It is 1630. Roger Williams and his wife, Mary, have escaped from England to take refuge in Massachusetts, where men and women of faith are building a "City on a Hill" - a new society of righteous institutions for God's chosen people. It is a chance to start over; to put aside the failures of the past; to embrace new lives around the truths of the Holy Word of God. But what sort of men and women will be found fit to live in such a place? Who is fit to speak for God? The answer to questions like these will test their faith, as the hardships of the new land will. Their answers - won through patience and perseverance- will speak for generations to come.
For not everyone who arrives in the Land of Promise is sent by God, and not everyone who is sent will fulfill their purpose. The chosen of God may go astray: there is a serpent in the garden, and none are immune to the temptations to be found there. There will be conflict and controversy, even war, in this New Jerusalem.
This is America. This is our past. It is also our heritage, left to us by men and women of earnest faith and astonishing courage; the people God calls his own. The hard lessons that Roger Williams learns in his day are worthy of our recollection and consideration. If we forget them, we will have to return to the hard school that Roger Williams knew. If we ignore them, we may reap a harvest of lost opportunity and needless suffering. Read and learn, or weep.
