Excerpt from Roger Williams, the Prophetic Legislator: A Paper Read Before the Rhode Island Historical Society, November 8, 1871

Ir will be my chief endeavor at this time to bring before you, not so much the story, as the character, the service, the idea, of Roger Williams. And in doing this, admitting such limitations as bound all human souls, and even acknowledging without re serve some things which seem errors, i shall try to show the relation of these also to his higher qualities, and to lead your minds especially to the unity which amidst all changes charac terizes his whole course. At the outset, however, it may not be improper to refer to the main facts - simply as facts - of his life. Here I have to repeat what history and' tradition report to us that he was born probably about the close of the sixteenth cen tury, in Wales, that he received an University training for the ministry of the Established Church, that after a short ministry within that church he was drawn into another connection that he followed the Puritan immigrants to Massachusetts Bay, join ing them in February, 1831 that in April of that year he became minister in Salem, that from Salem he removed to Plymouth the following August, remaining there about two years that in August, 1633, he returned to Salem, becoming on the death of Mr Skelton, in his successor in the ministry, and continu ing such until his removal by order of the General Court, in January, 1636.

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