Chapter 5
A Comparison of John Milton and Roger Williams on Freedom, Toleration, and Separation of Church and State

This book is primarily about John Milton and his thought about freedom. It is appropriate, however, to include a chapter comparing John Milton with another famous English colonial author, also a contemporary puritan: Roger Williams. He, like Milton, worked effectively on behalf of the struggle for religious and political liberty in England and the New England British colonies. Both men wrote and published several significant books and pamphlets on the same subjects from similar, yet distinct, perspectives. Roger Williams attended Cambridge during the same time as when John Milton was a student there, and their terms overlapped from 1625-1629. John Milton was a great puritan spokesman in England who wrote profusely about the 17th-century issues of religious and civil liberty, religious toleration, and separation of church and state. Roger Williams migrated to New England a few years after he left Cambridge, while John Milton stayed in England during their Civil War Years when religious freedom was being severely tested. A comparison of these two men will emphasize and clarify some of Milton's thought on liberty.

Let us now become an audience to an imaginary (though based on historical facts) dramatic dialog in which John Milton and Roger Williams meet as friends in London and discuss some of their mutual concerns.

DRAMATIC DIALOG BETWEEN JOHN MILTON AND ROGER WILLIAMS

 
Date: Late June 1652

Place: Milton's London home in the Petty-France community, Westminster district

John Milton, age 45, almost completely blind, sitting at his small desk, facing his approaching guest.

Roger Williams, age 49, from the New England Colony of Rhode Island, enters the room, greets and shakes hands with Milton, then sits in a comfortable occasional chair, facing Milton. Both men are obviously pleased at this opportunity to meet again.

Milton: What a great pleasure it is, Master Roger, to visit with you again.

Williams: Not nearly so great as is my joy to see you again, Master John. Please allow me to express my deep sympathy to you in the recent death of your wife Mary and your infant son John. This year 1652 has been a bad one for you I fear, with these losses in your family and finally the loss of your only good eye. I have read your works and have kept up with your activities the best I could ever since we were fellow students at Cambridge for a few years in the late '20s.

Milton: Thanks for your sympathy and sorrow in this terrible year of adversity. Sometimes the burdens grow so heavy I don't know how I could survive, and I wouldn't without my Christian faith.

(Pause)

Mary was a good wife, and I loved her dearly, though our marriage did get off to a bad start. She was a beautiful lass, but perhaps I did her no favor to ask her to marry me at such a young age. When you were here last time, we were separated, and she had returned to her father's home in Buckinghamshire. She returned to me in the summer of 1645. After that our marriage was mostly happy, and she bore three daughters and one son before she died last month. The death of our only son John at the age of fifteen months was a heavy blow to me. He was our sole hope of a son to carry on the family name.

(Sigh, and pause)

My blindness, too, is hard to accept and deal with, although God knows I have tried hard, with His help, to take the right attitude toward it. Here is a draft of a sonnet I just completed on my blindness.

(Milton hands a sheet of paper to Williams)

Williams: (Reading from the sheet of paper)

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.

Master John, that is one of the most beautiful and moving pieces of poetry I have ever read. It brings tears to my eyes. I couldn't keep my hands from trembling, as I read these fourteen lines. It will undoubtedly gain literary immortality.

Milton: I am glad you like it. I dictated the words to my amanuensis just this morning. As you were saying earlier, Master Roger, we have known each other for many years. How well I remember those Cambridge years together. We were in different colleges, you in Pembroke Hall and I at Christ College, but we recognized and spoke socially to each other often. Those were great days. That reedy Cam river, with the treeless fens along so much of the banks, seemed to beckon all of us every summer.

Williams: I agree, although we both resisted the rigid medieval curriculum of the university and the authoritarianism of the Anglican Prelates. Often I grew weary of the heavy academic concentrations in rhetoric, logic, and grammar.

Milton: Yet we must agree that the training in debate, disputations, and public speaking was immensely helpful to us in later years, to prepare us to handle controversy.

Williams: True. I had great turmoil within my soul before finally deciding to sign those "Darling Points" of the King before graduation. You remember it too, I see: being forced to agree with the thirty-nine Anglican Articles of faith, with the king's authority in church matters, and with everything in the Prayer Book. But it was either to do that, or give up the B.A. degrees for which we had worked so hard.

