The absolute freedom of religious belief and practice, for the first time found in this colony, had, as its first effect, the banishment of all forms of sectarian persecution, so that the maxim of the Broad Church—­“Freedom in non-essentials”—­was here put in practical activity to an extent probably never before known in the Christian world.

It can be readily understood that this continual selection of the most scrupulous consciences, the closest thinkers, and the least worldly characters in the church of my ancestors must have developed a singularly fine and cutting-edge temper in its adherents, and the succession of generations of men and women who had graduated in the school of Scripture dialectics, and knew every text and its various interpretations, made a community of Bible disputants such as even Massachusetts could not show.

Amongst the refugees for religious liberty who found their billet at Newport were many Jews, between whom and the Sabbatarians the community of the Sabbath was a strong tie, and amongst the formulas of prayer in use even down to my own boyhood I remember a common petition for the restoration of Israel; and the Sabbatarian eye of prophecy looked forward to the day when, in the peace of the millennium, the Jews in Jerusalem should be the witnesses of the faith of the Seventh-Day Baptist Church in the keeping alive the observance of the Eden repose initiated by the Creator.  Amongst my own earliest personal recollections concerning Newport is that of a visit of some Jewish friends of my mother’s girlhood, who lived there, to my father’s house in Schenectady.

My mother’s grandfather, on her mother’s side, was a clergyman, Elder Bliss, who, though a non-combatant, was a fiery patriot, two of whose sons were in the Revolutionary army.  His house was in a valley under the fort held by the British force in occupation, between whose guns and those of a battery held by the rebels there was occasional firing, during which the balls sometimes went through the house, so that when the first shot was heard he used to order all the family down into the cellar, which afforded a valid protection.  The girls of the household were patriots, in whom zeal often overran discretion, and the pranks they played on the British officers must sometimes have tasked the gentlemen in the latter to a point on the limits of endurance.  I remember one incident recounted by my grandmother to my mother, and by her to me, in which two of the girls stole past the sentry in the British fort, or battery, for I could never learn exactly what was the nature of these two outposts of authority and rebellion, and, running the flag down, tore it into thirteen stripes and ran it up again and escaped unseen.  This insult brought the whole force about their ears, and the commandant came, with his staff, to question the household if any clue to it could be found.  Fortunately, when the girls had come back from their expedition and went giggling in their glee to their mother, she