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IV

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND ESTABLISHMENTS

The first group is of those colonies in which the Church of England was established by charter at the beginning, was formally established also by enactment of the colonial legislatures, and remained the State-Church until the Revolution. They are Virginia and the Carolinas.

I. Virginia

The profession of a religious motive in the founding of Virginia, as of other colonies, was very pronounced. Remembering how a similar motive was declared by the Spaniard in the Floridas, by the French in Canada, by the perpetrators of countless atrocities, such as Menendez, who hanged the Port Royalists, “not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans,” we need not inquire over accurately into its sincerity. But it stands on record as a motive and aim.

To Sir Walter Raleigh, planning the settlement of the province which he had named Virginia in honor of his queen, Hakluyt writes a letter, deploring that “the fewest number” of explorers seek “the glorie of God and the saving of the soules of the poore and blinded infidels,” and expressing pleasure in Raleigh’s project, because “you meane to sende some such good Churchman thither (to Virginia) as may truly say with the Apostles to the Sauvages, wee seeke not yours but you.”

The same motive finds place in the first Virginia charter, given by James I., 1606, which recites the hope and intention that, “so noble a worke may by the Providence of Almighty God hereafter tend to the glorie of his Divine Majesty in the

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propagating of the Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness.” To this admirable Christian and missionary motive the charter, after outlining the method of colonial administration, adds a prescription, “that the said presidents, councils, and the ministers should provide that the Word and Science of God be preached, planted, and used, not only in the said colonies, but also as much as might be among the savages bordering among them, according to the rites and doctrine of the Church of England.”¹ Thus at the very beginning and in the foundation of the new community was the Church of England established in Virginia.

The first expedition, which left England in December of 1606 and reached Virginia in the following April, brought the Rev. Robert Hunt, who was specially chosen for the service by the archbishop of Canterbury and for whose support the company voted £500. He is variously described as well fitted for his position—“a pious, disinterested, resolute, and exemplary man”—“a man of piety, scholarship, and devotion.”² The colonists settled Jamestown, built Fort James, and “for a Church they nailed a board between two trees to serve as a reading desk, and stretched a canvas awning over it, and there the Rev. Robert Hunt, a high-minded and courageous divine, first clergyman of English America, read the Episcopal service and preached a sermon twice on every Sunday.”³

The second charter of 1609 repeated the terms of ecclesiastical establishment. It also licensed the company to take to Virginia “all persons wishing to go thither, who would take the oath of supremacy.” This clearly marks the desire that no non-conformists should be settled in the new colony. At the same time it opened the door to a far more undesirable class of people, as says the New Life of Virginia,⁴ “By which

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means the body of the plantation was now augmented with such numbers of irregular persons. . . they displayed their condition in all kinds of looseness.” To such admission of “irregular persons,” who would not scruple at the oath of supremacy, the government attempted shortly afterward to add the forcible importation of convicts.¹ Setting out to enforce the Act 39 Eliz., “that such rogues as are dangerous to the common people be banished the realm,” the king commanded the Virginia company to receive one hundred “dissolute persons” and send them to Virginia. The company resisted, but the transportation of at least fifty was insisted on. Later, in 1617, there was an order in council for the delivery of five prisoners in Oxford gaol to Sir Thomas Smyth, for transportation to Virginia.² On this policy wrote Stith, “It hath laid the finest countries in America under just scandall of being a mere hell upon earth.”

There is no need for us to follow the general fortunes of the infant colony. The short ministerial service of Hunt was followed by the ministry of Alexander Whitaker, “the Apostle of Virginia,” who wrote the “Good News from Virginia.” Of him, W. Crashawe, in the “Epistle Dedicatorie,” says that he was “a scholler, a graduate, a preacher, well-borne and friended in England; not in debt or disgrace, but competently provided-for; not in want, but rich in possession and more in possibility; of himself, without any persuasion (but God’s and his own heart), he did voluntary leave his warme nest, and undertooke this hard—heroical resolution to go to Virginia and helpe to beare the name of God unto the Gentiles.”³

Whitaker’s “Good News” was published in 1612, the year after Sir Thomas Dale came to the governor’s office. Dale was sent out by the company to correct the disorders which jealousies, a false system, and lax morality had caused the

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colony, a work to which the stern soldier set himself with a firm hand. Whitaker describes him as “a man of great knowledge in divinity, and of a good conscience in all things, both which be rare in a martial man.” The first act of Dale was to destroy the communal system of land tenure and labor, and by giving personal titles to land and to rewards of labor to infuse life and hope into an almost dying community.

The next step was the attempted correction of the moral and religious slackness of the settlers, to accomplish which he ordained the “Lawes Divine, Moral and Martial.” These laws “had been copied, for the most part, from the Laws observed during the wars in the Low Countries, in which Dale had himself served.”¹ Like the laws of Draco, they were of a severity far exceeding any of the more famous Puritan restrictions in New England. The extreme harshness of them can only be accounted for by the supposition of the great laxity in the young community, described in “Virginia’s Cure”—a letter written by R. G. to the Bishop of London: “Through the licentious lives of many of them the Christian religion is like still to lie dishonored, and the name of God blasphemed among the Heathen, who are near them and oft among them, and consequently their conversion hindered.”²

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The sections of Dale’s Code, which have reference to religion, are briefly as follows:¹—

1. To speak impiously of the Trinity or one of the Divine Persons, or against the known articles of Christian faith, was punishable with death.
2. The same penalty of death was to avenge “blaspheming God’s holy Name.”
3. To curse or “banne”—for the first offence some severe punishment; for the second a “bodkin should be thrust through the tongue”; if the culprit was incorrigible, he should suffer death.
4. To say or do anything “to the derision or despight of God’s holy word,” or in disrespect to any Minister, exposed the offender to be “openly whipt 3 times, and to ask public forgiveness in the assembly of the congregation, 3 several Saboth daies.”
5. Non-attendance on religious services entailed a penalty, for the first offence, of the stoppage of allowance; for the second, whipping; for the third, the galleys for six months.
6. For Sabbath-breaking the first offence brought the stoppage of allowance; the second, whipping; and the third, death.
7. Preachers and ministers were enjoined to faithfulness in the conduct of regular services on pain “of losing their entertainment.”
8. Every person in the colony, or who should come into it, was required to repair to the Minister for examination in the faith. If he should be unsound, he was to be instructed. If any refused to go to the minister, he should be whipt on a second refusal he should be whipt twice and compelled to “acknowledge his fault on Saboth day in the assembly of the congregation”; for a third refusal he should be “whipt every day until he makes acknowledgment.”

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Notwithstanding the atrocity of these requirements, it does not appear that their severer penalties were ever enforced by Dale. His “bark was worse than his bite,” and the fulmination of such orders was doubtless with the view of frightening the lawless elements into decency.

Dale’s successor, Argal, who came to office in 1616, a man of “indiscriminate rapacity and vices,” was not so gentle. The “bloody code” spoke his mind, and he made use of its severity, and more, to further his own greed and passion.

