It should be remembered that years had elapsed after the fines, imprisonments, etc., of Rogers had commenced—for non-attendance at the meetings of the standing order, for baptizing, breach of the Sabbath, etc.—before he was charged with entering the meeting-house in time of public worship and remonstrating there with the people. It was not in self-defence alone, it was in defence of justice that he spoke. Who were the first aggressors? Who disturbed him in the performance of the baptismal rites? Who interfered with his meetings? Who entered them as spies, to lay the foundation for suits against him? These things have not been referred to; they have not been confessed; they have not been apologized for, on the part of the standing order. If John Rogers was such a terrible sinner for what he did to them, how much greater accountability will they have to meet who, without any just cause, made their attack upon him! There are fires burning in the heart of every good man that cannot be quenched. As well undertake to smother the rays of the sun or to confine ignited dynamite. We would not justify breach of courtesy, or any other law not contrary to the law of God; but there are times when to be silent would be treason to truth. John Roger’s father was the largest taxpayer in the colony, and had himself alone been subjected to the payment of one-tenth part of the cost of building the meeting-house, while John Rogers and his adherents, who were industrious, frugal, and thrifty people—or they never could have sustained the immense fines imposed upon them without being brought to abject poverty—had probably paid as much more; so we may suppose that at least one-fifth of the meeting-house, strictly speaking, belonged to them, while they were constantly being taxed for the support of this church of their persecutors. The meeting-house was, in those times, quite often used for public purposes; in fact, the courts were frequently held there. How, upon a week day, could he have found an audience of his persecutors, or permission to address them? If he had published a circular it would have been deemed a scandalous paper, for which he might have been fined and imprisoned. He could scarcely get at the ear of the people in any other way than by the course he took, and he could in no other way put as forcible a check upon the church party persecutions of his own sect.