But this was not the way people thought in those days.

"Believe what you wish," they would say, "only please do not come among our people."

With all the trouble the Puritans had to contend against, they may be excused for speaking thus. Enemies were on all sides of them, as well as in England, and it seemed absolutely necessary to them that they should be united among themselves.

But there were people of other beliefs who had also found it uncomfortable to live under the strict laws of England, and who preferred to come to a new world where they thought they could do more as they pleased.

Their ways, however, were not the ways of the Puritans, so, naturally, they were not very welcome.

In 1631, a young minister, named Roger Williams, came to the colony, and he soon began to give the Puritan leaders much trouble.

He thought that people should worship where they pleased—and he publicly said so. But, what was still worse, he preached that the early settlers had no right to the very land they lived on unless they bought that land of the Indians.

"Surely," the Puritans said, "we have enough trouble with the Indians without putting this new idea into their heads."

As was the case with troublesome people in those days, Roger Williams was ordered out of the country. Fearing that, if caught, he might be sent back to England, he made his escape into the deep forests.

It was midwinter, but the Indians welcomed and protected him. He gradually made his way to that part of the country now called Rhode Island. Here, in 1636, he purchased land of the Indians, and, before very long, many of his friends in Salem followed him and made a settlement.

They built a town and named it Providence. In this colony, it was declared that every one should be free to worship as he pleased. There, for the first time in the history of the world, all people were allowed to act as seemed to them best in their own churches.

Roger Williams, meanwhile, did not forget the kindness of the Indians. After he had learned to speak their language, he spent much of his time with them, teaching them to read and work.

You may be sure, his people all loved this good, well-meaning man. At one time, when he had been away in England nearly two years, the whole colony crossed the river to meet him as he returned.

The old men and the young men, the old women and the young women, and all the children, met him with flowers and songs and every sign of joy.

Roger Williams' kind old heart was touched when he saw how his people loved him, and he was not ashamed to let the tears run down his cheeks as he thanked them for their love.

Meanwhile, there had sprung up in England another class of people, under the leadership of George Fox, who went much further in their idea of simple form of church worship than even the Puritans had.

These people, called "Friends," would have no form at all. They believed it was best and most pleasing to God to go into their little churches, with no minister, no singing, no praying, and sit there, perfectly quiet, fixing their minds only on holy things. This, compared with the elaborate form of worship in the English Church, was certainly a great change, to say the least.

The English Church, which thought the Puritans had been foolish enough, thought these last people more than foolish—they thought them mad.

There is a funny little story connected with these Friends, which shows how later they came to receive their peculiar name of Quakers. It is said that one of these people was brought for trial before an English judge.

The English judge having been rather severe, the Quaker turned to him and said, "Dost thou not quake with fear before the Great Judge, who this day hath heard thy cruel judgment upon his chosen people?"

But just then, the Quaker, who was very nervous and excitable, began to shiver and shake and quake to such an extent that the whole court burst into a roar of laughter. From that time these people were nicknamed "Quakers."

In due time the Quakers were driven from England, as the Puritans had been before them. They, too, came over to America, hoping to find freedom to worship God in the way they thought best.

It was about thirty-five years after the Mayflower entered Plymouth harbor that the first Quakers came.

There had been many changes in the colonies in that time. The little children had now come to be middle-aged men and women with children of their own.

The men and women who had done the hard work of settling the little home at Plymouth, had now grown to be quite old, and very, very many of them had, long since, been laid away in the quaint little burying-ground.