Now here is some history you did not hear while in school.
Peter Foulger, at the age of eighteen crossed the Atlantic, settling in Massachusetts, where he became a teacher and land surveyor. The Lord eventually led the young man to Newport, Rhode Island, where he heard the gospel preaching of John Clark, and there he was born again. Peter then became burdened for the souls of the natives in the region. He began working with missionary Thomas Mayhew, and by 1694 there were at least two Baptist churches among the Indians in Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Having learned the language of the local natives, Foulger became a negotiator between the settlers and the Indians. On this day in 1673 he was appointed as “clira” of the Courts.
As a Baptist and familiar with persecution, Brother Foulger learned to oppose any and all forms of religious intolerance, and in 1676 he wrote the book, “A Looking Glass for the Times.” Years later, famous Benjamin Franklin, the publisher of “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” described Foulger’s book as a defense of liberty of conscience in “homespun verse, written with a good deal of decent plainness and manly freedom.”
Oh, and by the way, Peter Foulger was the grandfather of that same Benjamin Franklin. Sadly, as far as we know today, one of those men is in Heaven while the other is not.