The condition of Virginia became intolerable; the labor of the settlers was perverted to the benefit of the governor; servitude for a limited period was the common penalty annexed to trifling offences; life itself was insecure against his capricious passions.”¹ Finally, his ferocity in condemning Captain Brewster to death brought a general outcry from the colonists. Appeal was taken to England, the “Lawes Divine, Moral and Martial,” were abrogated by the company, and Argal was superseded by Yeardley, whose inefficient administration was, after three years, terminated by the appointment of Sir Francis Wyatt.

Hitherto, the government of Virginia had been a practical despotism by the company in London and by the governors. Wyatt brought with him in 1621 new ordinances of government, which transformed the entire system. Adding to the governor a council and a general assembly, meeting annually, the new system was practically as free and self-governing as that established by the Massachusetts Puritans. Nor was it in any essential particular modified by the abrogation of the company’s patent in 1624 and the assumption of the colony as a royal province. It was meant to conserve “the greatest comfort and benefit of the people, and the prevention of injustices, grievances, and oppressions.”²

The first article of “Instructions” to the new government, as of prime importance, directs the authorities “to take into their special regard the service of Almighty God and the

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observance of His divine Laws; and that the people should be trained up in true religion and virtue . . . to the Order and Administration of Divine Service according to the form and discipline of the Church of England; carefully to avoid all factions and needless novelties, which only tended to the disturbance of peace and unity; and to cause that the Ministers should be duly respected and maintained.” ¹

Under these ordinances, which also provided that no decree from England should have the force of law in Virginia until ratified by the general assembly, the care for religion and the establishment was made a prime duty of the government—a duty which the legislature set itself repeatedly to perform.

The first assembly, whose acts have been preserved, was that of 1623. Among its earliest actions was a rather comprehensive measure in regard to religious matters.² It enacted that “there should be in every plantation, where the people are to meet, for the worship of God, a house or room sequestered for that purpose, and not to be for any temporal use whatever.” Also, “there should be a uniformity in our Church as near as may be to the Canons in England, both in substance and in circumstance, and that all persons yield readie obedience under pain of censure.”³

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The assembly was very careful for the standing, reputation, behaviour, and efficiency of the clergy. Thus in 1629 it was ordered that “All ministers conforme themselves to the canons of the Church of England.”¹ Further, “noe man shall disparage a mynister, whereby the myndes of his parishoners may be alienated from him, and his mynistrie prove less effectuall, upon payne of the severe censure of the governor and council.”² Not only must the people be restrained from such disrespect for the ministry, but the clergy must be forbidden all conduct which could justify disparagement. It would appear that, already forgetting the examples of the saintly Hunt and Whitaker, the Virginia clergy had begun to assume that indecorous conduct which was the cause of so much lamentation in after years. Thus the statute reads,³ “Mynisters shall not give themselves to excesse in drinking or ryott, spending the time idelie by day or by night, playing at dice, cards, or any other unlawful game, but at all tymes convenient they shall heare or reade somewhat of the holy scriptures, shall occupie themselves with some other honest studies or exercise, always doing the things which shall appertayne to honestie and endeavor to profitt the Church of God, having

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alwayes in minde that they ought to excell all others in puritie of life, and should be examples to the people, to live well and christianlie.”

As to services, the assembly ordained, in 1631 and 1632,¹ that every minister “shall preach one sermon, every Sunday in the year,” and “shall, halfe an hower before every prayer, examine and instruct the youth.” He must also visit “the dangerouslie sick”; and must administer the sacrament “thrice in the year.” It also commanded that “all preaching, administrynge the communion, and marriage shall be in the Church, except in cases of necessitie.”

In 1628 Lord Baltimore came to Virginia, intending only to make that colony a place of temporary sojourn while arranging for his own colony under the king’s patent. But he was not suffered to remain. The governor and council insisted that, even for so short a time as his purposes required, he must take the oath of supremacy. As a Roman Catholic, it was impossible for him to acknowledge the ecclesiastical headship of the king of England, but he offered to take a modified oath covering all necessary questions of allegiance. This the Virginians were not willing to accept, and Baltimore, though a personal friend of Charles, was not allowed to remain in the colony. We may very strongly suspect that this action was due, less to ardor for the royal prerogative and the maintenance of the established Church, than to jealousy of a new proprietor who designed to found another and rival colony on the borders of Virginia.

However this may be, the incident may be credited with inciting a renewal of zeal for the establishment, which expressed itself in a new act of uniformity by the assembly of 1631.² The act ordained the observance “throughout this colony” of “the canons and constitution of the Church of England—upon penaltie of the paynes and forfeitures in that case appoynted.” This act was repeated in the next assembly. Absentees from Church services were fined one

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shilling for each offence, while “all commanders, captaynes, and church-wardens” were solemnly charged to “see this good and wholesome lawe” observed; and the church-wardens were required to take oath to faithfully discharge their duties and watch over the conduct of the people under the statute.

So far as the terms of law went, Virginia, both under the company and under the king, was not liberal in matters of religion. Practically, however, while the laws were rigid, the authorities were lax in their enforcement up to the time of Berkeley. This action in regard to Lord Baltimore was the first case recorded of molestation for conscience’ sake.¹ There occurred also under Governor Harvey an instance of ministerial subjection to the civil power. A certain Mr. White, a minister, was silenced by Harvey “for cursing those of his own parish.”² This action was presently used as an accusation against Harvey. He defended himself by saying that White never produced any credentials of ordination, though he had two years in which to obtain them. Harvey cited the commandment of Archbishop Laud that no man should be taken as a minister to Virginia, until his orders were approved by the bishop of London. The practical rule, however, was tolerant, though it is probable that, had any avowed Romanist come to the colony with purpose of domicile, he would have been expelled, as among all Protestants of the time there was an abiding hatred of all things “papistical.”

To such animosity the Puritans were not obnoxious for the first thirty years of Virginia history. Indeed, until about 1640, the Puritans in England considered themselves, and were considered by others, as having right and place in the Church of England. Winthrop and his companions bade a tender farewell to their “own Mother Church,” as they set sail for America. Not until they set about their own Church-making in New England did they separate from the dear

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English mother. Thus in Virginia there was a considerable sprinkling of Puritans, who could without scruple take the oath of supremacy. A considerable number came over in Wyatt’s term. The apostle Whitaker was himself a Puritan. “Here,” said he, “neither surplice nor subscription is spoken of.”¹ Even the Pilgrims (Separatists) of Plymouth would have met a welcome in Virginia had they accepted the invitation sent after their first hard winter.²

A change in the attitude of Virginia toward the Puritans appeared about 1639, during Wyatt’s second term, as a reflection of the struggle in England. There the Puritans had espoused the side of the parliament, and the cause of the king and Church had become identical. Already had Archbishops Bancroft and Laud fulminated against allowing Puritans in the royal province of Virginia, distinguished by its statutory zeal for Church and king; and Charles had issued a proclamation forbidding their admission into the colony. For this reason the Virginia authorities, looking on the Puritans in England as rebels, soon learned to consider all Puritans everywhere as heretics, and became anxious to take such steps as would “prevent the infection from reaching this colony” in larger measure than was already present.

