Victory is now near at hand. Mr. Byles is driven nearly frantic. His tormentors are thrown into prison for declining to give bonds or to pay fines for attempts to approach this gentleman and converse with him. In this serio-comic crisis, parties of Rogerenes enter the meeting-house on Sunday and sit where Mr. Byles cannot fail to observe their grave, earnest and otherwise expressive faces, telling volumes at a glance, of inexpressible sufferings and losses, endured through tedious months and wasting years, of children left fatherless and motherless at home or wandering the streets tearful and hungry, and of many a bitter thing well known to Mr. Byles. But, most eloquent of all to him and most impressive, is the fixed determination in their faces to continue in his sight at every opportunity. Even a cat may look at a king without fear of consequences, and so do the Rogerenes look at Mr. Byles. Here is something that has been left out of the law books. Ere long, the able-bodied men and women not in prison may attend to business and family duties, while a few old people, principally women, go on Sunday to sit in the meeting-house, or stand outside before and after meeting. Also on week days they sit or stand in the vicinity of Mr. Byle’s house, until he will not venture out, if but one such person is near. Nor will he go to the church on Sunday, even if there are but two or three Rogerene women outside, until some official drives them away and escorts him to the meeting-house. The bell is sometimes kept tolling a full hour, until it is time the long service should be well under way, before the minister makes his appearance; he has been waiting for some one to drive these women away. For the whole time—more than two months—that the men who have attempted to converse with Mr. Byles are kept in prison, these faithful women keep the watch on Mr. Byles. When the men are at length released, they renew their endeavors to talk with Mr. Byles. It is now not long before Mr. Byles has had more than enough opportunity to distinguish himself in an endeavor to extinguish the Rogerenes. He is determined not only to leave New London but to desert the Congregational ministry and denomination, and lays all the blame of his failure to conquer these people upon lack of execution of the ecclesiastical laws!!![168] His determination is sudden, so far as the knowledge of his parishioners is concerned, and his exit speedy in the extreme. (For particulars regarding his resignation, see extract from “Debate, etc.,” in _Appendix_.) Footnote 168: