The Great Neck is still in midsummer beauty, with delicate touches of autumnal brightness, when the hospitable mansion of James Rogers is reopened to the friends who were here on a like mission in the chilly days of winter. Grave and earnest must be the discourse of those gathered on this occasion. That Connecticut is resolved to withstand any inroad of new sects from Rhode Island, appears certain. But James Rogers and his sons are men not to be cowed or driven, especially when they judge their leadership to be from on High. This little family group is resolving to brave the power and opprobrium of Connecticut backed by Massachusetts.
If there is a hesitating voice in this assembly, it is probably that of Samuel Rogers, whose wife’s sister is the wife of Rev. James Noyes of Stonington, and who is similarly allied to other prominent members of the Congregational order. Yet his sympathies are with the cause he hesitates to fully espouse. (We shall find the next meeting of this kind at his house.) As for Bathsheba, surely nothing but the waiting for father and mother could so long have kept her from following the example of her brother John.
In front of the house lies the wide, blue Sound. It is easy to picture the scene, as the earnest, gray-haired man and his wife and daughter accompany Elder Hiscox down the white slope of the beach to the emblem of cleansing that comes to meet them. No event in the past busy career of James Rogers can have seemed half so momentous as the present undertaking. There are doubtless here present not a few spectators, some of them from the church he has renounced, to whom this baptism is as novel as it is questionable; but they must confess to its solemnity and a consciousness that the rite in Christ’s day was of a similar character. Those who came to smile have surely forgotten that purpose, as the waters close over the man who has been so honorable and honored a citizen, and who, despite the ridicule and the censure, has only been seeking to obey the commands of the Master, and, through much study, pious consideration and fervent prayer, has decided upon so serious a departure from the New England practice.
A summons for James Rogers and his wife and daughter to appear before the magistrate is not long in coming. But they are soon released. It cannot be an easy, pleasant or popular undertaking to use violent measures against citizens of such good repute as James Rogers and his family, whose earnest words in defense of their course must have more genuine force than any the reverend minister can bring to bear against it.