The first action, in 1642, was to strengthen the establishment against all opponents. To this end the legislature

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enacted an elaborate law for the government of the Church.¹ This provided for a rigid performance of the Church of England “liturgie, according to the booke of common prayer, allowed by his Ma’tie and confirmed by consent of parliament.” It also provided for a “yearly meeting of the ministers and church-wardens before the commander and commissioners of every county court, in the nature of a visitation.” This act was accompanied by another against the Romanists. Such were to be disfranchised, and any priests, coming into the colony, were to be expelled within five days.² The latter action was to guard against the danger of “infection” from Roman Catholic Maryland. It may be doubted whether the above demand for conformity would have disturbed the Puritan element already in Virginia had not the scarcity and quality of the established clergy compelled them to look elsewhere for religious teachers. The number of the clergy was very small, and supposing them to be of the most devoted spirit, they were far too few to minister to the people, who were not gathered in towns, but scattered on plantations. In recognition of this lack of ministers, the legislature at sundry times made efforts to increase their number by urging emigration and offering rewards for their importation. The quality of the clergy, also, had already begun to express those scandalous features, of which at a later day so much complaint was made.
     Because of such conditions the Puritans in Nansemond County, leaders among whom were Richard Bennett and Daniel Gookin, bethought them of sending to Boston for religious aid.³ Philip Bennett, a ship-master, carried to the governor of Massachusetts a letter descriptive of the religious needs, and asking that ministers be sent to Virginia. This “Macedonian Cry” stirred the hearts of the New England

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Puritans, who in solemn conclave deputed three ministers to the mission. They were William Thomson of Braintree, John Knowles of Watertown, and Thomas James of New Haven. They immediately departed for Virginia, taking with them a letter from Governor Winthrop to the governor of Virginia, Sir William Berkeley.

Berkeley had just come to the province, and brought with him a spirit “very malignant to the way of the Churches in Now England,” believing that “to tolerate Puritanism was to resist the king.” To such feeling he gave sharp expression in his reception of the New England ministers, who were at once made to understand that they were very unwelcome in the colony.¹

The visiting ministers were not discouraged by the churlish behaviour of Berkeley, but began their proposed work in Nansemond, and thereupon the governor procured the passage of a law requiring the “governor and council to take care that all non-conformists be compelled to depart the collony with all convenincie.”² This act of expulsion was at once obeyed by Knowles and James, who retired into Maryland and afterward to New England. Thomson remained for several months, laboring with success, until he also was forced to leave. A Mr. Durand, apparently a minister, was also banished by the governor; and Richard Bennett, who had been instrumental in bringing the New England ministers, found it desirable to accept the invitation of Lord Baltimore to a refuge in Maryland. The controversy was not long sustained, as, in view of the scattered population, it was difficult to make head against the despotic Berkeley. But Puritan sentiments continued to be quietly disseminated,

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and Harrison, on his departure from Virginia (1648), reported that “one thousand of the people, by conjecture, were of similar mind.”¹ Fiske notes that the Indian massacre of 1644 was variously considered as a divine judgment for harboring, or persecuting, the Puritans.

It would appear that even some of the established clergy had become infected by the poison of Puritanism,² as in 1645 the assembly enacted a law to punish such clergymen as should refuse to read the common prayer, or conduct service “according to the Church of England.” The delinquents were mulcted in a fine of five hundred pounds of tobacco. It was also laid upon parents and masters, under penalties, to compel children and servants to attend church and “catechizing.”

In one respect there was a disturbing influence in the bosom of the Church itself. This came from the ambition of the Church vestries. These bodies were the subject of frequent legislation. Owing to social conditions, they were often called upon to discharge semi-civil functions, and were ambitious of more power than the government was willing to concede. Especially were they impatient at the governor’s claim to the right of presentation to all parishes, insisting that it belonged to them to choose and settle the ministers. To this insistence the government was forced to yield, and in 1642 the same legislature which denied liberty outside of the Church declared the right of the people in the Church by conceding the claim of the vestries, “provided that it shall be lawful for the Governor, for the time being, to admit and elect such a minister as he shall allow of in James Citty parish.”³ The governor was minded to have a decisive voice in the selection of his own minister.

This loss of patronage by the governor gave great offence to the “ardent and narrow-minded” Nicholson, nearly fifty years later, and he endeavored to restore the right to the

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governor’s office. An extreme high-churchman, he carried the matter to England and secured from Attorney General Northey an opinion against the act of 1642, which he sent to all the vestries in the colony. But they were too firmly intrenched in their position by time and use to be disturbed or affected.¹ They went on their own way and too often used their power to the disadvantage of the Church and people. Much complaint was made of their proceedings from time to time, especially for frequent refusal to install ministers as rectors, preferring to hire them from year to year, in order “to make slaves of them.” Godwyn’s letter to Berkeley complained that: “Ministers are most miserably handled by their Plebeian Juntos, the Vesteries;” that they were browbeaten and poorly paid, and there was no inducement for good men to come from England.²

The specially notable feature in this situation, aside from its influence on the state of religion, is the fact that it marks the first step towards disestablishment, unconsciously taken, indeed, and with no thought of such an issue. At the same time it was a stride towards the freedom of the Church, the first and successful protest in the Church itself against the interference of the civil power.

Despite the presence of this unsuspected seed of disunion, the leaders in Virginia seem to have felt that, with the Puritan services suppressed, the condition of the Church was prosperous in Berkeley’s first term as governor. A tract published in London in 1649, entitled, “A Perfect Description of Virginia,”³ says: “They have twenty Churches in Virginia, and the Doctrines and orders after the Church of England. The Ministers’ Livings are esteemed worth at least £100 per annum; they are paid by each planter so much Tobacco per Pole and so many bushels of corn; they live all in peace and love.’

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With the accession of Cromwell to power in England, the intolerance of Virginia received a temporary check. Commissioners from the commonwealth, one of whom, Bennett, succeeded Berkeley as governor, came out to visit the colonies and regulate their affairs. By an agreement between them and the colonial legislature, all oppressions were forbidden, and “the use of the book of common-prayer permitted for one year, save the prayers for the King.”¹ It does not appear, however, that the limit of one year was regarded. The Anglican service was connived at and continued through the commonwealth period, while non-conformists were unmolested. The direction of Church affairs was left to the people, and in relation thereto but two laws were passed, in 1655 and 1657.² The one ordered that tithes in a vacant parish should be paid to the county court. The other formally committed to the vestries and people the care of ecclesiastical affairs, an act which would possibly have soon issued in an entire Separation of Church from State, had not the restoration of the kingdom put an end to its validity.

