We may here take notice of two charges against Mr. Williams, which, trivial as they are, have been often alleged to his disadvantage. It has been said, that he preached on the use of veils by females, and insisted that they should wear them in religious assemblies. We have no record of his real sentiments on this frivolous subject. Dr. Bentley asserts, that Mr. Endicott had introduced it before Mr. Williams arrived, and that the latter adopted the notion, rather to gratify Mr. Endicott and Mr. Skelton, than because he felt any interest in it himself.[70] And if it were true, that he was the author of the custom, and wasted his time in establishing it, we should regard it as a venial weakness, springing from a reverence for the Scriptures, and a desire for the decorum of public worship. Before we condemn him, we should call to mind, that other divines of great name in New-England, such as President Chauncy and John Elliot, preached vehemently against wigs, and that, in 1649, the magistrates signed a grave protest against the custom among men of wearing long hair, and requested the clergy to preach against it, “as a thing uncivil and unmanly, whereby men do deform themselves, and offend sober and modest men, and do corrupt good manners.”[71] The other charge is of more importance. It is said, that in consequence of Mr. Williams’ preaching, Mr. Endicott cut the cross out of the military colors, as a relic of antichristian superstition. This act was doubtless unjustifiable, because the colors were established by the authority of the King, and ought to have been viewed as a merely civil regulation. But there is no evidence that Mr. Williams advised the measure. It seems rather to have been a practical application, by Mr. Endicott, of the doctrine maintained by Mr. Williams on the unlawfulness of the ceremonies and symbols which had been used in the service of idolatry and of Popery. The great controversy between the Puritans and the Prelates in England mainly turned on the use of the surplice, and the sign of the cross, and other Popish ceremonies, which the English Church retained. The Puritans would not conform to the church, on account of these ceremonies, which they regarded as abominable relics of Popery. It was a principle among them, on which they acted, that “such rites and ceremonies as had been abused to idolatry, and manifestly tended to lead men back to Popery and superstition, were no longer indifferent, but to be rejected as unlawful.”[72]