus placed in the hands of a small minority. Nearly three-fourths of the people were excluded from exercising the rights of freemen. Taxes were levied for the support of the gospel; oaths of obedience to the magistrates were required; attendance on public worship was enforced by law; none but church-members were eligible to offices of trust. It is strange indeed that the very men who had so recently, through perils by sea and land, escaped with only their lives to find religious freedom in another continent, should have begun their career with intolerance and proscription. The only excuse that can be found for the gross inconsistency and injustice of such legislation is that bigotry was the vice of the age rather than of the Puritans.

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One manly voice was lifted up against this odious statute. It was the voice of young ROGER WILLIAMS, minister of Salem. To this man belongs the shining honor of being first in America or in Europe to proclaim the full gospel of religious toleration. He declared to his people that the conscience of man may in no wise be bound by the authority of the magistrate; that civil government has only to do with civil matters, such as the collection of taxes, the restraint and punishment of crime, and the protection of all men in the enjoyment of equal rights. For these noble utterances he was obliged to quit the ministry of the church at Salem and retire to Plymouth. Finally, in 1634, he wrote a paper which the declaration was made that grants of land, though given by the king of England, were invalid until the natives were justly recompensed. This was equivalent to saying that the colonial charter itself was void, and that the people were really living upon the lands of the Indians. Great excitement was occasioned by the publication, and Williams consented that for the sake of public peace the paper should be burned. But he continued to teach his doctrines, saying that compulsory attendance at religious worship, as well as taxation for the support of the ministry, was contrary to the teachings of the gospel. When arraigned for these bad doctrines, he crowned his offences by telling the court that a test of church-membership in a voter or a public officer was as ridiculous as the selection of a doctor of physic or the pilot of a ship on account of his skill in theology.

These assertions raised such a storm in court that Williams was condemned for heresy and banished from the colony. In the dead of winter he left home and became an exile in the desolate forest. For fourteen weeks he wandered on through the snow, sleeping at night on the ground or in a hollow tree, living on parched corn, acorns and roots. He

carried with him one precious treasure-a private letter from Governor Winthrop, giving him words of cheer and encouragement. Nor did the Indians fail to show their gratitude to the man who had so nobly defended their rights. In the country of the Wampanoags he was kindly entertained. Massasoit invited him to his cabin at Pokanoket, and

ROGER WILLIAMS' RECEPTION BY THE INDIANS.

Canonicus, king of the Narragansetts, received him as a friend and brother. On the left bank of Blackstone River, near the head of Narragansett Bay, a resting-place was at last found; the exile pitched his tent, and with the opening of spring planted a field and built the first house in the village of Seekonk. Soon the information came that he was still within the territory of Plymouth colony, and another removal became necessary. With five companions who had joined him in banishment, he embarked in a canoe, passed down the river and crossed to the west side of the bay. Here he was safe; his enemies could hunt him no farther. A tract of land was honorably purchased from Canonicus; and in June of 1636, the illustrious founder of Rhode Island laid out the city of PROVIDENCE.

Meanwhile, his teachings were bearing fruit in Massachusetts. In 1634 a representative form of government was established against the opposition of the clergy. On election-day the voters, now numbering between three and four hundred, were called together, and the learned

Cotton preached powerfully and long against the proposed change. The assembly listened attentively, and then went on with the election. To make the reform complete, a BALLOT-BOX was substituted for the old method of public voting. The restriction on the right of suffrage was the only remaining bar to a perfect system of self-government in New England.

During the next year three thousand new immigrants arrived. It was worth while—so thought the people of England—to come to a country where the principles of freedom were spreading with such rapidity. The new-comers were under the leadership of Hugh Peters and Sir Henry Vane; the former the Puritan pastor of some English exiles at Rotterdam, in Holland, and the latter a young nobleman who afterward played an important part in the history of England. Such was his popularity with the people of Massachusetts, and such his zeal and piety, that in less than a year after his arrival he was chosen governor of the colony.