The liberalizing tendency of the period, however, was not universal, and in 1659 Virginia ranged herself with Massachusetts and New York in persecuting Quakers. The strange zeal which brought the early followers of Fox into every place where a chance of persecution offered, led some of their number to Virginia, where at once they were proscribed. We have no such detailed account of proceedings against them as exists in the annals of Massachusetts, but the laws to suppress them were surpassed in severity by the northern colony only in its imposition of the death penalty. In 1659³ the legislature enacted its first law against the sect. Not anticipating their coming, as did Massachusetts, Virginia waited until the arrival of the dreaded agitators. Then the house of burgesses proceeded against “that unreasonable and turbulent sort of people, comonly

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called Quakers.” Shipmasters were forbidden to bring them to the colony under a penalty of £100. The same penalty was ordered for any person “entertaining” any Quaker. No person could publish or dispose of their books. All members of the sect in the colony were to be arrested and imprisoned until “they abjure the country,” and then were to depart with all speed and not return again.¹ If banished Quakers should return, they were to be punished as “contemners of the law and magistrates,” and if they should, be “a third time so audacious and impudent as to return hither,” they were “to be proceeded against as felons.”

That was what Virginia had to say to Quakers under the commonwealth. Under the Restoration, when Berkeley had returned as governor, the repressive laws were reënacted, though with somewhat less severe penalties.² In 1661 it was ordered that Quakers not attending the Church service should be fined “under the statute 23d Elizabeth”; and any person attending a Quaker meeting should be fined one hundred pounds of tobacco. Again, in 1663, the act of 1659 was substantially repassed, with the substitution of tobacco for pounds sterling in the description of penalty. The failure of a magistrate to enforce the law was punishable by a fine of two thousand pounds of tobacco.

This clause of urgency on the magistrates is a clear indication that the practical severity of proceedings against the Quakers was relaxing; of which the act gives another token in a clause permitting the release of Quakers on giving security not to assemble to worship. It shows that the authorities, however hostile in feeling to the sect, had recognized the fact that their exclusion from the colony had become impossible.³

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But the Quakers held their ground, though with many vexations for some years. Especially did the petulant Berkeley endeavor to make things unpleasant for them.¹ A large number of them were from time to time arraigned and fined. One of them, Owen, said, “Tender consciences must obey the law of God, however they suffer”; to be met by Berkeley with the reply, “There is no toleration for wicked consciences.” In 1672 William Edmundson sought from Berkeley a kinder treatment of the Friends, but could obtain no satisfaction. On his complaining to Major General Bennett that the governor “was very peevish and brittle,” the General asked, “Did he call you dog, rogue?”—“No,” said Edmundson. “Then,” was the reply, “you took him in his best humor, those being his usual terms when he is very angry; for he is an enemy to every appearance of good.”

After Berkeley’s time we read of no further molestation of the Quakers, though it was not until the next century that they obtained from legislation that relief in the matter of tithes, oaths, and military service, which their consciences demanded.² It is notable that the final act of exemption from all proscriptive penalties, an act which classes them with the Mennonites as “those peaceable and industrious people,” was not passed until 1783.

The Restoration put an end to the qualified liberty which the commonwealth had allowed in Virginia, and Berkeley returned to his government fully prepared to assert the claims of the Church of England. His instructions from the king enjoined him to “special care that the Common Prayer,

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as now established, be read each Sunday and Holy Day, and the blessed Sacraments administered according to the “Rights of the Church of England.” He was ordered to care for the Churches, and have more built; to see also that the ministers were supported, homes built for them with glebes of one hundred acres each.¹ In edifying contrast with the usual intent of the establishment, and also with the legislation immediately enacted in the colony, the king’s instructions further declared “and because we are willing to give all possible encouragement to persons of different persuasions in matters of Religion to transport themselves thither with their stock, You are not to suffer any man to be molested or disquieted in the exercise of his Religion, so he be content with a quiet and peaceable enjoying it, and not giving therein offence or scandall to the Government.”

Berkeley, it would seem, considered that to himself, as the government, any non-Anglican worship was so great an offence as to negative all the tolerance of his instructions. His first legislation in 1661² enacted stringent laws. The old law of 1642 was revived, and to it were added requirements, that “the whole liturgy of the Church of England should be thoroughly read every Sunday”; that the ministers should preach every Sunday, and administer the Lords Supper at least twice a year, and that no catechism should be used other than that appointed by the canons. Another law declared that no ministers, but such as were ordained by some Bishop in England,” could be allowed in the colony. All others were to be sent away. Still another statute limited the right of performing the marriage service to ministers of the Church of England, and declared the children of marriages by other ministers illegitimate. In the following year the legislature vented its wrath against the “many schismatical persons, so averse to the established religion and so

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filled with the new-fangled conceits of their own heretical inventions, as to refuse to have their children baptized.” Then followed penalties for such refusal, and it was ordered that no non-conformist could teach, even in private, under pain of banishment.¹ The same session made a new vestry law, constituting a vestry of twelve in each parish, giving power to levy all taxes, and also to fill all vacancies in their own body. Thus “the control passes from the parish to a close corporation which the parish could neither alter nor direct.”

These severe measures reinstated bigotry in greater force than it had ever held in Virginia, and many of the more liberal minded, specially from the Puritans in Nansemond, went over into North Carolina. This with the previous departure of Puritans to Maryland, estimated (probably overestimated) by Howison as to the number of one thousand, reacted on the colony to its very serious moral and religious loss. All accounts agree that the condition of religious affairs was deplorable. Besides the departure of the non-conformist element, two other causes of this condition are noted. The one was the peculiar character of settlement, not in towns and villages, but on large plantations. The planter lived in the midst of his wide tract, surrounded by his family and servants, with no neighbors within miles. Frequent social or religious gatherings were difficult. The Church thus suffered, and the people were largely strangers to its services, with the consequences of much dissoluteness of life.

The pamphlet, Virginia’s Cure:² Discovering the true ground of that church’s unhappiness, and the only true Remedy. Presented to the Bishop of London, 1661, enlarges on the evils of this scattered condition. It calls this “settling remote from the Church” by the hard name of “Sacrilege,” as causing “the Sin of robbing God of his Publick Worship and Service in the House of Prayer.” It further complains

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of great destitution of Churches and ministers, that many parishes were without Church buildings, and that not more than one-fifth of the parishes were supplied with ministers. As to the remedy, the “Cure” desired more and better ministers, with a bishop to direct them. This appears to be the first outcry for an American episcopate so frequently heard in after years. It is echoed in this same year, 1661, by the Rev. Philip Mallory, who was sent to England to obtain assistance for the Virginia Churches, and insisted that the government should “send a bishop so soon as there should be a city for a see.”¹

But the most baleful influence was in the moral character of most of the ministers in the colony. The majority were men of disrepute in England who had emigrated to Virginia, either to retrieve their reputation or to indulge their vices unchecked. They were profane swearers, brawlers, drunkards, gamblers, and licentious. This shameful character received statutory recognition in the laws of 1669 and 1705² against infidelity, blasphemy, swearing, Sabbath-breaking, adultery, etc., which specially provided that “clergymen guilty of any of these crimes” were not to be exempted from the penalties of the law! To suppose that the moral character of the clergy did not give reason for that provision, changes the statute into a monstrous and gratuitous insult to the Church and its ministry,—an impossible thing for a legislature imbued with reverence for the Church and its orders.