Milton: We students had many long discussions in the Cambridge pubs about those very things. I saw you take part in some of those meetings. I knew where you stood, and you knew where I stood on the issues of religious freedom and personal liberty.

Williams: Yes, and I always respected your sharp insights and ability to state your arguments so clearly. You and many of your close friends at Christ College impressed me. I have always been indebted to you for your support of religious toleration, separation of church and state, and freedom of conscience.

Milton: Those were the days when growing religious and political strife between the Crown and the Puritans reached its height. We were right in the middle of it all at Cambridge. What a time to be a university student!

Williams: I enjoyed it enough to enroll for my M.A. program in theology. After eighteen months, however, I abandoned these studies. I could see the tide was turning against Separatists like myself. Besides, the M.A. wasn't strictly required for ordination. I did accept ordination in the Anglican Church, but I hoped to join others who were working to reform the church from within. Back in those days I was foolish enough to suppose that was possible, but I learned by experience later, that it would never work that way.

Milton: My experience with the M.A. program was happier than yours. I enjoyed the study of the classics and especially the works of Aristotle. Being quite satisfied, I did stay for the entire three years beyond my graduation and received my M.A. in 1632, one year after you left for America. By the way, tell me more about your persecution from the established churches and magistrates in the American colonies during your first stay there.

Williams: When I arrived at Boston in 1631, I intended to serve as a pastor or teacher in a Separatist church of Massachusetts Bay Colony. But I found that there were no such churches there. They were all closely associated with the Anglican churches of England and with others of like mind there in the colony. They wouldn't receive the ideas that I presented about maintaining purity and holiness in the churches and in New England life. Furthermore, they saw no problem in fellowship with a church that had departed from New Testament norms and from Reformation principles. It seemed impossible for them to comprehend a consistent philosophy of freedom of conscience, toleration, and separation of church and state. So they began to try to silence me, and soon they talked of persecution and banishment. To avoid imprisonment I had to flee into the cruel and cold native wilderness beyond their jurisdiction. I would have died had it not been for the help of the Indian natives there.

Milton: How hard it is to believe that the Christians in New England would prove to be so harsh in physical persecution. How could the pagan Indian natives be more compassionate than the redeemed Christians? While you were there in the wilderness, my fortunes were brighter here in England. My residences at Hammersmith in Middlesex and at Horton in Buckinghamshire were quite pleasant. This afforded me opportunity to write my musical masque Comus and my poem "Lycidas" which were both very well received.

My journey through Europe to Italy, I am happy to say, was an unforgettable experience. It was, I'm sure, much more comfortable and enjoyable than your habitation on the New England frontier and in the Indian wilderness!

Williams: Yes, but, thank God, I survived and lived to see you again during my 1643-45 return visit to England. The purpose of that visit was to obtain the official charter for our new and free colony of Rhode Island. The parliament was very busy then with affairs of the Civil War. So I used the time of waiting to develop some new acquaintances and to do some writing. That was when I wrote and published here in London my treatise on The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution. In this work I traced the course of persecution by the established churches in New England against other Christians like myself.

Milton: How well I remember the excitement caused by that printing! Until then, many leaders here in London were ready to label the "New England Way" as the model "Middle Way" for the ideal type of church structure. I think it's most fortunate, and probably providential, that your work The Bloudy Tenent and my Areopagitica appeared simultaneously. We struck a powerful double blow for the freedom of conscience and freedom of the press. No one was happier than I when you secured the patent you wanted for the Rhode Island Colony from Parliament in 1644.

Williams: Now, in this terrible year 1652, especially terrible for you, Master John, we meet again in your pleasant little home here in Westminster, so near to your work. Also so near to where I must apply myself again to the Council of State and Parliament to defend our colony's grant and protect its unity and strength.

Milton: I wish you well in this task, and I, as Foreign Secretary for the Council of State, pledge to do whatever I can to help you toward this end. I can introduce you to some influential people who can help you. This is a different England from the one you found when you were here nine years ago. The Independents and Cromwell, with the New Model Army, have won the Civil War. For the time being, victory seems complete, but I see difficult days ahead of us. All the people are calling for new liberties, and there are many troublesome extremists among them. Different factions seem unable to work together. Our mutual friend Sir Henry Vane is fortunately a member of the Council of State, the executive branch of the government. He is a good man to have in the government at this time, and he can help you with your charter problems.

