NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

No. CXXVIII.

JULY, 1845.

ART. I.-The Library of American Biography; conducted by JARED SPARKS. Second Series. Vol. IV. Boston Charles C. Little & James Brown. 1845. 12mo. pp. 446.

THIS volume of Mr. Sparks's "Library of American Biography" contains memoirs of three persons who, though for very different reasons, deserve to be ever freshly remembered by the American people. They are Roger Williams, Timothy Dwight, and Count Pulaski. Especially are we pleased to see a new life of Roger Williams, ably and tastefully written by Professor Gammell, of Brown University. Before the appearance of this biography, the only memoir of Roger Williams of any value was that by the late Mr. Knowles. He was the first American writer to do justice to the great merits of the founder of the State of Rhode Island. His work, elaborately though not elegantly written, minute in its details, and learned in the knowledge both of its subject and of early New England history, left to the subsequent biographer but little chance of throwing additional light upon the life or character of Williams. Mr. Gammell, though he has consulted all the works of our Colonial history relating to his theme, has not found occasion, in any important points, to correct the statements made, or, in the main, to vary from the opinions expressed, by his predecessor. The memoir which he has prepared, as its position in a series of popular biographies required, is more brief, and more closely confined to the life of the individual. The writer has shown more skill in the selection and arVOL. LXI.No. 128.

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rangement of his materials, equal soundness of judgment in the views of individual character and of colonial policy, and very commendable impartiality in the narration of events the history of which has been too often distorted and colored by prejudice or malevolence. The style is remarkably well suited to a work of this kind. It is chaste, easy, and animated, showing the taste and skill of an accomplished and accurate scholar. The portrait of the character of Williams gives us a vivid and distinct conception of the man in the different stages of his eventful career, and in his various relations to the times in which he lived; and it deservesmuch more, we suspect, than the delineation of his features on the title-page of this volume to be hung up in no inferior place among the illustrious figures which compose the gallery of early American history.

According to traditions which seem to be entitled to credit, Roger Williams was born in Wales, in the year 1599, and of parents in the middle ranks of life. He early removed, however, into another part of England, bearing with him, no doubt, pleasant recollections of a boyhood spent among the mountains. The eager, inquisitive boy is Isaid to have attracted the favorable notice of Sir Edward Coke, and to have been educated by him at the University of Oxford. This connection, it is believed, continued for a long time, and Williams afterwards corresponded with a daughter of the great jurist; but his opening mind certainly could not have received the seeds of his subsequent opinions from intercourse with one who openly declared that "to advise toleration was little short of high-treason." Under the direction of this distinguished patron, Williams is reported to have turned his attention to the study of the law; but he afterwards relinquished it for the more congenial profession of divinity; and, before leaving England, was admitted to orders in the established church, if not appointed to the charge of a parish.

Williams did not come to this country until he had passed the thirty-first year of his age. His early life, accordingly, was spent amid the stirring scenes which were then fast preparing the way for the outbreak of the Revolution. He grew up as the friend of Cotton and Hooker, and the contemporary, if not the associate, of Vane and Cromwell, to the latter of whom he is reputed to have been distantly re

lated. The principles of religious freedom inculcated by Wickliffe, and the seeds of political liberty planted during the latter years of the reign of Elizabeth and the early part of the reign of James, were then rapidly springing up in the form of new opinions and new institutions. The English Anabaptists, inheriting the germs of their free opinions from the Lollards, had declared, in a confession of faith published as early as the year 1611, that "the magistrate is not to meddle with religion, or matters of conscience, nor to compel men to this or that form of religion; because Christ is the King or Lawgiver of the church and conscience." Many of the Puritans had already asserted, that "the ministers of the gospel ought to be maintained by the voluntary contributions of the people, and that the civil power had no right to make or impose ecclesiastical laws." From the moment that James crossed the Tweed, the Catholics, as well as the Puritans, ceased not to harass him with petitions for religious toleration. In Scotland, the clergy were discussing the authority of civil magistrates, inculcating principles of resistance to despotic sovereigns, and endeavouring to establish a republican form of church government. In the neighbouring kingdom of Holland, the Arminians were openly disputing the supremacy of the established faith of Calvin, and filling the public ear with new notions respecting grace and predestination, universal redemption and free will. And in the new world recently discovered across the ocean, there had just been established an asylum for the fugitives from religious and political persecution in Europe.

