{"page_2": " his teacher in philosophy for Mr. Williams was a thoroughly loyal man.\n\nOn December 15, 1774, Mr. Williams preached a Thanksgiving sermon on \"Love of Our Country\" Ps. 137: 5,6. The sermon was printed and widely distributed. It breathed no spirit of defiance. It counselled peace. It was uttered in tenderness and grief and under the apprehension that great evil would soon come. The sermon proved a prophecy. Three years later, Mr. Williams read from the same pulpit the Declaration of American Independence.\n\nThere is abundant testimony to the fidelity and evangelical character of the preaching of this Pastor. In his early ministry he delivered two sermons which were the key note of his preaching. The doctrine of his sermons gives a very good symbol of his pastorate. The subject was regeneration. He set forth the importance of salvation, the lost condition in sin. The utter inability of the sinner. The necessity of change by the Grace of God. Lastly the blessedness of that change as seen in love to God; love of Holiness; love to man and love of duty as crowning all.\n\nHe was dismissed June 14, 1780 to accept the professorship of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Harvard College. He received the degree of L. L. D. from the University of Edinburgh and from Yale College. He was Honorable Member of the Meteorological Society of Manheim, Germany and of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia and of the Academy of Arts and Sciences of Massachusetts.\n\nIn 1788 he was dismissed from Cambridge, Mass. Some records state that he had committed \"forgery\" and was discharged.\n\nHe settled in Rutland, Vermont, then new country and was the first minister in the East Parish, so called, in that town. He preached there for six years.\n\nHe also preached at Burlington, Vt. some two years and delivered a course of Lectures at the University of Vermont where he contributed largely to the cause of education there.\n\nOn Dec. 4, 1794, in his Thanksgiving sermon, he announced his intention of withdrawing from active work in the ministry. He had been the first minister of the church as before stated. Rutland itself was less than twenty years old. Vermont had been but three years one of the states of the Union; but the little frontier commonwealth was a heroic post and a patriotic hope rather than a tower of strength in the political world. There was great need after the Revolution of the preacher and the teacher. The college bred men of the state could be counted upon the fingers of two hands. Ethan Allen could capture Ticonderoga, but he could not spell it.\n\nHis decision to withdraw from active work in the ministry filled the people of the East Parish with consternation. ", "page_3": " It was a period of religious and political confusion. The temperament which multiplied Tories just before the Revolution produced after the war a kind of partisan who was destined to become a reproach to federalism. The more radical elements rushed to the other extreme and laid the foundation of the Jeffersonian democracy. With a hot tempered crown calling for less religion and less government and a conservative class violently demanding more religion and more government, the whole tone of public opinion declined and morals were in a sad way also.\n\nAt such a crisis the retirement from the pulpit one of the most conspicuous clergymen of the state was an event of no ordinary moment. Dr. Williams was a Federalist; Rutland County was a republican or in modern phrase, democratic stronghold. His reasons for withdrawal, moreover, bordered very closely upon the sensational. His congregation was small, his church unwarmed, the loose doors admitting drift snow half way down the aisle, and the words of the doctor in small clothes must have fallen with startling force from the pulpit. For six years and more he had preached without adding more than one person to the church membership and that one his own wife. As to the spiritual condition of his flock and of the community he was very frank. In his Thanksgiving sermon he said:-\n\n\" Adverse appearances and events are to be regarded with humiliation and repentance. While we seem to be crowned with prosperity and success in our temporal and civil affairs, everything in our religious concerns seems to bear a contrary appearance and it is with much difficulty that the very form and appearance of religion can be kept up. Every attempt to spread among the people of this state the principles of civil liberty, of historical or scientific knowledge, seems to be received much to their honor, with their greatest approbation and encouragement. But when the attempt is made to explain and confirm the great principles of natural and revealed religion, scarcely anybody will attend to it or regard it. I had flattered myself that when greater degrees of improvement and refinement should be introduced among us there would be more decorum, regularity and decency in our religious assemblies and appearances. But I cannot discern any appearances of the kind. A minister for a considerable part of the time must preach almost to the bare walls and see one part of public worship laid aside as if it depended upon the fancy or humor of the moment. In such things I find such discouragements that I cannot see a prospect of being very useful in an office treated with so much neglect and inattention. And though I do not mean to make any sudden resolutions, I have it in contemplation when I have fulfilled my engagements with you, not to pursue a calling in which no good can be done unless the people will attend.\"\n\nIn effect Dr. Williams' conclusion was this: Things are in a demoralizing state in Rutland. I have tried preaching without success; I now propose to edit a paper. ", "page_4": " Thus, with the aid of his first deacon, a man of means, he started the \" Rutland Herald\" four days after his Thanks-giving sermon; and this paper is still published.\n\nHe saw the possibilities of the public press and he devoted his energies and talents to turning that power into high patriotic channels. In a little one story wooden building ill lighted and uncomfortable he edited his paper, read the proof took advertisements and subscriptions, receiving in pay, corn, butter, pearl ashes and in fact almost any marketable produce. At the same time he edited a periodical called \" The Rural Magazine\". He published a History of Vermont shortly after starting the Herald. A short history of the American Revolution, which he wrote for the Rural Magazine was subsequently printed separately and for many years was used as a child's reader in the schools of New England.\n\nIn 1805 he sold the Herald and was for a time a lecturer at the state university in Burlington. Upon his return to Rutland he lived on Main Street in a house still standing. In those days it contained an enormous chimney with three fireplaces. Here in honorable retirement he lived with his family. A ready conversationalist, and learned beyond those about him, we can imagine him tapping his snuff box before his fireplace in his old age, entertaining or instructing his friends and using his influence for the elevations of the state of his adoption.\n\nRef: \" History of Bradford, Mass.\" by Kingsbury, pgs 96 to 102 \n\" New England Magazine\" by Warren F. Kellogg, publisher \npage 495 Vol. June 1895 \n\" Bradford, Mass. Vital Records \" pages 285, 370 \nWilliams Bible "}