Thursday's Quotation

Roger Williams (1603-1683) got booted out of the Massachusetts colony for essentially suggesting the community's religious leaders (who were also the primary civil authorities) were not living up to the morals they professed to hold (in part because they didn't hesitate to steal land from the Indians). Williams moved further south and purchased some land from the natives there to found the Rhode Island colony. As an early American example of someone sticking to principle over political expediency, and for offering pointed dissent against the abuse of power, he should be remembered. This quote suggests something of his perspective in matters like those that led to his exile:

"No one tenet that either London, England, or the
world doth harbor is so heretical, blasphemous,
seditious, and dangerous to the corporal, to the
spiritual, to the present, to the eternal good of
all men, as the bloody tenet (however washed
or whited) I say, as is the bloody tenet of
persecution for the cause of conscience."