1. Roger Williams (1606—1683).
"An able, earnest, and successful pioneer in that great movement toward religious freedom which has characterized the history of the United States....No American ever wrote more boldly or truthfully. — Richardson.
Life (by J. O. Knowles; by Romeo Elton; by Z. A. Mudge; by R. A. Gould). Although the Puritans had dreamed of America as a land where they might worship without opposition, they never fully realized this fond ideal. Opponents sprang up all around them. The Quakers and the BaptistsThe Bloody Tenet yet more Bloody,
and numerous other pamphlets gave them no end of trouble. In 1630 Roger Williams, a minister of the Church of England, just turned non-conformist, settled among them and began a bitter war of argument. He was finally driven from the Colony. Thereupon with a few followers he established a settlement near what is now the city of Providence, Rhode Island.
The whole life of Roger Williams was spent in a warfare of theological debate. He defended the Baptists and the Quakers, exposed without mercy the weak points of Puritanism, and stood always on the side of truth and progress. He defended his every position with showers of pamphlets.
2. John Eliot (1604-1690).
"The Apostle to the Indians."
Although producing little that can be accounted as literature, John Eliot deserves prominent mention in
