The chief grounds of offense in the sinful unorthodoxy of Roger Williams were that he asserted two things which have become axioms to-day, and two more which will be admitted by every thoughtful and honest person. The first two were that religion should not be professed by those who did not believe it in their hearts, and that the power of the magistrates extended only to the bodies and the property of the subjects and not to their religious convictions. The second two were that America belonged to the Indians and not to the king of England, and that the established church was necessarily corrupt. By this last he meant simply that any human organization that is given complete authority, and need not fear either competition or overthrow by public opinion, is certain to decay from within. It was the idea beneath Tennyson's lines The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Yet these opinions, preached and practiced by Williams, resulted in his being expelled from the community. The attempt was made to send him back to England, but he managed to get a permanent foothold in Rhode Island, where he opposed the still more liberal Quakers almost as violently as the churchmen of old and new England had opposed him. To his credit be it said, however, that he did not invoke the law against them. In action as well as in belief he marked the progress of liberal thought. BOOK LIST =_General References_= EGGLESTON, EDWARD. The Transit of Civilization. FISKE, JOHN. Beginnings of New England. Chaps. ii, iii. HART, A. B. American History told by Contemporaries. Vol. I, pp. 200-272, 313-393. RICHARDSON, C. F. American Literature. Chaps. i-iii. TYLER, M. C. History of American Literature. Colonial Period. Vol. I, chaps. i-ix. WENDELL, BARRETT. A Literary History of America. Bk. I, chaps. i-iv. =_Individual Authors_= CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. A True Relation (London, 1608); A Map of Virginia, with a Description of the Country (Oxford, 1612); A Description of New England (London, 1616). =Available Editions= FORCE. Historical Tracts, Vol. II, Nos. 1 and 2. 1883. _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Ser.3, Vol. VI_. =Collections= CAIRNS, W. B. Early American Writers, pp. 1-18. DUYCKINCK, E. A. and G. L. Cyclopedia of American Literature, Vol. I, pp. 1-8, 33-43. STEDMAN and HUTCHINSON. Library of American Literature, Vol. I, pp. 3-17. Narratives of Early Virginia. L. G. Tyler, editor. 1907. Sailors Narratives. G. P. Winship, editor. 1905. WILLIAM BRADFORD. History of Plimouth Plantation. First published in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Ser. 4, Vol. III_. =Available Editions= Charles Deane, editor. 1896. W. T. Davis, editor. 1912. =Collections=