Morgan Godwyn, in the letter to Berkeley already quoted, wrote, “Two thirds of the preachers are made up of leaden lay priests of the vestry’s ordination, and are both the shame and grief of the rightly ordained clergy here.”³ This Godwyn was a clergyman, who spent some time in Virginia and addressed the Bishops of England praying for a godly ministry. That address is lost. Godwyn was called by the Virginia agents in London, “an inconsiderable wretch,” but an

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abundance of other proof shows that his testimony in regard to the Virginia clergy is not to be invalidated.

Hammond’s famous Leah and Rachel, or Two Fruitful Sisters, Virginia and Maryland (London, 1656),¹ uses strong language. Speaking of the efforts to obtain ministers from England, it says, “But Virginia savoring not handsomely in England, very few of good conversation would adventure thither (as thinking it a place wherein surely the fear of God was not), yet many came, such as wore Black Coats, and could babble in a Pulpit, roare in a Tavern, exact from their Parishioners, and rather by their dissoluteness destroy, than feed, their Flocks.” The pamphlet further says that some of these reprobate persons were by the authorities “questioned, silenced, and forced to depart the country.”

That such charges were just is further indicated by the acknowledgments of men with every inducement to prove them slanderous, if such proof were possible. Thus Anderson, a clergyman of the Church of England, and an historian giving many instances of special pleading for the claims and honor of the Church, writing of the sad condition of the Virginia establishment,² says, “Endowments by the Colonial Legislature only magnified the evil. They bribed to indolence ministers already settled in the province and attracted from the mother country others, who had long been a reproach to it. . . . Not a few of the clergy remained steadfast, worthy, prudent, and pious, meeting with the love, respect, and encouragement that such men may deserve to expect. But these, it must be confessed, were exceptions to the general character of the clergy.”

To this may be added the testimony of Meade,³ Bishop of Virginia, 1829-1862: “Immense were the difficulties in getting a full supply of ministers of any character; and of

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those who came how few were faithful and duly qualified for the station! . . . It is a well established fact that some, who were discarded from the English Church, yet obtained livings in Virginia. . . . There was not only defective preaching, but most evil living among the clergy. . . . One of them was for years president of a jockey club; another fought a duel in sight of the very Church in which he had performed the solemn offices of religion: another quarreled with his vestry violently, and on the next Sunday preached from the words of Nehemiah, ‘And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair.’”

Governor Berkeley’s testimony in the matter has been frequently quoted and is not to be set down to his constitutional bile. It is in his official reply to the annual “Inquiries” of 1671 from the home government as to the state of the province, and reads, “As to religious teaching—We have 48 parishes and our ministers are well paid, and by my consent should be better, if they would pray oftener and preach less. But as of all other commodities, so of this, the worst are sent us, and we had few that we could boast of since the persecution in Cromwell’s tiranny drove divers worthy men hither.”

The sole purpose in noting this degeneracy in the Virginia clergy is to mark it as a powerful factor in the question of Church and State. Accounts agree that the moral condition of the people generally was not of a high order, but even loose laymen object to clergymen whose morals are no better than their own. Says Meade, It is not wonderful that disaffection should take place, and dissent begin.” Long before the fall of the establishment in Virginia, the immense majority of the people were dissenters, many of them alienated from the Episcopal Church by this condition of its clergy.

Another less direct means may be found in the governmental restrictions on intellectual life. Schools were rarities, and printing was forbidden. Commissary Blair found

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immense difficulty in founding his college at Williamsburg. Berkeley, in the above-quoted reply, exults over the lack: “But I thank God”—it is a consolation to him for the immorality of the clergy—“there are no free schools nor printing; and I hope we shall not have these hundred years for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them and libels against the best government. God keep us from both!” In 1682 Governor Culpepper and the council had before them a certain John Buckner, who had been guilty of printing the laws of 1680, and commanded him not to print anything. The first evidence of printing thereafter in Virginia was in the Revised Laws, edition of 1733.¹ In 1683 Lord Howard of Effingham succeeded Culpepper in Virginia, and the royal instructions commanded him to allow no person to use a printing press on any occasion whatsoever.”²

In the year following the arrival of a governor, whose instructions were so narrow, there came into Virginia the man whose influence in the cause of religious liberty in the colonies must be reckoned as second to that of but few others. This was Francis Makemie, the first Presbyterian minister in America. Born and educated in Ireland, he was ordained in 1681 by the presbytery of Laggan to missionary work in the colonies. He went first to Barbadoes and soon thereafter came to Virginia. He settled in Accomac, where was his home until his death in 1708. A man of great devotion and courage, he not only labored diligently in the neighborhood of his home, but also spent much time in preaching tours, extending them into Carolina, and so far north as New York. It was in the latter colony that those experiences were suffered, which gave him his high place in the history of religious freedom, and which will be detailed when we come to tell the story of that province. He “durst not deny preaching and hoped he never should, while it was wanting and desired.”³

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In Virginia he suffered many annoyances from the authorities, but does not seem to have been subjected to any severity. He was the first dissenting minister in Virginia to obtain a certificate under the English toleration act of 1689, wherewith William and Mary signalized their accession to the throne. Together with this certificate Makemie obtained licenses for two houses in Accomac as places of dissenting worship, to which still another was added by 1704.¹

The Virginia legislature was most grudgingly compelled to recognize the toleration act. Its first certificate, that to Makemie, was not issued until 1699; and in after years, as will presently appear, every new variety of religious worship was forced to extort its rights under the act, by dint of much effort and clamor, and, at times, of great suffering. Notwithstanding this, Beverly states that “liberty of conscience is given to all other congregations pretending to Christianity, on condition that they submit to the parish dues.”²

In the following years, some exemptions from this condition were granted, because of special influence and spasms of unwonted legislative clemency. Many of the Huguenot refugees found their way to the colonies, and a number of those who came to Virginia were in 1700 organized by the governor and council into “The Huguenot Parish of King William”; of which parish it was ordered that “the inhabitants be left at their own liberty to agree with and pay their minister, as the circumstances will permit.”³ In 1730, through the influence of Governor Spotswood, the same exemption was granted to the German Lutherans of Germanna. But these favors were quite exceptional, and it does not appear

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that the other dissenters were relieved of Church rates until the Revolution brought the fall of the establishment.

