ROGER WILLIAMS IN SALEM. 



A PAPEK RKAD, OCTOBER 9, 1894, BEFORE THE LOCAL 

 HISTORY CLASS OF THE ESSEX INSTITUTE. 



BY MRS. HENRY M. BROOKS. 



From my earliest childhood, the name of Roger 

 Williams was synonymous with Baptist. I thought he 

 was banished from Salem by Salem people because he was 

 ajjBaptist and the rigid Puritans would have no person in 

 their dominions who differed from them in any religious 

 doctrine. I was not alone, for I find that was a common 

 belief among those who had never looked into the matter 

 historically. In reading the various accounts and lives 

 of Roger Williams written in his own and down to the 

 present time, I do not find any authority to prove that he 

 ever, while in Salem or Boston, did or said anything 

 which would show that he even knew of the existence of 

 such a sect. He was sometimes called an Anabaptist 

 which was used as a term of reproach and was applied in- 

 discriminately to all who differed in any essential points 

 from the rigid Puritanism of the day. He did probably 

 object to infant baptism, not tinding any scriptural author- 

 ity for it ; but so did many others, including President 

 Dunster, President Chauncey and other noted men. In 

 1638, after his banishment and when he was in Provi- 

 dence, which place he made a refuge for dissatistied, free- 



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