By this time the settlements around Massachusetts Bay were thickly clustered. Until new homes should be found there was no room for the immigrants who were constantly coming. To enlarge the frontier, to plunge into the wilderness and find new places of abode, became a necessity. One little company of twelve families, led by Simon Willard and Peter Bulkeley, marched through the woods until they came to some open meadows sixteen miles from Boston, and there laid the foundations of Concord. A little later in the same year, another colony of sixty persons left the older settlements and pressed their way westward as far as the Connecticut River. The march itself was a grievous hardship, but greater toils and sufferings were in store for the adventurous company. A dreadful winter overtook them in their new homes but half provided. Some died; others, disheartened, waded back through the dreary untrodden snows and came half famished to Plymouth and Boston; but the rest, with true Puritan heroism, outbraved the winter and triumphed over the pangs of starvation. Spring brought a recompense for hardship: the heroic pioneers crept out of their miserable huts to become the founders of Windsor, HARTFORD and Wethersfield, the oldest towns in the Connecticut valley.

The banishment of Roger Williams, instead of bringing peace, brought strife and dissension to the people of Massachusetts. The ministers were stern and exacting. Every shade of popular belief was closely scrutinized; the slightest departure from orthodox doctrines was met with a charge of heresy, and to be a heretic was to become an outcast. Still, the advocates of free opinion multiplied. The clergy, notwithstanding their great influence among the people, felt insecure. Religious de

MAP OF EARLY SETTLEMENTS IN NEW ENGLAND.

bates became the order of the day. Every sermon had to pass the ordeal of review and criticism.

Most prominent among those who were said to be "as bad as Roger Williams, or worse," was Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, a woman of genius who had come over in the ship with Sir Henry Vane. She desired the privilege of speaking at the weekly debates, and was refused. Women had no business at these assemblies, said the elders. Indignant at this, she became the champion of her sex, and declared that the ministers who were defrauding women of the gospel were no better than Pharisees. She called meetings of her friends, spoke much in public, and pleaded with great fervor for the full freedom of conscience. The liberal doctrines of the exiled Williams were reaffirmed with more power and eloquence than ever. Many of the magistrates were converted to the new beliefs; the governor himself espoused the cause of Mrs. Hutchinson; and a majority of the people of Boston inclined to her opinions.

For a while there was a reign of discord; but as soon as Sir Henry's term of office expired a call was issued for a meeting of the synod of New England. The body convened in August of 1637; a

decree was proposed; Mrs. Hutchinson and her friends were declared unfit for the society of Christians, and banished from the territory of Massachusetts. With a large number of friends the exiles wended their way toward the home of Roger Williams. Miantonomoh, a Narragansett chieftain, made them a gift of the beautiful island of Rhode Island; there, in the month of March, 1641, a little republic was established, in whose constitution freedom of conscience was guaranteed and persecution for opinion's sake forbidden.

The year 1636 was an important epoch in the history of Massachusetts. The general court of the colony passed an act appropriating between one and two thousand dollars to found and endow a college. The measure met with popular favor; the Puritans were an educated people, and were quick to appreciate the advantages of learning. Newtown was selected as the site of the proposed school. Plymouth and Salem gave gifts to help the enterprise; and from villages in the Connecticut valley came contributions of corn and wampum. In 1638, John Harvard, a young minister of Charlestown, died, bequeathing his library and nearly five thousand dollars to the school. To perpetuate the memory of the noble benefactor the new institution was named HARVARD COLLEGE; and in honor of the place where the leading men of Massachusetts had been educated, the name of Newtown was changed to Cambridge. Thus early did the people of New England stamp their approval on the cause of education. In spite of sterile soil and desolate landscapesin spite of destroying climate and wasting diseases-in spite even of superstition and bigotry-the people who educate will ever be great and free.

The PRINTING-PRESS came also. In 1638, Stephen Daye, an English printer, arrived at Boston, bringing a font of types, and in the following year set up a press at Cambridge. The first American publication was an almanac calculated for New England, and bearing date of 1639. During the next year, Thomas Welde and John Eliot, two, ministers of Roxbury, and Richard Mather, of Dorchester, translated the Hebrew Psalms into English verse, and published their rude work in a volume of three hundred pages-the first book printed on this side of the Atlantic.

The rapid growth of Massachusetts now became a source of alarm to the English government. Those liberal principles of religion and politics which were openly avowed and gloried in by the citizens of the new commonwealth were hateful to Charles I. and his ministers. The archbishop of Canterbury was much offended. Something must be done to check the further growth of the Puritan colonies. The first