He carried his admirable temper into public life. He had always an open hand of charity. When Roger Williams was banished, he wrote him privately to sustain and encourage him, and even suggested Narragansett Bay as a safe asylum.[1036] He was always inclined to lenient ways; and when in his later days he was asked to sign an order for the banishment of an offending minister, he declined, remarking: “No, I have done too much of that already.”[1037] With this natural bent towards liberality, it was only with extreme reluctance that he yielded to the imperious spirit of intolerance which then reigned. As governor, he was prudent, patient, courageous, and energetic—traits which made him the successful pilot of the ship of state in the unchartered waters on which he floated. Winthrop never disdained to share equally with his brother Pilgrims. It is related of him that once, in a famine, he divided his last peck of meal with a hungry man, and was only not gnawed by hunger himself, because a ship entered Salem harbor ere night with a well-stocked larder, and changed the fast which had been appointed for the next day into a thanksgiving.[1038] He knew how to conquer hearts by kindness. One hard winter, complaint was made to him that a man stole regularly to his woodpile and abstracted fuel. “Does he?” asked Winthrop; “send him to me; I’ll cure him.” The quaking wretch was brought in and expected to hear a rigorous sentence. “Friend,” said he, “it is a cold winter, and I fear you are but poorly provided with wood to meet it. You are welcome to supply yourself at my pile till winter is over.”[1039] Winthrop’s “religion shone out through all his life, and gave a higher lustre to his character. He was zealous for truth and righteousness. Often he bore witness to the minister in the midst of the congregation; and frequently he visited the neighboring towns to prophesy, as it was called, or as we say, exhort. He had admirers not only in America, but in England and at court. ‘’Tis a pity,’ remarked Charles I., ‘that such a worthy gentleman should have banished himself to the hardships of a wilderness life.’”[1040] In Massachusetts the colonists believed in rotation in office; consequently, Winthrop was often displaced from the gubernatorial chair, and then replaced again. He always filled the post with dignity and with untarnished honor; so that on his death at sixty, worn out by toil and care, he might have torn his books of account, as Scipio Africanus did, and said: “A flourishing colony has been led out and settled under my direction. I have spent my fortune and myself in its service. Waste no more time in harangues, but give thanks to God.”[1041]