The Rogerenes. John R. Bolles
to this church and congregation. I have no wish to give their history except so far as their fanaticism operated as a persecution of our predecessors in this place of worship.
On the side of the oppressor there was power, said Solomon. These people were powerless from the beginning, so far as the secular or ecclesiastical arm was concerned. The power lay in the church and state, and was freely exercised by both, in a cruel and most tyrannical manner, as undisputed history attests.
Mr. McEwen admits that the Rogerenes held the doctrine of non-resistance to violence from men. Referring to this sect in the time of Mr. Byles,[7] he says:—
“They were careful to make no resistance, showing their faith by their works,” and relates an anecdote which reflects no credit upon the officers of the law at that day. He says:—
One constable displayed his genius in putting the strength of this principle of non-resistance to a test. He took a bold assailant of public worship down to the harbor, placed him in a boat that was moored to a stake in deep water, perforated the bottom of the boat with an auger, gave the man a dish and left him to live by faith or die in the faith.
Quoting the words of Satan, Mr. McEwen adds, “Skin for skin, all that a man hath will he give for his life.” The faith of the man was strong, yet he was saved not by faith, but by bailing water.
Mr. McEwen is quick to condemn the infringement of the law when charged upon the Rogerenes, but makes no objections to the constable’s outrage upon law, and no reference to the hundred years of oppression, in fines, whippings, imprisonments, etc., which the Rogerenes had then endured; fines which, with, interest, would have amounted to millions of dollars at the time Mr. McEwen was speaking.
But, notwithstanding the principles of non-resistance so publicly professed by the Rogerenes, from whom the weakest had nothing to fear, Mr. McEwen dwells strongly upon the terrors which they inspired. He says:—
Mr. Saltonstall and Mr. Adams were brave men. Mr. Byles was a man of less nerve and he suffered not a little from their annoyances. He was actually afraid to go without an escort, lest he should suffer indignities from them.
We have shown (Chapter I) the transparent groundlessness of another statement made of their rudeness by Mr. McEwen, which we need not repeat; but the trials into which Mr. Byles was thrown and the escort deemed necessary present such a comical aspect that the following lines from Mother Goose seem appropriate to the case:—
Four and twenty tailors
Went to kill a snail,
The best man among them
Durst not touch its tail;
It stuck up its horns,
Like a little Kyloe cow;
Run! tailors, run! or it
Will kill you all just now.
Mr. Byles, who was ordained in 1757, seems to have been as much displeased with the church as with the Rogerenes themselves; for in 1768 he left New London, renounced the Congregational church and abandoned its ministry altogether. (See Part II, Chapter XII.)
Herod and Pilate were men of note in their day. What are they thought of now? The records of history show many examples of this sort. Quakers were once persecuted and slain. Men are now proud of such ancestry. Let the calumniated wait their hour. The progress of truth adown the ages is slow, but its chariot is golden and its coming sure.
CHAPTER III.
As round and round it takes its flight,
That lofty dweller of the skies,
And never on the earth doth light,
The fabled bird of Paradise;
So would we soar on pinions bright,
And ever keep the sun in sight,
That sun of truth, whose golden rays
Are as the “light of seven days.”
Falsehood is the bane of the world. It links men with him who was a liar from the beginning. We would bruise a lie as we would a serpent under our feet. Not so much to defend persons as to vindicate justice do we write.
It has been said that toleration is the only real test of civilization. But toleration is not the word; all men are entitled to equal religious freedom, and any infringement thereof is an infringement of a God-given right.
Who was the most calumniated person the world has ever seen—stigmatized as a blasphemer, as a gluttonous man, as beside himself, as one that hath a devil? From his mouth we hear the words: “Blessed are ye when men shall persecute and revile you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely.”
John Rogers and his disciples, who, in the face of so much obloquy, nurtured the tree of liberty with tears, with sacrifices and with blood, would seem to be entitled to this blessing.
Is it not strange, as we have before said, that Mr. McEwen should say, “To pay taxes of any kind grieved their souls”?
Ought a public teacher to state that which a little research on his part would have shown him to be false?
Miss Caulkins sets this matter in its true light, as already shown, and it will be further elucidated by the words of John Rogers, 2d, here given:—
Forasmuch as we acknowledge the worldly government to be set up of God, we have always paid all public demands for the upholding of the same, as Town Rates and County Rates and all other demands, excepting such as are for the upholding of hireling ministers and false teachers, which God called us to testify against.
Now when the worldly rulers take upon themselves to make laws relating to God’s worship, and thereby do force and command men’s consciences, and so turn their swords against God’s children, they then act beyond their commission and jurisdiction.
Thus it is by misrepresentations without number that the name and fame of these moral heroes have been tarnished.
We will again refer to the false statements in Dr. Trumbull’s History, nearly all of which aspersions are taken from that volume of falsehoods written by Peter Pratt after Roger’s death, from which we shall presently make quotations that, we doubt not, will convince the intelligent reader that this author was unscrupulous to a degree utterly incomprehensible, unless by supposition of a natural tendency to falsehood.
Yet it is from this book of Pratt’s that historians have drawn nearly all their statements regarding the Rogerenes.
Trumbull (quoting from Pratt) says: “John Rogers was divorced from his wife for certain immoralities.”
The General Court divorced him from his wife without assigning any cause whatever, of which act Rogers always greatly complained. It was left for his enemies to circulate the above scandal, with the intent to blacken his character and thus weaken Rogerene influence. John Rogers, 2d, testifies that his mother left her husband solely on account of his religion. He says (“Ans. to Peter Pratt”):—
I shall give the reader a true account concerning the matter of the first difference between John Rogers and his wife, as I received it from their own mouths, they never differing in any material point as to the account they gave about it.
Although I did faithfully, and in the fear of God, labor with her in her lifetime, by persuading her to forsake her adulterous life and unlawful companions; yet, since her death, should have been glad to have heard no more about it, had not Peter Pratt, like a bad bird, befouled his own nest by raking in the graves of the dead and by publishing such notorious lies against them “whom the clods of the valley forbid to answer for themselves;”[8] for which cause I am compelled to give a true account concerning those things, which is as follows:—
John