Very few incidents in his life, are to be collected from the writings of Williams, and the prejudices of contemporary and even later historians who have mentioned him, render it difficult to form a true estimate of his character. Facts, which in the estimation of the writers of those days, would have raised a more orthodox man almost above the level of humanity, are slightly mentioned; and opinions which all protestant nations and even the descendants of his enemies have since fully adopted, in him were heretical and subversive, not only of church but of civil government. From these slight and prejudiced statements must the character of Williams be drawn. They prove him to have been a man of unblemished moral character and of ardent piety, unyielding in opinions which he conceived to be right, and not to be diverted from what he believed to be duty, either by threats or by flattery. One fact speaks volumes in favor of his Christian temper. After he was banished, he conceived himself to be an injured, persecuted man, but with all the opportunities which his intimacy with the neighboring Indians gave him, no purpose of revenge seems ever to have been harbored by him. Instead of that, the next year after his banishment, he gave to his very persecutors, information of the Indian plot, which would have destroyed their whole settlement. He concluded treaties for them, which ensured their peace and prosperity, “employing himself continually in acts of kindness to his persecutors, affording relief to the distressed, offering an asylum to the persecuted” He is accused, and not unjustly, of frequent changes in his religious sentiments. These changes must have been the effect of sincere conviction--they could not have arisen from a time-serving policy. For had he remained an Episcopalian, England and all her comforts, and undoubtedly as due to his Learning, some of the honors of the Church were before him; and had he continued a lukewarm non-conformist, Massachusetts and Plymouth, the society of his former friends and especially that of Hooker and Cotton, might have solaced him in his residence in this new country. But these were all resigned for what he conceived to be his duty to his God. He was however at all times and under all changes, the undaunted champion of Religious Freedom. It was openly professed by him, on his arrival among those who sought in America, a refuge from persecution and strange as it may seem, it was probably the first thing that excited the prejudices of the Massachusetts and Plymouth rulers against him. He was accused of carrying this favorite doctrine so far as to exempt from punishment any criminal who pleaded conscience. But let his own words exculpate him from this charge.