however; among the most powerful leaders in the colonies was Jonathan
Edwards, whose name ranks very high in the records of religious
philosophy in the States. Despite preliminary obstacles this preacher of
the most stern and unflinching determinism produced a quite
extraordinary effect at last. As usually happens, his dogmas were more
easily repeated by others than his reasoning; violent excitement ran
through the colonies, and it was this that gave a decisive turn to the
liberalism which ultimately developed into a very memorable phase of
Unitarianism. The preceding steps may be briefly indicated.

A familiar epigram preserves the acid truth that the Puritan emigrants
who left England in the seventeenth century went to North America in
order to worship God in their own way, and to compel everyone else to do
the same. Religious liberty was certainly not understood by them as it
is understood to-day. The sufferings of the Baptists and Quakers, for
example, make a sad chapter of New England history. About the middle of
the century, _Roger Williams_ (1599-1683), having ventilated opinions
contrary to the general Calvinism, was driven out of Salem, where he had
ministered to a grateful church. His pleas for a real religious freedom
were in vain, and he was forced to wander from the colonial settlements
and find a precarious home among the Indians. After much privation, he
succeeded in establishing a new colony at Rhode Island, where a more
liberal atmosphere prevailed.

It does not appear that Williams had much influence in the general world
of religious thought, but two things at least were favourable to the
modification of orthodoxy. On the one hand there was inevitably a looser
system of supervision in a new country, and the pressure of penal law
could not be exerted so effectually as in England. On the other hand the
organization of worship and teaching, though intended to be strict and