25. Puritan Intolerance.--Unfortunately all the colonies were not founded in the same liberal spirit as Maryland. The Puritans themselves seemed not to have learned toleration by the persecutions they had suffered; but, on the contrary, { 265} when they found themselves possessed of power, they forgot right and persecuted all those not of their own way of thinking. This led to the founding of other colonies where greater religious liberty was granted; such as Pennsylvania, settled by the Quakers; Rhode Island, by Roger Williams, a Baptist, driven by Puritan intolerance from Massachusetts.
26. Common dangers, however, taught these colonists toleration. They were surrounded by hordes of savages, against whom they were compelled frequently to combine. The wars between the French and the English extended to their respective settlements in America, and this circumstance drove the English colonists together and taught them toleration. They were driven into a still closer union by the oppression of England, and forgot their religious differences in the presence of the great danger of losing all their freedom, civil as well as religious. When they had achieved their independence, and necessity and experience taught them that a national government--an indissoluble union of the colonies--must be formed, wisdom clearly suggested that the chief cornerstone of the new temple of liberty must be religious freedom. Hence in the constitution which they adopted, freedom to worship God according to the dictates of conscience is guaranteed. [See note 12, end of section.]
27. The Hand of God Manifested.--If in the rise of the great Roman Empire we see the hand of God preparing the way for the introduction of the gospel under the personal administration of the Son of God, that under the protection of that great government the apostles of Messiah might visit every land and deliver the glad tidings of great joy--if in this the hand of God is visible, it is equally clear that the meaning of this sixteenth century revolution which we have been considering, together with the subsequent founding of a great republic in the New World, pledged to the maintenance of religious liberty--it is clearly the meaning of all this that God { 266} was preparing the day for a restoration of the gospel--the ushering in of the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. [See note 13, end of section.] That revolution of the sixteenth century was the first glimmerings of the dawn which heralded the approaching day; the light became clearer in America on the establishment of religious liberty under the Constitution of the United States; the sun rose when the Lord introduced the DISPENSATION OF THE FULLNESS OF TIMES by revealing himself and his Son Jesus Christ to the Prophet Joseph Smith.