The next Sunday and meeting time arrives. Mr. Saltonstall’s service proceeds, to which of its many heads is uncertain. Despite the fact that his opponent is in prison, does every blast of the March wind seem to rattle the meeting-house door ominously?
Some one ought surely, and at the earliest possible moment, to make the olden move. The lot has fallen upon Bathsheba. She enters the church with (apparently) womanly modesty, simply to announce that she has been doing servile work upon this day and has come purposely to declare it. (County Court Record.) She is placed in the stocks. But the end is not yet.
John Rogers himself enters the meeting-house upon this veritable Sunday, March 4. It is in the “afternoon” (County Court Record), and, as shown by his copy of “Mittemus” (Part I, Chapter II), he has by some means escaped from prison for this purpose.
When he appears, it is in a manner calculated to excite in the preacher whose discourse is interrupted, something besides delight at the success of the latter’s masterly scheme to entrap him. He enters with a wheelbarrow load of merchandise,[74] which he wheels directly to the front of the pulpit, before any in the assembly can sufficiently recover from their astonishment to lay hands upon him. From this commanding position he turns and offers his goods for sale.[75] The scene that ensues before he is returned to prison must be imagined.
It is from the account of Mr. Bownas (conversation with John Rogers) we gain knowledge that there were “goods” in the wheelbarrow, which were offered for sale before the pulpit. The court record mentions only the wheelbarrow. Mr. Bownas had evidently a mixed recollection of this portion of John Roger’s conversation (relating to work, etc., upon the first day Sabbath), since he appears to suppose this was a thing that might have happened more than once, whereas it was an extraordinary measure suited to an extraordinary occasion, and one which would surely receive court notice and record.
In his conversation with Mr. Bownas, John Rogers also said, in this connection, “that the provocations he met with from the priests, who stirred up the people and the mob against him, might sometimes urge him further than he was afterwards easy with in opposing them, but that when he kept his place he had inexpressible comfort and peace in what he did;” adding, “the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God.”