Video
Roger in Context: A Dream Dreamed
Transcript
All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts. – Williams Shakespeare
How far that little candle throws its beams, so shines a good deed in a weary world. - William Shakespeare.
The bay-trees in our country are all withered and meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;10The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth and lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change; rich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap, the one in fear to lose what they enjoy, the other to enjoy by rage and war: These signs forerun the death or fall of kings. – Williams Shakespeare
Whereas Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of the church of Salem, hath broached & divulged diverse new & dangerous opinions, against the authority of magistrates and yet mainetaineth the same without retraction, it is therefore ordered, that the said Mr. Williams shall depart out of this jurisdiction not to return any more without license from the Court. – Massachusetts Bay Magistrates
I was sorely tossed one fourteen weeks in a bitter winter season, not knowing what bed nor bread did mean. – Roger Willams
I desire not to sleep in security and dream of a nest which no hand can reach. - Roger Williams
Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime, that we must change for Heav’n, this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Farewell happy fields where Joy forever dwells: Hail horrors, hail Infernal world, receive thy new Possessor: One who brings a mind not to be changed by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.
Here at least we shall be free;
-John Milton
Having made covenant of peaceable neighborhood with all the sachems and natives round about us...I, in grateful remembrance of God's merciful providence unto me in my distress, called the place PROVIDENCE: I desired it might be a shelter for persons distressed of conscience
– Roger Williams
the sovereign, original, and foundation of civil power lies in the people. And the people may erect and establish what form of government seems to them most meet for their civil condition; it is evident that such governments that by them erected and established have no more power, nor for no longer time, than the civil power or people consenting and agreeing shall betrust them with. – Roger Williams
It was a dream dreamed a bubble burst; eternity shall pay for all.
-Roger Williams
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air: and, like the baseless fabric of this vision, he cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep. – William Shakespeare
They looking back, all the' Eastern side beheld of Paradise, so late their happy seat, waved over by that flaming brand, the gate with dreadful Faces thronged and fiery arms: some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; the world was all before them, where to choose their place of rest, and Providence their guide: they hand in hand with wandering steps and slow, through Eden took their solitary way. – John Milton
Description
Explore the Providence of Roger Williams with original music, contemporary quotations, and remarkable arial photography.
Duration
9 minutes, 54 seconds
Credit
Produced by NPS
Date Created
05/06/2025
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