For many years, indeed, though the sentiments of a large proportion of the people were averse to the established Church, there was yet little growth of dissenting bodies. Most of the aversion was due to irreligion, rather than to any force of conscience or desire for non-conforming worship. There was great neglect of worship, and the legislature was almost yearly exerting itself to force the people to attend services and to bring their children for baptism. Acts were multiplied to this end, and to create, divide, and unite parishes, in order to facilitate attendance on the established Church.¹ There was a strenuous governmental effort to counteract: first, the dissent of indifference; and second, the spiritual dissent of the Presbyterian revival.

In 1702, there were reported forty-nine parishes with thirty-four ministers, three Quaker Meetings, and three Presbyterian congregations. Beyond these small numbers dissenting bodies did not greatly increase until the fifth decade of the century, and Governor Spotswood was able to write his famous report of 1710:² “This government is in perfect peace and tranquillity, under due obedience to royal authority and a gentlemanly conformity to the Church of England.”

Occasionally there arose a desire for old-time persecution. In 1722 the grand jury made thirteen presentments of absentees from divine service. At the same court Messrs. Mosley and Shelton were tried for baptizing a child, and required to give bonds for good behaviour, in default of which they were thrown into jail and condemned to suffer thirty-one stripes, “16 in the evening and 15 in the morning.”³

Meanwhile there was a continual influx of elements of population which were eventually to bring the establishment

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to grief. In 1714, a small number of English Baptists settled in the southeastern part of the province; and thirty years later a larger number came to the northwestern part and settled in the region of the Blue Ridge. These immigrations do not seem to have aroused the immediate opposition of the government.¹ It was not until the very end of the colonial period that the Virginia Baptists were driven to light their noble battle for liberty of worship.

In 1729 began the immigration of sturdy Scotch Irish—almost to a man Presbyterian—which peopled much of the mountain regions about the head-waters of the Potomac, the Rappahannock, and the James.² To them were added many Germans, Lutheran and Reformed, first from the Palatinate and then from Pennsylvania. These Irish and Germans were fortunate in their location, so far as concerned their freedom of religion. Their distance from the seat of government served to obscure the offence of their non-conformity, while the government was anxious to have the frontier settled, as a “Barrier” against Indian attack, without close scrutiny into the religious preferences of the settlers.

Somewhat later the Methodists began to come into the colony, though they are not to be classed among the non-conformists or the strugglers for religious liberty. As in England, so in Virginia, they avowed their adherence to the established Church and, though they instituted an order of lay preachers, they insisted on the administration of ordinances by the hands of the regular clergy. They met with no opposition from the Virginia government, but identified themselves with the establishment, thus procuring to themselves no small portion of odium in the Revolution, as tories in politics and opponents to lull freedom of worship.³ It was because of this cordial regard between the Methodists and the establishment that Whitefield was permitted to freely

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preach in Virginia, during his visits to America; and it is to be noted that he so preached on the special invitation of Commissary Blair, the representative in Virginia of the bishop of London, to whom the care of the colonial Church had been committed by the government.¹ To this preaching of Whitefield is doubtless to be attributed an indirect influence in widening the limits of liberty. Its straightforward gospel teaching and its fervent eloquence made a profound impression in Virginia, as in other colonies, powerfully aiding in the introduction of a better moral and religious life.

Among its most notable immediate effects was the almost dramatic movement in which Morris and Winston were the principal figures. While there is no record that these men ever came into personal contact with the great preacher, we may take it as beyond doubt that they received their religious impulse from his work. With a few neighboring families in Hanover County, they withdrew themselves from the services of the established Church, and met at the house of Morris for worship. As their numbers grew, Morris built a reading-house for this express use.

This Samuel Morris is described as “a brick-layer, of singular simplicity of character; sincere, devout, earnest.”² He attempted no exercise of preaching, but read to the little congregation from such religious books as he could obtain the Bible, a volume of Whitefield Sermons, Luther’s Table-Talk and Commentary on Galatians. The leaders of the movement, uninstructed in matters of Church polity and unguided by any minister, were at a loss to decide what to call themselves by way of religious denomination, and from their favorite author were at first disposed to assume the name of Lutherans.

These irregular religious services soon drew the attention of the authorities and the lenders of the movement were summoned to answer before the governor and council. On

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their way to such answer they found a copy of the Westminster Confession, with which they were so pleased that they adopted it as their own, and presented it to the governor as an exhibition of their creed and denomination. This book was well known to Governor Gooch, who exclaimed, “These men are Presbyterians,” and acknowledged their rights under the act of toleration.

Gooch was a man of unusual liberality of feeling, in marked contrast with most of the royal governors. A letter of his is preserved in reply to one from the synod of Philadelphia, written in 1738 to solicit the governor’s kindly consideration for the Presbyterians settled in the northern part of the province. To this the governor answered: “You may be assured no interference shall be given to any minister of their profession, who shall come among them, so as they conform themselves to the rules prescribed by the Act of Toleration in England.”¹ In the opinion of Samuel Davies, had the governor been alone in power, the Presbyterians of Hanover would have suffered little annoyance.² He wrote: “The Hon. Sir William Gooch, our late governor, discovered a ready disposition to allow us all claimable privileges, and the greatest aversion to persecuting measures; but, considering the shocking reports spread abroad concerning us by officious malignants, it is no great wonder the council discovered a considerable reluctance to tolerate us. Had it not been for this, I persuade myself that they would have shown themselves the guardians of our legal privileges.”

The issue of this first action of the authorities seems to have been without oppression, but the next few years brought much opposition, and it is estimated that Morris paid more

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than twenty fines for his steadfast adherence to the new movement.¹

On the recognition of their rights by the governor the Hanover people at once declared themselves Presbyterians and applied to the synod of Philadelphia. The synod put the matter under the care of the presbytery of Newcastle, which sent William Robinson to organize a Church among them. He was the first non-Anglican minister to preach in Hanover County, and very shortly after so doing he was arrested for preaching without a license from the government; but he was soon released and permitted to continue his work.

In the next year, 1745, the presbytery sent two other ministers, John Blair and John Roan, the latter of whom was a man of unwisdom, and whose course may be charged with much of the responsibility for the subsequent annoyances suffered by the Presbyterians. Not content with preaching the gospel, Roan went out of his way to assail the character of the established clergy. However vulnerable that character might be, Roan’s attack was both unnecessary and impolitic. The consequence was natural enough. The clergy were roused to great indignation, intensifying their opposition to this lately tolerated dissent. Their complaints, together with many “shocking reports of officious malignants,” were hurried to the governor, whose sympathy was excited for the regular clergy: for, however he might be willing to tolerate an orderly dissent, he was too much of an Anglican to permit attacks on his own Church.

Gooch at once summoned the grand jury and denounced Roan and Joshua Morris, in whose house Roan had preached. In his charge to the jury the governor said, “It is not liberty of conscience, but freedom of speech, they so earnestly prosecute, and we are very sure that they have no manner of pretence to any shelter under the Acts of Toleration.”²

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The grand jury found a true bill, and the case was tried, with the result that Morris was heavily fined and Roan, who had fled to Philadelphia, was exiled.

