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N the present era of general freedom in matters of religious faith, and of the popular notion that this freedom was the corner stone of civilization in New England, it is not easy to realize that at the outset the phrase "religious freedom" had but a limited meaning; that it meant only freedom for the majority, coupled with no little harshness and oppression toward the minority. For long after New England was quite well settled, and her institutions fully established, "Congregationalism" was the dominant religious creed, controlling civil as well as purely churchly and religious matters. Men of other faiths were looked upon with suspicion, and were ostracized in civil and religious society. Roger Williams, the Baptist, is perhaps the most frequently quoted as an early victim of this ostracism in in Massachusetts, although some writers have found cause to attribute a portion of his troubles to his own aggressive and intractable character.

But no charge of this nature rests upon the memory of the Reverend John Myles, the first Baptist minister of Massachusetts, to whose whose memory a monument was dedicated, June 17th, at Barrington, R. I., on ground which in his day was a part of the Bay State. Not only was he the founder of the first church of his denomination in the state, but he was one of the founders of the towns of Swansea and Barrington, and his service to his people and the general public as minister and teacher were fitly recognized in the erection of the

Its erection was due to the efforts of the Barrington Historic-Antiquarian Association and the Bristol County Historical Association, of both of which the Hon. Thomas W. Bicknell of Providence is president.

For generations the labors of the Rev. John Myles have remained unhonored, and in time even his grave had been forgotten. But a few years ago the singular sweetness and consistency of character in this pioneer Baptist was impressed on Mr. Bicknell, and ever since he has been seeking recognition for the significant part Myles had in founding the great Baptist denomination.

The church which John Myles founded is now the Baptist church in North Swansea, Mass., of which the Rev. G. E. Morse is pastor. The founder was a native of Wales, born in 1621, and the name Swansea for the Massachusetts town was a memory of the place of his nativity. As a young man he was in London, where he embraced the Baptist faith; he acquired a liberal education and entered the ministry in Wales. some time between 1640 and 1650,

and for thirteen years he was pastor of the church in his native town, adding two hundred and sixty-three persons to its membership.

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Under the reign of Charles II the "Act of Uniformity" was passed, in 1662, and Myles was one of the two thousand Christian ministers who were driven from England and Wales under its enforcement. He came with some of his people to Massachusetts, and in 1663 he organized a church in the house of John Butterworth in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, a locality which is now East Providence, Rhode Island. Its first members were the minister, Nicholas Tanner, James Brown, Joseph Carpenter, John Butterworth, Eldad Kingsley, and Benjamin Alby. All these were soon fined £5 each by Plymouth Colony, for holding Baptist services, and were warned to refrain from further assembling. They therefore moved within the territory of the present town of Barrington, Rhode Island, where they erected a house of worship. In 1667, Mr. Myles and his church united with Captain Thomas Willett, John Brown, and others of Wannamoisett and Sowams in the formation of a town called Swansea in Plymouth Colony. Mr. Myles built a house at Barneysville, which was used as a garrison house during Philip's War. After the war the scattered church returned to Swansea, and the town. and church built a new meeting house-"40 feet long, 22 feet wide, with 16 feet posts, on the site of the old graveyard at Tyler's Point" (Tustin), and by the side of their meeting house they built a dwelling house which was given Mr. Myles for money advanced by him to the town to pay the expenses of Philip's War. Here the monument to his

memory is placed. During King Philip's War, Mr. Myles came to Boston and for over a year acted as pastor of a church. He was desired as permanent pastor but preferred to return to his own people when they gathered again at the end of the

war.

At the dedicatory exercises the Hon. Thomas W. Bicknell presided, and in a brief address he spoke of the pioneer Baptist as "the founder of towns and the prophet of a liberal faith and of a larger civil and religious liberty," and as "the ideal pastor, teacher, citizen, and founder of a new church in a new and progressive civilization."

The formal historical address was by the Rev. Dr. Henry M. King of Providence. He traced the early career of Myles as an adherent and trusted agent of Oliver Cromwell, and briefly sketched the conditions which, on the reëstablishment of the crown compelled the emigration of those who differed from the established faith. The Presbyterians sought to have Charles II recognize themselves as the established church, but the Baptists sent ten representatives to him asking freedom for men of all creeds, in the fol-. lowing petition:

"For as much as it cannot be denied but that our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, by His death and resurrection, has purchased the liberties of His own people, and is thereby become their sole Lord and King, to whom, and to whom only, they owe obedience in things spiritual; we do therefore humbly beseech your majesty, that you would engage your royal word never to erect, or suffer to be erected, any such tyrannical, popish and antiChristian hierarchy (Episcopal, Presbyterian, or by what name soever it may be called), as shall assume power or impose a yoke upon the consciences of others; but that every one of your majesty's subjects may hereafter be left at liberty to worship God in such a way, form, and manner, as

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shall appear to them to be agreeable to the mind and will of Christ, revealed in His word, according to that proportion or measure of faith and knowledge which they have received."

At first there was hope that Charles II would tolerate religious freedom, but its advocates were disappointed, and by royal decree all clergymen were required to assent to "The Book of Common Prayer" and to submit to ordination at the hands of a bishop of the established church. Two years after, in 1664, the "Five-Mile Act" was passed, prohibiting ministers who had been expelled from settling within five miles of any town, and from teaching publicly or privately, till they had first subscribed to the "Act of Uniformity" and taken the oath of non-resistance to the crown. Mr. King said Charles II was a Roman Catholic, and it is said "made several attempts to grant toleration to his co-religionists, but he always gave way when the anti-popish passion seized the people." During this reign of terror it is said that more than eight thousand persons were sent to prison, many were reduced to poverty, and not a few lost their lives.

