THE

BAPTIST MAGAZINE.

JANUARY, 1849.

SCENES IN THE LIFE OF ROGER WILLIAMS,

FOUNDER OF THE COLONY OF RHODE ISLAND.

pated, for the important and peculiar work to which God had destined him. His early history is generally shrouded in darkness. The course of a diligent student is not usually fraught with events which attract the attention even of contemporaries. His own pen, however, recorded, late in life, one fact of great importance. "The truth is," he says, "from my childhood, now above threescore years, the Father of lights and mercies touched my soul with a love to himself, to his only begotten, the true Lord Jesus, and to his holy scriptures."

In the early part of the sixteenth, neither he nor his benefactor anticicentury, the celebrated Sir Edward Coke is said to have observed, in a place of public worship, an interesting looking boy taking notes of the sermon. His curiosity was excited; and he requested the youth to show him what he had written. The evidence of talent which the manuscript exhibited, impressed the learned attorney-general so favourably, that he requested the boy's parents, who were in humble circumstances, to entrust their son to his care. They did so; and Roger Williams was, in consequence, sent to the university of Oxford, where he attained considerable proficiency in logic and the classics. He afterwards commenced the study of the law under the guidance of his generous patron, who naturally desired to train his pupil to the profession which he himself adorned. Thus was he led to an acquaintance with the principles of law and government, and prepared by providential occurrences, the issue of which

VOL. XII.-FOURTH SERIES.

In February, 1631, two persons placed their feet, for the first time, on the American soil, at Nantasket, near Boston. One, whose countenance beamed with energy and candour, a man of thirty-two years of age, who having received in England what were called

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