In 1674, her first husband departed from the established orthodoxy of the New England churches, by embracing the doctrines of the Seventh Day Baptists; and, having adopted later “certain peculiar notions of his own,” though still essentially orthodox as respects the fundamental faith of his time, became the founder of a new sect, named after him Rogerenes, Rogerene Quakers, or Rogerene Baptists. Maintaining “obedience to the civil government,” he denounced as unscriptural all interference of the civil power in the worship of God. It seemed proper to give these particulars with regard to Rogers, because they were made the ground[9] of a petition by his wife for divorce, in May, 1675, which was granted by the “General Court,” in October of the next year, and was followed in 1677 by another, also granted, for the custody of her children, her late husband being so “hettridox in his opinions and practice.” The whole reminds us of other instances, more conspicuous in history, of the narrowness manifested by fathers of New England towards any deviations from the established belief, and of their distrust of individual conscience as a sufficient rule of religious life, without the interference of civil authority. There is no reason to believe that the heterodoxy “in practice” referred to in the wife’s last petition to the Court, was anything else than a nonconformity akin to that for the sake of which the shores of their “dear old England” had been left behind forever by the very men who forgot to tolerate it themselves, in their new Western homes. Of course, like all persecuted, especially religious, parties, the Rogerenes courted, gloried in, and profited by, distresses. ----- Footnote 9: That this was the true ground, both on the part of the Griswolds and the General Court, is patent in the light of the many evidences, but this being untenable ground for a divorce, an ostensible cause was presented by the Griswolds, which, upon investigation by the grand jury, brought forth “we find not the bill.” The divorce was, therefore, granted upon no legal grounds and with no stated cause. For the authenticated facts, see Part II, Chapter XI. ----- In Trumbull’s History, we also find the scandalous statement, to which we have previously referred: “They would come on the Lord’s day into the most public assemblies nearly or quite naked.” Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no evidence on record, or tradition, concerning any such act. Among the hundreds of prosecutions against the Rogerenes, no such thing is alluded to on the records, etc. Miss Caulkins in her History makes no reference to this stigma. Yet Mr. McEwen, in his Half-Century Sermon, says: “Dr. Trumbull and perhaps some others give us some historical items of the Rogerenes.”