Myles came to this country with a few of his people in 1663, fortythree years after the Mayflower and thirty-two years after the arrival of Roger Williams. He brought with him the records of his Welsh church, and a translated copy is still among the records of his church here. The atmosphere of intolerance which he found here was summarized by Dr. King as follows:

"The reputation of the Puritans for religious intolerance and cruel persecution, which had been manifested again and again in formal legislation and open acts of violence, was well known on the other side of the Atlantic. John and Samuel Brown had been compelled to return to England

because they were guilty of the crime of non-conformity, being unwilling to renounce the book of Common Prayer and offer their worship to God in the prescribed Puritan method. Roger Williams had been banished, and his presence in England seven years afterwards, as a distinguished exile, driven out into the wilderness by Puritan authority, must have produced a wide and profound impression among the Baptists of the .mother country. Obadiah Holmes, who with his two Baptist companions from Newport, Dr. John Clarke and John Crandall, had been arrested at Lynn for holding religious service in the home of an aged brother, to whom they were paying a visit of Christian sympathy, had been whipped unmercifully on Boston Common, Clarke and Crandall being imprisoned and fined, and the treatment of these worthies by the Puritan authorities had called forth a severe remonstrance from Richard Saltonstall, who had been previously a Puritan magistrate, and was then on a visit to England: 'It doth not a little grieve my spirit to hear what sad things are reported daily of your tyranny and persecutions in New England as that you fine, whip and imprison men for their consciences.'

The church founded by Myles, Dr. King said, was the fifth Baptist church in America. The church in Providence, founded by Roger Williams, had had an existence for twenty-five years. The traditional date of the origin of the first church in Newport, founded by Dr. John Clarke upon the remains of a Congregational church, is 1644. About the year 1652, there was a division in the Providence church, which led to the formation of a second church under the leadership of Thomas Olney. This church ceased to exist in 1718, after the pastorates of Mr. Olney, and his son, Thomas, Jr. In the year 1656 there was a division in the church in Newport, and a Six Principle Baptist church was formed, which still exists (now called the Second Baptist church), and is in full fellowship with regular Baptist churches.

After a time a spirit of tolerance took the place of the Puritan bigotry toward the Baptists, and they were allowed to go away by themselves and establish a community at Rehoboth, far enough away not to be "prejudicial to the peace of the church and town" of Plymouth. Their later history was fully told in the address, and its close was an eloquent tribute to the service which the New England spirit, absolved from the early narrowness, has accomplished in shaping the character and the institutions of the whole country.

The other exercises of dedication, all interesting and impressive, included addresses by the Rev. H. W. Watjen of Warren, Rhode Island, the Rev., M. L. Williston of Barrington, Rhode Island, the Rev. Dr. W. H. Eaton of Boston and Hezekiah Butterworth of Boston. The latter also contributed an inspiring hymn for the occasion, which was sung to the old Welsh tune, "Men of Harlech":

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Men of Harlech, in the hollow,

Men of Swansea on the billow, Men who made the pines their pillow, 'Neath the snow sheets white; Men of faith who never doubted, Men whose banners ne'er were routed, Loud the cry of Wales they shouted"Freedom, God and Right!"

Hail, John Myles, each roof-tree turning
Into cabined schools of learning,
In each falling grove discerning
Freedom's wider light!
Men who read Semitic story,
Men who changed their dreams to glory,
Sang as once the Welsh bards hoary,
"Freedom, God and Right!"
CHORUS

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'Mid their axes boldly swinging,
Wars of Hallelujahs singing,
To Llewellyn's legends clinging

In their strength bedight.
Men who gave to men their birthright,
Men who gave to toil its earthright,
Men who honored men for worth-right,
Men in virtue white.

CHORUS V

Sing with them, your new hopes sounding
March with them, a new age founding,
With their motto still resounding,

Lead, in Freedom's van.
Theirs the folk-note, theirs in station,
First in counsels of the nation,
Pioneers of education,

For the rights of man.
CHORUS

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HE history of Minneapolis has been made so rapidly that it requires several mental leaps to realize that the many vital events incident to the making of a great city of so salient individuality, occurred during so small a span of years.

Fifty-five years ago, the land occupied by the city of Minneapolis was the home of the Indian, the buffalo and every other wild thing. To-day it has two hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants and is one of the three most beautiful cities in the United States, famous for its industries, commerce and wealth, as well as for its beauty. It has become known as "the great city of the Great Northwest," and it has the potentiality of being, within a very few years, the third or fourth largest city in the country.

Until recently, Louis Hennepin, a Franciscan priest, was credited with having been the first white man to

enter the land now called Minnesota. A few years ago, however, some manuscripts found in the Bodleian Library and British Museum, where they had reposed undisturbed for more than two hundred years, proved conclusively that Radison and Groseliers, two Frenchmen, travelled through this and other portions of the Indian country from 1652 to 1684. Du Luth, too, preceded Hennepin by a year, coming in 1679.

While Father Hennepin with his band accomplished good work among the Indians, he is notably remembered by Minneapolitans for naming the city's great water power. In honor of his patron saint, St. Anthony of Padua, he named the falls in the Mississippi River, St. Anthony.

The State has perpetuated his memory by giving the county in which Minneapolis is situated his name, and the city in turn has called