young emigrant in direct opposition to the whole system on which Massachusetts was founded; and forbearing and forgiving as was his temper, prompt as he was to concede every thing which honesty permitted, he always asserted his belief, however unpalatable it might be, with temperate firmness and an unbending benevolence.”[821] And just here, it is only fair to add, that his opponents, on their part, usually applied their principles without personal animosity. Between Williams and his great antagonist, Cotton, there was always, in their most heated moods, a substratum of cordial respect, while Winthrop, though consenting to the banishment of the pioneer American reformer, continued his fast friend through all.[822] This principle of toleration, together with several other obnoxious tenets, all of which Williams avowed with frank courage, soon brought him under the frown of the colonial authorities—a frown which deepened when he refused to unite with the church at Boston “because its members would not make public declaration of their repentance for having communion with the church of England before their emigration.”[823] This declaration—and the same thing may be said of several of his tenets—looks narrow and bigoted in our eyes; but Roger Williams had an undoubted right to cherish his own views under the very principles which he first of all men in America proclaimed, that “the public or the magistrate may decide what is due from man to man, but when they attempt to prescribe a man’s duties to God, they are out of place, and there can be no safety; for it is clear, that if the magistrate has the power, he may decree one set of opinions or beliefs to-day and another to-morrow; as has been done in England by different kings and queens, and by different popes and councils in the Roman church; so that belief would become a heap of confusion.”[824] Be this as it may, the Pilgrims came to regard Roger Williams as a dangerous heresiarch; as “unsettled in judgment;”[825] as carrying “a windmill in his head.”[826] Indeed, so strong was this feeling that many years afterwards Cotton Mather headed his account of Williams’ advent, in the “Magnalia,” with this Latin: “_Hic se aperit Diabolus_”—Here the devil shows himself.[827] Under these circumstances, we may easily imagine the consternation which reigned in Boston, when, in April, 1631, it was rumored that Roger Williams was about to be installed in the vacant place of Francis Higginson at Salem as assistant to Mr. Skelton.[828] The court was convened; and a letter was at once indited to John Endicott, “one of the chief promoters of the settlement,” in which, says Winthrop, the judges “marvelled that he should countenance such a choice without advising with the Council; and withal desiring him to use his influence that the Salem church should forbear till all could confer about it.”[829]