Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 5 · column 4 of 7 · from the scan, no model involved
Baptists have always been champions of civil and religious liberty,. Roger Williams who took ground in advance of his Puritan compeers on the subject of personal liberty, being banished from the colony of .Massachusetts, went to the present site of Providence, Rhode Island, v^fiere he founded what is regarded by some as the first Baptist church in America, and the first commonwealth on earth in (which there was absolute civil and religious liberty.
The framers of the Constitution of the United States caught the spirit of Roger Williams and as a result we have a country which has been the refuge of the persecuted and oppressed of all nations. Article VI on religious liberty in the American Constitution was introduced into it by the united efforts of Baptists in 1789. The first amendment to the Constitution of the United States guaranteeing freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to petition, was adopted largely through the activity of Baptists. They took the initiative in a letter to President Washington and a month later, Madison, with Washington’s approval, presented the amendment.
The first government jin the world that allowed full liberty of conscience from principle to all men was established by Baptists in Rhode Island. Freedom of conscience and complete divorce of church and state! How they suffered for that! They have faced mockery and mud, fines, whippings, and iron bars; they have been burned at the stake and pulled at the rack, but they have held to it.
76.8%