My near alliance to John Rogers (then junior) who is my brother, viz., the son of my mother, proved an unhappy snare to me. He being, naturally, a man as manly, wise, facetious and generous perhaps as one among a thousand, I was exceedingly delighted in and with his conversation. He also endeared himself to me very much by his repeated expressions of complacency in me, by which I was induced to be frequently in his company and often at his house, where his father would be entertaining me with exhortations to a religious life, warning me of the danger of sin, and certainty of that wrath which shall come on all that know not God. I would sometimes, for curiosity, be inquiring into his principles, and othertimes, for diversion, be disputing a point with him; but I knew not that the dead were there, Prov. ix, 18. I was not religious enough to be much concerned about his principles, but pitiful enough to be extremely moved with the story of his sufferings. I had also a reserve in his favor, that it was possible he might be a good man (the strangeness of his doctrine notwithstanding), especially seeing all his sufferings were not able to shake his constancy, or oblige him to recede from the least part of his religion. And here a just tribute may be paid to John Rogers, 2d, from whom we have so largely quoted. The appreciative reader will agree with us in saying he was a son worthy of the father, in defence of whose honor he wrote. Clear in his statement of facts, conclusive in his reasoning, and abundantly supplied with authority in proof of his assertions, his words bear the sacred impress of truth. Malice has raised no aspersions against his character. “Notwithstanding,” says Miss Caulkins, “his long testimony and his many weary trials and imprisonments, he reared to maturity a family of eighteen children, most of them, like their parents, sturdy Rogerenes.” As soon as he was able to make choice for himself, about the age of sixteen, he left the home of his grandfather, Matthew Griswold of Lyme, the ancestor of many noted men, and chose to live with his father. His sister did the same thing at the age of fourteen, and was married at her father’s house. A purer, sweeter, and higher tribute could scarcely be paid to that heroic defender of religious liberty and great sufferer for conscience’ sake. John Rogers, 2d, was the author of several other books besides his “Reply to Peter Pratt,” each of them being of the same able character. CHAPTER V. “Nine and twenty knives.”—Ezra i, 9. It would take more than that number of knives to sever the many threads of falsehood and malice wound about the name of John Rogers, a name that may yet emerge as the royal butterfly from its chrysalis, to dwell in the light and atmosphere of heaven.