Williams: I agree with you. I am glad to say that Cromwell knows me. We have had many fine talks on affairs of state, including the Jewish presence here in England and in New England. Thanks very much for your kind offer to be of help to the colonists in Rhode Island. We are merely seeking a place where all will be welcome to worship according to their conscience in complete religious freedom and where church and state are separate. May God bless you, Master John, and give you that inner peace, light, and freedom that we all seek.

Milton: Goodbye, my friend. I hope we shall have the occasion to meet again, but we must accept the possibility that this could be our last meeting on this good earth.

(The lights dim to about 20%. Williams departs, but Milton continues to stare blankly toward the vacant space of the chair where Williams had been sitting.)

The Toleration of Religious Minorities

The dramatic dialog is over, but the conflicts about burning issues of freedom versus 17th century tyranny are still raging in Old and New England. To these conflicts we now return.

Roman Catholics, Jews, Moslems, and all of the smaller Christian denominations were still being persecuted in various ways. Roman Catholics had no civil rights. They were treated as enemies of the state, traitors with primary loyalties to another country and potentate. The few Jews living in England were constantly pressured to give up their Jewish identity and become Anglican Christians. Moslems and Turks were also persecuted and not tolerated with any degree of kindness, compassion, or justice. No doubt the Moslem invasions of Spain and Eastern Europe had sent ripples of fear and political anxiety throughout Europe, including England. The world is still paying a high price for this conflict between ethnic Moslems and Christians in Bosnia, Herzegovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Cyprus. The small non-Anglican Christian groups in England were called "Sects," "Heretics," and "Anarchists," all terms loaded with political and pejorative overtones in the 17th century.

Milton's attitudes toward these minority religious groups were inconsistent and ambivalent. He was generally tolerant of the small Christian groups that accepted the main principles of the Scriptures and of the Reformation leaders. He was as willing to tolerate unorthodox religious views just as he was willing to suffer "bad books" to be printed without prior licensing. In fact, some of his own religious beliefs were considered unorthodox. His objections to Roman Catholics appeared based not so much on their doctrinal beliefs as on their loyalty to the Pope as a foreign power. This was considered sedition or disloyalty to England. Some Popes hindered their cause by calling the Catholics of foreign nations to rebel against their ruler and support a political rival more acceptable to the Pope.

Nevertheless, Milton could have been more tolerant of Catholics than he was, since others of his generation were much more tolerant than he. Roger Williams, for example, claimed religious toleration for Roman Catholics, Jews, Moslems, and other minority Christian groups. He required only that they keep the laws of the local government and live in peace with their neighbors. In other words, in matters of religious beliefs, people had the "right to be wrong." It was not necessary or desirable for a government to try to enforce uniformity of worship or belief in matters of conscience. In Rhode Island, the colony founded by Roger Williams, all were welcome to believe as they wished and to practice their faith freely. Milton obviously did not go as far in the direction of religious toleration as did Roger Williams and other contemporaries.

Full Religious Freedom

We know today that there is a difference between mere toleration and full religious freedom. Toleration might mean a grudging willingness to allow religious minorities to live in a society dominated by another powerful and favored religious majority. Even so, the minority groups may be discriminated against and treated unfairly in many ways. For example, the government may require them to pay taxes to support the majority religion. They may be required to conform to moral codes that they believe are unfairly imposed on citizens that are not members of the national church. This is not full religious freedom for minority religious groups.

John Milton was very liberal in his attitude toward the openness of ideas, knowledge, and discussion. He wrote "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties" (Areopagitica, Hughes ed., 746). To him the freedom of the press, and the sharing of opinions in writing and arguing, was "but knowledge in the making" (743).

Roger Williams agreed with Milton regarding this, but he went on to amplify a theme of theological, rather than merely philosophical, justification for such religious freedom. For Williams, religion should be the personal choice of someone who is old enough to understand the issues involved and to decide for him- or herself to follow Christ or another faith. This is why Williams wrote "Christenings Do Not Christians Make." On this basis he opposed the idea of a national church that included all citizens born within its borders as members. This meant, of course, baptized babies who could not understand or make a personal choice.