The sequence to this trouble was continued annoyance to the Presbyterians; the authorities, with the exception of Gooch, making use of every opportunity to hamper and disturb. This they did by objecting to licenses for their ministers, granting some only after much struggle and refusing others altogether; by making much question also about the number of preaching houses, and seizing promptly upon the offence of preaching in a house not licensed. So long as Gooch remained governor, he acted as mediator between the Presbyterians and the council, but for a few years after his retirement in 1749, the new movement found itself “under the harrow.”

The man who exerted the greatest influence in securing their peaceful enjoyment of toleration, was Samuel Davies, than whose name the story of American Presbyterianism presents few more illustrious. Born at New Castle, Delaware, in 1723, he was educated in Pennsylvania, and, on his ordination at the age of twenty-three, was at once sent by the presbytery to Virginia. In 1746 he appeared at Williamsburg and sought a license to preach from the government, which the council at first refused, but by the governor were persuaded to grant.¹ With the license Davies went to Hanover, “and was received with joy, since on the Sunday before a notice had been fixed on Morris’ Reading House forbidding itinerant preaching and warning people not to attend.”²

Davies settled near the Falls of the James, and in 1748 another minister, John Rodgers, was sent by the presbytery to join him. It is very probable that. Rodgers ventured to

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preach without first obtaining a license, for such accusation was made against him when he applied for governmental permission. Gooch urged the Council to license him, but the majority refused, saying, “We have Mr. Rodgers out, and we are determined to keep him out.” This determination was doubtless due to the ardent opposition of some of the established clergy, who followed Davies and Rodgers to Williamsburg, to combat the application.¹

It is stated that Commissary Blair joined Gooch in urging the Council to give the license. “The young men insisted that they had asked nothing but a right, and not a privilege.” But the effort failed, and Rodgers was forced to leave the province entering on a career of distinguished usefulness in the north, as pastor for many years of the “Brick Church” in New York, and moderator of the first general assembly in America.²

Davies was thus left alone in Virginia, and presently his foes made new trouble for him by endeavoring to restrict his labors. It was a necessity of labor among such a widely scattered population that he should preach in many different stations, against which itineracy the legal point was made that his license allowed him to preach in only one place or house. This new action carried him to Williamsburg again, where it was sought to obtain an injunction from the court forbidding his scattered ministrations. Davies’s answer contended that his course was justified by the grants of the toleration act, and the case turned upon the question as to whether the English act was of force in Virginia. The celebrated Peyton Randolph, the attorney-general, appeared in prosecution, while Davies pleaded his own cause, the court granting his request

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to be allowed to speak with some surprise that he should venture to cross swords with so famous an advocate. Not only did he win his case, but he astonished his auditors, some of whom said, “The attorney-general has met his match today.” In 1753 Davies visited England and there obtained from Attorney-General Northey an opinion confirmatory of his own, to the effect that the toleration act of 1689 had the force of law in all parts of the British dominions. Thus the Presbyterians of Virginia secured their rights, so far as the statute did allow.¹

There is no doubt that the result of the Presbyterian contest was grateful to the majority of the people. The established Church was steadily losing ground in their affection and respect. They could see nothing but oppression in forbidding an irregular worship, where great distances made attendance on the established Church, to many a matter of much difficulty, and to others impossible. At the same time the failure of so many of the clergy to command respect still further emphasized their alienation, while the frequent oppressive acts of the authorities only served to nurture a growing popular indignation.

This feeling was not only shared by the common people, but found expression from many in the highest circles of society. Some of them, though in the communion of the established Church, were beginning to doubt the wisdom of the entire system of union between religion and the civil power. Thus, Lawrence Washington wrote to Governor Dinwiddie:² “It has been my opinion, and I hope ever will be, that restraints on conscience are cruel in regard to those on whom they are imposed, and injurious to the country imposing them.”

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The letter had special reference to Germans contemplating settlement in Virginia, but deterred by fear of the established Church. Mr. Washington wanted the governor, at that time in England, to secure some relief for them from the government, which Dinwiddie expressed his doubts of obtaining, though himself in favor of the desired exemption. It was not until the opening of the Revolution that the relief sought, of exemption from Church rates, was accorded to dissenters by the colonial legislature.¹

Dinwiddie, whose advent as governor was hailed by Davies as a “happy omen,” had been educated in the Church of Scotland, and had sincere regard for the Presbyterians. In his office of governor he was guilty of no unfriendly acts, though he concerned himself, as his duty required, in the direction of affairs in the establishment. Of this direction two curious incidents are preserved in his own letters.² One is in a letter to St. Anne’s Parish, December 13, 1751, presenting “the Bearer, the Rev. Mr. John Ramsay—I desire that you will receive and Entertain him as your Pastor.” The other is a letter to the bishop of London, September 12, 1757, in which the governor gives an account of a recent trial of a clergyman for immorality and “monstrous crimes.” The trial was before the governor and council and was really an ecclesiastical trial, for the man, having been found guilty, was by the governor deposed from the ministry and not otherwise punished.

The occurrence of the French and Indian war, with its excitements and alarms, so occupied the minds of the government that attention to Church affairs made in its period but few notes in legislation. Nor do the courts seem to have bestowed much regard upon the continually increasing number of dissenters, who were practically left to follow their preferences without molestation. Only two acts of the legislature during that period call for remark.

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One is the act of 1756,¹ “for Disarming Papists.” All Papists were required to surrender their arms and ammunition, on penalty of three months’ imprisonment, the loss of their arms, and fine. It is clear, however, that the measure, like a similar proposition in Pennsylvania, was more political than religious. The act observed that the “Papists were dangerous at this time” of war with their fellow-religionists. This does not explain another curious clause of the act, which forbade a Papist to keep a horse “above the value of £5, on pain of forfeiture.” Only a desire to annoy would seem to account for that provision.

The other piece of legislation to be noted is the act of 1758, called the “Two-Penny Act,” which stands in the history as having a powerful influence tending both to religious disestablishment and to political independence. It should be premised that a law of 1748 had fixed the minister’s salary at sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco. At the ordinary price of tobacco at six pence per pound, this made the ministerial stipend exactly £400.

In 1755, and the following year,² the tobacco crop failed through drought, while the heavy taxes incident to the French war had added to the financial burdens of the people. Many complaints of the situation were carried to the legislature, and that body in 1758 enacted a law, “to run for ten months,” that all debts payable in tobacco could be paid either in tobacco, or in money at the rate of eighteen shillings and eight pence per one hundred pounds of tobacco. This reduced the price of tobacco, for the purpose of debt paying, to two pence per pound and struck two-thirds from the ministerial salary. The act did not discriminate against the clergy, but applied to “all debts payable in tobacco,” yet it affected the clergy more disastrously than others; for, while afterward other contracts could be made on a money basis,

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the clerical contract was by law fixed in terms of tobacco. Besides, the price of tobacco immediately rose above the usual rate, and the holders of it, compounding with the clergy at the ruinous reduction, really enriched themselves at the expense of the ministerial purse.