Growing up to manhood under influences like these, Williams was early prepared to maintain the peculiar principles which afterwards governed his life; and when the good ship Lion, with "Mr. Williams, a godly minister," board, anchored at Nantasket, on the 5th of February, 1631, he was ready to assert, to its fullest extent, the inalienable freedom of conscience in his new home.

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The settlements then forming the Colony of Massachusetts Bay had been made two or three years previously. The civil code established by the colonists was founded on the institutes of Moses; crime was punished according to the laws of Scripture, rather than the laws of England; and though a republic in form, the infant state was governed by the spirit of the Jewish theocracy. The state was second

ary to the church. Its principal use was considered to be that of securing the privilege of religious worship, and maintaining the purity of Christian faith. Every inhabitant was compelled to contribute, in proportion to his ability, to the support of religion; and very soon after the founding of the colony, it was "ordered and agreed, that, for time to come, no man should be admitted to the freedom of the body politic, but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same." Thus church and state were closely united.

Such were the fundamental principles of the community of which Williams became a member on landing upon these shores. His own opinions on the subject of civil and ecclesiastical government were, in many particulars, directly at variance with them. Nor was it long before his peculiar views were boldly set forth. A few weeks after his arrival, when he was invited to become an assistant to the pastor of the church at Salem, the Colonial authorities remonstrated against the appointment, on the ground, that "Mr. Williams had refused to join with the congregation at Boston, because they would not make a public declaration of their repentance for having communion with the churches of England, while they lived there; and besides, had declared his opinion that the magistrate might not punish a breach of the Sabbath, nor any other offence, as it was a breach of the first table.” What his views were on the first of these points is not exactly known. The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay had never formally renounced their connection with the church of England. Some of them, up to the period of their leaving that country, though opposed to the ritual, and grieved at the corruptions of the mother church, had not become open separatists; while others, even at the moment of their departure, had gratefully acknowledged themselves as her children. They had, in fact, all dissolved their connection with the church at home by coming to this country; but they had never publicly testified their repentance for the previous existence of such a connection. Nor does there appear any good reason why they should have done so. It seems to us, supposing the account we have of the matter to be correct, that Mr. Williams, being a new comer, may well be considered as having shown a disposition to meddle in matters without the limits of his responsibility,

when he insisted that this step should be taken by the Massachusetts churches. The second charge against him, of advocating the doctrine of the freedom of conscience, was certainly well founded; but it will not, at the present day, be imputed to him as a fault.

The remonstrance of the magistrates did not change the minds of the church at Salem; and Williams was settled as their minister on the 12th of April, 1631. In the month following, say both of his biographers, he took the usual oath of allegiance prescribed on the admission of freemen to the colony. But this statement, we think, must be a mistake. Williams regarded the taking of an oath as an act of worship, which a Christian might indeed perform of his own accord, but to which he could not be compelled by the civil magistrate; for, said he, "persons may as well be forced unto any part of the worship of God as unto this." Besides, it was at the meeting of the Court on the 19th of October, 1630, almost four months before his arrival in the country, that the name of Roger Williams appears on a list of one hundred and eight persons "desiring to be made freemen." Upon this list, all who were ministers had the title of "Mr." prefixed to their name, while that of Roger Williams was not so distinguished. We think there must have been another person of the same name, who came over in 1630, and was one of the fifteen persons, mentioned in the Colony Records, who composed the jury empanelled to inquire into the circumstances of the death of one Austin Brutcher.

Mr. Williams's stay in Salem was short. Though respected and beloved by his congregation, he was constantly harassed by the magistrates and elders of the Colony on account of his obnoxious sentiments; and therefore, at the expiration of a few months, with the hope of finding elsewhere a more agreeable field of labor, he removed to the neighbouring colony of Plymouth. This settlement was much more liberal in its policy than that of the Bay; the Pilgrims had purified themselves, after their connection with the English church, by a residence in Holland; and Williams was therefore well received by them. However, he soon found himself, by reason of his peculiar opinions, ill at ease as an assistant to the Plymouth pastor; and receiving, in 1633, an invitation to return to his former charge