Roger Williams' idea of full religious freedom flowed out of his belief in the nature of the church and the state. Professor Anne C. Myles, of the University of Chicago, writes that Williams was convinced of "the absolute division between holiness and pollution." She goes on to explain that the church, in Roger Williams' view, should be holy, that is, separated from all moral and spiritual pollution. He felt that the Anglican Church and all state churches were defiled and spiritually polluted by unregenerate membership and leadership. Therefore, true New Testament churches should separate themselves from such pollution and refuse fellowship with compromising churches.

Therefore, Williams did not contest John Cotton's charge that Williams had preached that "it is not lawful to hear any of the Ministers of the Parish Assemblies in England." Nor did he deny teaching that "the Civil Magistrate's power extends only to the Bodies and Goods and outward state of men." Williams was entirely consistent in holding fast to the following principles:

• The state is entirely secular and part of the "world."
• The church, being a separate realm, is entirely spiritual and not part of the "world."
• Church and state are entirely separate.
• Therefore "magistrates have no authority to intervene in spiritual or church affairs."

Anne Myles summarized Williams' arguments substantially in this way in her 1993 ELH article (134-35). Roger Williams believed, according to Myles, that impurity "existed as a pervasive taint that could only be cleansed by utter separation from the source of pollution," which was the Church of England (136-37).

In Roger Williams' Bloudy Tenent of Persecution the personified figure of Peace condemns "the bloudy and slaughterous conclusions" that

are bloudy to the souls of all men, forced to the Religion and Worship which every civil State or Common-weale agrees on, and compels all subjects to in a dissembled uniformity. [They are] bloudy to the bodies of the holy witnesses of Christ Jesus, who testify against such invented worships (Complete Writinqs vol. 3, 62).

Roger Williams defined persecution so clearly that no one could misunderstand:

I acknowledge that to molest any person, Jew or Gentile, for either professing doctrine, or practicing worship merely religious or spiritual, it is to persecute him, and such a person (whatever his doctrine or practice be true or false) suffers persecution for conscience. (The Bloody Tenent of Persecution, in Complete Writinqs, vol. 3, 62).

At one point in The Bloody Tenent of Persecution Williams offers a syllogism that is difficult to refute:

1. It is a mark of the true Christian Church to be persecuted.
2. It is a mark of the Antichristian or false Church to persecute others.
3. Therefore those Churches cannot be truly Christian [which do] persecute such as dissent from them. (Complete Writings, vol. 3, 191).

John Milton must have been proud of his Cambridge colleague for coming up with such a bit of logic.

Complete Political and Personal Freedom

Milton's best known example of personal freedom is his pamphlet on The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643, 1644). We cannot fairly consider this work without some reference to Milton's personal life during this time. He was married, at age 33, in 1642 to a sixteen-year-old girl, Mary Powell, the daughter of a royalist justice of the peace. They were both disillusioned in this unhappy marriage. Soon after the ceremony, Mary returned to her father's house in Buckinghamshire, where she remained until she and John were reconciled in the summer of 1645.

In the midst of this period of separation, Milton wrote his work arguing for the freedom to get a divorce when the goals of marriage are not fulfilled and the spiritual companionship becomes contrary to what it was supposed to be. This work angered the religious leaders of the day, because ecclesiastical policy frowned on divorce, and the church wanted to keep control of all marriage and divorce proceedings. Although Milton found much support for his divorce arguments from the writings of several European Reformation leaders, the Puritans of England gave him no support in this.

Roger Williams argued that the civil and personal freedoms of the people are rooted in the nature of the covenant between the people and their government. He wrote that political power comes from the people who can make a covenant among themselves, form a government, select and inaugurate rulers of their choice. Those rulers and government magistrates have no power to take away the personal, civil, or religious freedoms of the people. If they attempt to do so, the people could choose different rulers or change their covenant and go on with a reformed or revised form of government. As Edmund S. Morgan says, "What such an agreement could not do was to endow rulers with divine sanction or with powers that belonged to God."

Separation of Church and State: "You Cannot Legislate Righteousness"

John Milton's Position

John Milton believed in the separation of church and state, although one can cite quotations from his writings showing that he may not have thought in terms of a complete and thoroughly consistent separation. He concluded from his studies, observation, and experience that governmental legislation or coercion could not achieve morality and righteousness. He definitely believed that the Church should not interfere with the running of the government, and the State should not control the religious and spiritual functions of the Church.

