Not all the people who had come to Massachusetts were willing to endure the hardships of the new life. About a hundred went back to England, but Governor Winthrop, with the more unselfish and zealous Puritans, remained.

Governor Winthrop endeavored to set the people an example of a sober and upright life. He became convinced that the drinking of healths at meals according to the English custom led to intemperance. He restrained it at his own table and thus became the leader of temperance reform in the New World.

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One winter day he was informed that a poor man who lived near him was taking fuel from his woodpile. Go call that man to me," he said, "I'll warrant I'll cure him of stealing." When the man came he said, "Friend, it is a severe winter and I doubt you are but meanly provided with wood; wherefore I would have you supply yourself at my woodpile till this cold season be over." He then asked his friends whether he had not cured this man of stealing his wood.

Winthrop's charity, however, did not extend to matters of religion. He wished to have those of unlike religious views "well whipt." The Puritans had come to America to establish a colony which should be ruled according to their own views and faith. They did not tolerate in it men who differed from them in belief. "Let such go elsewhere," they thought; "there is room enough,"

The Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Company encouraged colonists of their own faith to emigrate. By 1634 four thousand had come and about twenty villages had been founded on or near the bay. Houses, churches, and shops were built; farms were tilled; fur, lumber, and salt fish were sent to England and manufactured goods were brought back.

The laws of the Massachusetts colony were very strict. People were taxed to support the church, and only men who were church members were allowed to vote or to hold office as magistrates. Everyone was required to attend church services. If any one was absent without good reason the "tithing man" was sent after him. In church men sat on one side and women on the other; there was a man to keep order and he had a long stick with which to tap people who slept or children who fidgeted during the service which lasted two, or three, or even four hours. Children were whipped and grown people were fined if they talked in church.

A young clergyman of Salem, Roger Williams, of whom you will hear more later, thought that these laws were too strict. He thought people ought to enjoy civil and religious liberty, but Governor Winthrop advised him to leave the colony as no one with such views was wanted there.

Governor Winthrop spent much of his fortune in helping the colony he had founded and had the joy of

seeing it grow and prosper. He died March 26, 1649. In 1692 the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies were united under the name of Massachusetts, and thus was founded the colony which in time became the state of Massachusetts.

Roger Williams

An Advocate of Religious Liberty

You have learned that the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonists came to America to found colonies governed according to their own views. This was because they were convinced these views were right, not because they believed that every man should be free to worship as he pleased. Liberty of faith and worship, they thought, would destroy all law and order.

Roger Williams, however, believed in civil freedom and religious liberty. He was a clever young Welshman who had been educated as a clergyman and had adopted Baptist views. He and his wife came from England to America in 1631. For awhile he was pastor of a church in Boston, but his views were so different from those of his congregation that he did not stay there long. He went to Salem, then to Plymouth, and then back to Salem. He had much influence and won many people to his views. The Massachusetts Bay Puritans began to dislike him and to fear his in

fluence; there were long debates and discussions as to what should be done about him. They objected to both his political and his religious beliefs.

Roger Williams thought that the laws of a country should prevent and punish crime and should not direct religious matters; these, he urged, should be left to men's own consciences. He said that every man should be free to believe what he chose, and that it was wrong to tax people to support a certain church or to compel them to attend it. He said that every man ought to be allowed to vote, and that for magistrates sensible, upright men ought to be chosen without regard to their church membership. These things were contrary to the belief of the Massachusetts Bay colony and to its practices.

Williams said, moreover, that the king of England had no right to grant lands in America to any one; these belonged to the Indians and should be secured from them. This assertion was regarded as a defiance of the king's authority. Finally it was resolved to send Williams away from the colony, and in January, 1636, the General Court ordered him to come to Boston to get on a ship that was about to sail to England. Williams knew well that return to England meant imprisonment or punishment for his views. Instead of going to Boston, he left his home in Salem one bleak, snowy day and took refuge in the forest. From his first coming to the colony he had made friends with the Indians.

Now he made his way to the wigwam of Massasoit, where he spent the winter, trying to teach the savages the truths of the Christian religion. For weeks he was "sorely tost in a bitter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean."

He then settled on Seekonk River and planted corn, thinking that he was beyond the bounds of the Plymouth colony. But he was still within its limits; in the spring Governor Winthrop informed him that he would be let alone if he would "steer his course" to Narragansett Bay.

With a few companions who had adopted his views, Williams crossed the bay in an Indian canoe, made a covenant of peace with the natives, and established a settlement which he called Providence. This colony became a place of refuge for people oppressed on account of their religious views. "I desired it might be a shelter for persons distressed for conscience," said Williams. It was to be free to "Baptists, Protestants, Jews, or Turks," he said, "to all men of all nations and countries."

Among the people who took refuge there was Mrs. Anne Hutchinson. She was a woman preacher, claiming to have the spirit of prophecy, who had been driven out from the Massachusetts colony. After some peaceful years in Rhode Island, she moved westward to a settlement of her own. Here she, her children, and servants were murdered by Indians.