If I were asked to select from all the great men who have left their impress upon this continent from the days that the Puritan Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock, until the time when only a few days ago we laid to rest the greatest American in our generation--Theodore Roosevelt; if I were asked whom to hold before the American people and the world to typify the American spirit of fairness, of freedom, of liberty in Church and State, I would without any hesitation select that great prophet who established the first political community on the basis of a free Church in a free State, the great and immortal Roger Williams.... He became a Baptist, or as they were then called, Anabaptist, because to his spirit and ideals the Baptist faith approached nearer than any other--a community and a church which is famous for never having stained its hands with the blood of persecutors. CONTENTS PAGE I. THE APOSTLE OF SOUL-LIBERTY 1 II. THE FOUNDING OF PROVIDENCE 27 III. THE HISTORIC CUSTODIANS OF SOUL-LIBERTY 57 IV. SOUL-LIBERTY AT HOME IN A COMMONWEALTH 79 V. FROM SOUL-LIBERTY TO ABSOLUTE CIVIL LIBERTY 103 VI. THE TORCH-BEARERS OF THE IDEAL OF ROGER WILLIAMS UNTIL LIBERTY ENLIGHTENED THE WORLD 119 VII. THE WORLD-WIDE INFLUENCE OF ROGER WILLIAMS’ IDEAL 137 STUDY OUTLINE OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ROGER WILLIAMS 145 A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 149 AN ITINERARY FOR A HISTORIC PILGRIMAGE 151 ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author desires to express his indebtedness to the John Carter Brown Library, Providence, R. I., to the “Providence Magazine,” to the Rhode Island Historical Society, to the Roger Williams Park Museum, and to the New York City Public Library, for valuable assistance rendered in securing illustrations for this book. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE _Statue of Roger Williams_ _Frontispiece_ _Copy of Shorthand Found in Indian Bible_ 4 _Sir Edward Coke_ 5 _Charterhouse School_ 9 “_A Key into the Language of America_” 12 _Boston, 1632_ 13 _The Fort and Chapel on the Hill Where Roger Williams Preached_ 13 _Pembroke College_ 17 _Fac-simile from Original Records of the Order for the Banishment of Roger Williams_ 20