Milton opposed the political power of corrupt clergy. He also resisted the collection of taxes or compulsory tithes to fund the salaries of the pastors and prelates and other activities of the Church. The Anglican Church already had large land holdings to support its programs, and many Englishmen resented this. Milton favored the abolition of the established Anglican Episcopacy, because it was contrary to the separation of church and state. In The Reason of Church Government he points out the inconsistency of linking the image of Christ with the king. He adds, "Therefore your typical link of king and priest must unlink" (Hughes ed., 651). The power of the church is in moral persuasion only. The civil power of the king, he thinks, should not be used to enforce uniformity of worship and righteous conduct, but only to protect liberty.

The concluding chapter of Milton's Reason of Church Government is devoted entirely to "The mischief that Prelaty does in the State" (Hughes ed., 684-89). Milton warns the members of Parliament that the "irresistible power" and "carnal might" of prelaty, if not restrained, will "subdue your spirits by a servile and blind superstition." He also predicts that unless something drastic is done this "irresistible power" will "hold such dominion over your minds" that will "enthral your liberty" (684). He begs the members of Parliament not to depend on the support of the Anglican Prelates, but to be impartial in their judgment and see if

you can find after due search but only one good thing in prelaty, either to religion or civil government, to king or parliament, to prince or people, to law, liberty, wealth, or learning, spare her, let her live, let her spread among ye.

He adds, however, that if

on the contrary, if she be found to be malignant, hostile, destructive to all these …, then let your severe and impartial doom imitate the divine vengeance; rain down your punishing force upon this godless and oppressing government, and bring such a dead sea of subversion upon her that she may never in this land rise more to afflict the holy reformed church, and the elect people of God. (689).

Roger Williams' Position

Roger Williams' position on separation of church and state is even more clear, consistent, and extreme than Milton's. Williams states his defense of the principle of separation of church and state in his monumental work The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution. This work begins as a reply to John Cotton, who had attempted to justify the imprisonment of an Anabaptist for his faith and practice in Newgate. Cotton defended persecution of "heretics" as correcting their conscience and future practice.

This is exactly what Roger Williams so strongly opposes. He contends that there is no justification for any civil magistrate's persecution of anyone for the cause of conscience. The fact that the religious belief or practice in question is contrary to the majority or state-sponsored church's doctrine made absolutely no difference. Of course, Williams has in mind not only the experience of the Newgate Anabaptist, but also his own experience in Salem and elsewhere in the Bay colony.

In the second half of The Bloudy Tenent, Williams emphasizes the necessity of complete separation of church and state. Chupack explains that Williams's position on this separation was primarily because the civil state was a purely secular institution and the church was a purely spiritual institution (84). Among other things, Williams affirms and intends to prove that:

All Civil States … in their respective constitutions and administration are essentially civil, and therefore not judges, governors or defenders of the spiritual or Christian State and worship.… The state of the land of Israel … is … figurative and ceremonial, and no pattern … for any kingdom or civil state in the world to follow.… God requireth not a uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state. (The Bloudy Tenent, Writinqs, III, 3-4).

Williams urges the members of Parliament, to whom the book was primarily addressed, that "having bought Truth dear, we must not sell it cheap." In other words, they must not compromise on this principle of separation of church and state (13).

The Church, Williams writes, is

like unto a corporation, society, or Company of East-Indie or Turkie-Merchants, or any other society of company in London: which companies may hold their courts, keep their records, hold disputations: and in matters concerning their society, may dissent, divide, break into schisms and factions, sue and implead each other at the law, yea wholly break up and dissolve into pieces and nothing, and yet the peace of the city not be in the least measure impaired or disturbed. (73)

This idea of the local church as an independent congregational society differed from the prevailing Anglican and Puritan opinions. This analogy tended to break down the union of church and state and caused great disturbance among royalists, Anglicans, Presbyterians and Puritans who wanted a state church. Williams believed that Christ never gave civil rulers authority to interfere in spiritual matters. Therefore, civil magistrates had no ecclesiastical power to coerce, persecute, or interfere in any way in spiritual affairs or local church matters.

