and take up his abode there, which would have, given her extreme satisfaction.  But she soon found that this hope could not be accomplished; for her enthusiastic husband had formed a design of founding a church of his own, and of being entirely independent of all government in spiritual matters.  In order to carry out this purpose, he daringly continued to hold the obnoxious assemblies in his own house, and to instill his opinions into the minds of the many young and zealous friends who gathered around him.  These meetings were even more numerously attended after his return from Boston than they were before he was summoned to the bar of the General Assembly; for persecution and injustice naturally recoil on the perpetrators of it, and the victim of such harsh measures is sure to gain friends and supporters among the warm-hearted and the generous.

A report of these proceedings was carried to Boston, and also a rumor of Williams’s supposed plan for founding an independent church and settlement in Narragansett Bay.  It was even declared that some of his friends had already gone off to the south, and were seeking, a fitting spot on which to commence building.

This information roused the fears, as well as the wrath, of the government.  The eloquence and abilities of Williams were well known to the rulers, and they dreaded the influence that he would inevitably exercise over the neighboring churches, if he established himself and his followers in a district so contiguous to their own.  They, therefore, resolved to employ still more harsh and stringent measures than had yet been attempted, in order to put a stop to his disorderly proceedings, and prevent the further dissemination of his opinions.  He was, accordingly, once more summoned to the chief town; and, had he obeyed the summons, he was to have been forcibly conveyed on board a vessel then in the harbor, and sent off to England as a rebel and schismatic, unworthy to dwell in the new settlement.

When the summons arrived at Salem, Roger was ill, having caught a fever from some members of his flock on whom he had been attending; and he therefore replied, with truth, that it would endanger his life to attempt the journey to Boston.  His serious indisposition had occasioned to Edith much anxiety and alarm; but now she was made to feel how often those events which we regard as misfortunes are really ’blessings in disguise’; and how frequently our merciful and all-seeing Father renders them the means of our preservation from far greater evils.  It would be well if the conviction of this blessed truth were constantly present to our minds.  How many anxious cares would it disperse or soothe, and how many thanksgivings would it call forth.