There is another Bible precedent wholly at variance with the Congregational custom that this little church zealously advocates. The apostles and teachers in the early church exacted no payment for preaching the gospel, receiving—with the exception of the travelling ministry—only such assistance as might any needy brother or sister in the church. This practice was eminently suitable for the promulgation of a religion that was to be “without money and without price,” and well calculated to keep out false teachers actuated by mercenary motives. So great a religion having been instituted, among antagonistic peoples, by men who gave to that purpose only such time as they could snatch from constant struggles for a livelihood, and all its doctrines and code having been fully written out by these very men, could not the teachers and pastors of successive ages so, and with such dignity, maintain themselves and their families, giving undeniable proof that their calling was of God and not of mammon? We have seen the young man, John Rogers, preparing himself for such a life as this. He has laid aside the worldly dignity and ease that might be his as the son of a rich man, to work at the humble trade of shoemaking; that he may place himself fully with the common people and give of the earnings of his own hands to the poor, as did the brethren of old. The General Court has heretofore discovered no sufficient reason for granting the petition of Elizabeth Griswold for a divorce. It is probable that, up to this date, it has looked for some relenting on the part of the young nonconformist, rather than movements so distinctly straightforward in the line of dissent. But now that James Rogers and family have openly followed his lead to the extent of engaging in manual labor upon the first day of the week, and certain others on the Great Neck, who are members of the Congregational church, are regarding the movement with favor, the sympathy of this practically ecclesiastical body is fully enlisted for the Griswolds. This Court, which, for nearly a year beyond the time appointed for its decision, has hesitated to grant the divorce to Elizabeth, now, with no further ground than that first advanced, except this evidently fixed determination of John Rogers and his relatives to persist in their nonconformity, “doe find just cause to grant her desire and doe” (Oct. 12, 1676) “free her from her conjugal bond to John Rogers.”