Williams interprets Romans chapter 13 to teach obedience to authorities in civil matters only, not in spiritual matters of religious conscience. John Cotton and the Anglicans, Puritan or not, believed in the civil enforcement of the Ten Commandments concerning one's duties to his fellow men and his duties to God. Williams rejects this notion, claiming that the civil rulers had no right to enforce one's spiritual duties to his God. In this he was following the guidance of the European Reformers who taught that the jurisdiction of the magistrate was essentially civil rather than spiritual.

The Legacy of John Milton and Roger Williams for our Times

Milton's literary legacy has been discussed by countless literary critics. These purely literary criticisms concern mostly Milton's poetry rather than his prose, and so need not be considered here.

It should be evident from our survey of Milton's thought to this point that he strongly believed in freedom of conscience, freedom of the press, and its allied liberty the freedom of speech and discussion. No doubt Milton's high regard for learning, rather than for a unified theological system, led to his devotion to these liberal principles concerning liberty. His great concern for education is consistent with his support of academic freedom.

Evidently Milton was passionately driven by a strong personal conviction about the importance of religious freedom. Part of this came from his Puritan background, and part of it came from his personal reading and study of the Scriptures in the original languages. Moreover, Milton was well educated in the writings of the Church Fathers, whom he highly respected. These all taught him that it was unchristian to persecute people for their faith because religious faith was a deeply personal matter between the individual and God. Therefore, it could not and should not be forced. The only result of a forced conscience was hypocrisy, not genuine conversion.

The legacy of both John Milton Roger Williams clearly extends far beyond their own times. It is almost a cliché to say that certain historical figures "were ahead of their time" or that they "transcend their own age." This is true, however, for both John Milton and Roger Williams. They stood with a minority of intellectuals for a free conscience, religious liberty, and separation of church and state, when it was not popular to do so. It is not possible to say what positions they might have taken in a more enlightened age. Had there been a constitutional monarchy that did not claim divine rights, one can only guess what they might have written about that. We can only suppose how the tone of their pamphlets may have sounded in the time of a strong Bill of Rights. We know not, moreover, what they would have said about a state church, if it was freely chosen by the people, supported by voluntary contributions, and did not discriminate against any minority religious groups. These issues are hypothetical. It is reasonable to assume, however, that as others in more modern times grew in their understanding of these issues, both Milton and Williams would have grown in their thinking. Therefore, we cannot positively and broadly apply their thoughts and statements to the complex and various situations of our modern times.

Milton was wrong, in our judgment, in not including Catholics, Jews, and Moslems in his circle of religious toleration and freedom. He was wrong, too, in supporting the subjection of women to men, and in not allowing women as much freedom or liberty as men enjoyed under similar circumstances. We might also conclude that Roger Williams was wrong in his debate with the Quakers of his time, and for his failure to include them in his call for religious freedom. He failed to see that Quakers, in spite of some of their strange, extreme, and irrational beliefs and behavior, had as much right to their beliefs as other believers had to theirs.

Without the courage and contributions of John Milton and Roger Williams in England and the American Colonies, who knows whether things would have turned out as they did? We might not have had a Bill of Rights, or Toleration Act, or a constitutional monarchy develop in England. The nature of government might have become something quite different. We might not have had an American Constitution guaranteeing the First Amendment freedom of religion. It is hard to imagine a United States without separation of church and state, freedom of speech, of assembly, of the press, and freedom to present grievances and seek redress of injustice. These basic rights have stood successfully for 220 years and are still going strong.

Milton went through his personal journeys from Anglican, to Puritan, to Independent, to seeker of truth. Williams went through a similar personal journey from Anglican, to Puritan, to Baptist, to seeker of truth. Others of their time went through a similar spiritual journey or pilgrimage, some finding a home along the way where they could settle down and be happy. These two gentlemen had a peculiar restlessness of soul that was never really at home in any organized religion of their day.

Hopefully, we have grown since then to offer more agreeable and spiritual options. If not, we must keep on seeking until we find what we are looking for. In this life such a successful quest might be in a church or religious home where we can be happy, satisfied, and fulfilled. On the other hand, some, like John Milton and Roger Williams, have found it in a deeply personal and inward relationship with their Heavenly Father, as a prelude to a better and eternal life to come.