There can be no doubt that the act was thoroughly unjust, and no wonder is caused by the natural outcry of the clergy. Rev. John Camm, of York Hampton Parish, assailed the law in a pamphlet, The Two-Penny Act, which was answered by Colonels Bland and Carter. But no argument could justify the law. Sherlock, bishop of London, denounced the act and the king in council refused to approve, though it does not appear that it was ever formally declared void.

Camm brought suit against his vestry for the full amount of salary for several years, at the rate of sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco at six pence per pound, the claim reaching to nearly £2400. On this the house of burgesses took the remarkable action of voting to support the vestry in its defence a vote notable in two ways: first, that the interference of the legislature in such a matter was as unwarrantable as it was unprecedented; and second, that it notes the first legislative action of Virginia towards independence. The legislature was so bent on justifying its own law that it was blind to its own offence in thus interfering with the course of justice. The case went against Camm, who appealed to the king in council, but the appeal was dismissed on the ground of some informality, and “the clergy were left to take their chances in the Virginia courts.”

The next suit was brought by Rev. Mr. Warrington, and the court awarded damages to him, while inconsistently declaring that the law of 1758 was valid! The suit of Rev. Alexander White had a similar issue. The great issue—great, both because of its utterly unexpected result and its lifting to the first position among orators a man unknown before—was joined in Hanover County court on the suit of Rev. James Maury in 1763. The court declared the act of

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1758 invalid, as not approved by the king, and ordered that at the next term of court a jury should determine damages for the plaintiff. The popular impression was, justly, that the whole question was practically decided in favor of the clergy, and at the next term the council for defendant, John Lewis, threw up the case. No well-known lawyer could be found to take his place; and the case was well-nigh gone by default, when the defendants took for their advocate a young, unknown, awkward, unfledged lawyer, whose past had been spent in playing the fiddle, keeping a country store, swapping stories in taverns, and in desultory reading. Perhaps never elsewhere has one action at once opened to a man such an avenue of usefulness, and crowned him with such immediate glory, as came then to Patrick Henry. The incident is well known to all, and needs no detailed repetition here. The speech was the boldest yet made on American soil, maintaining that the act of 1758 was salutary and right, and arguing that a king, who could disallow a law designed for the relief of his distressed subjects, had forfeited his right to govern! “The speech,” says Hawks, “contained much more treason than logic—an appeal to men’s passions, not to their understandings, and was managed with consummate skill.”

It meant death to the “Parsons’ Cause.” The jury, bound by the decision of the former term, brought in a verdict assessing damages at one penny. That showed the mind of the people with sufficient clearness, and the clergy attempted no further suits. It would have been well for them and for their Church, if they had attempted none at all, and, submitting to the immediate hardship of the time, had waited relief from a wiser legislature. The damage they suffered was far greater than that represented by depleted stipends. Immense force was added to the feeling against the establishment, the ministers of which were now described as having no concern for the poverty and burdens of the people, and only desirous of obtaining the last penny for themselves—“more anxious to enrich themselves than benefit the souls of men; and men

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began to admit the suspicion that the establishment was proving a burden instead of a blessing. It prepared the minds of men for the final blow struck in the stormy times of the Revolution.” (Hawks.)

Before that blow was struck, another and justifying reason for it was given by the renewal of the spirit of persecution, in the most harsh and foolish actions of which the establishment was guilty. They are the more remarkable because coming after the gradual enlightenment of almost the entire colonial period and on the eve of the great struggle for freedom. So placed, the persecution of the Baptists may be rated as the worst and most inexcusable assault on freedom of conscience and worship, which our colonial history describes.¹

As before noted, Baptists began to come into the colony so early as 1714, settling quietly and undisturbed at Norfolk. Thirty years later, others began settlements in the northern part of the province, to which increasing numbers were added in the following years. In the same period numbers of Moravians and Mennonites also appeared in the Blue Ridge country. It is difficult to account for the outbreak of persecution which took place between 1765 and 1770. Twenty years before, Governor Gooch had issued a proclamation against the Moravians and Mennonites, but they do not appear to have been subjected to any more drastic measures. They quietly went about their own business and were undisturbed, sharing at last with the Quakers in the exemptions of 1766.²

Perhaps the bitter cup of persecution presented to the Baptists, at the same time that other sects were obtaining an enlargement of liberty, may be charged to their own violence of speech. It was a time of much religious excitement among the dissenting churches, especially in the north of

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Virginia.¹ The Presbyterians of the Shenandoah were experiencing an almost constant revival through several years, in the interest and fervor of which their Baptist brethren shared. But the latter were not guided by the same prudence of discussion or charity of speech which the Presbyterians observed. Many of their preachers were illiterate they gave free rein to the language and manner of passion; and with their vehemence of gesticulation and a singularly rasping quality of voice they wrought their hearers into a high state of excitement. With it all they did not scruple to denounce the established Church and its clergy. “There was a bitterness,” said Hawks, “in the hatred of this denomination towards the established Church, which surpassed that of all others. It was always prompt to avail itself of every prejudice, which religious or political zeal could excite against the Church. . . . No dissenters in Virginia experienced for a time harsher treatment than the Baptists. They were beaten and imprisoned, and cruelty taxed ingenuity to devise new modes of punishment and annoyance.” It is but fair to conclude that the former fact accounted for, though it could not justify, the latter, in view of the peace and quietness experienced at the time by all other dissenting churches.

The increase of the Baptists, with their impolitic freedom of speech, excited alarm and stern opposition among churchmen. The clergy of the establishment preached against them as of the same sort as the Anabaptists of Munster, and the local authorities learned to look upon them as disturbers of the peace, to be suppressed by the civil power.

The climax came in 1768 when the sheriff of Spotsylvania arrested John Waller, Lewis Craig, and James Childs, zealous Baptist preachers. On their appearance before the magistrate, release was offered if they would promise not to preach in the county for a year and a day. This promise was refused, and the men were imprisoned. Craig was released after four weeks, but the two others lay in jail four weeks more.

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It is to be noted that this persecution was entirely the act of local authorities. The colonial government had no hand in it and seems to have considered it unjust. That certainly was the mind of Governor Blair, who wrote a sharp rebuke to the sheriff of Spotsylvania County. “You may not molest these conscientious men,” he wrote, “so long as they behave themselves in a manner becoming pious Christians. I am told that they differ in nothing from our Church but in (the manner of) Baptism, and their renewing of the ancient discipline, by which they have reformed some sinners and brought them to be truly penitent. . . . If this be their behaviour, it were to be wished we had some of it among us.”

At the trial of Waller and Childs, which the rebuke of the governor had no power to stay, some notable things occurred. The prosecuting attorney bore testimony to their zeal in his opening words: “May it please your worship, these men are great disturbers of the peace: they can not meet a man upon the road, but they must ram a text of scripture down his throat!” The indictment charged them with “preaching the gospel contrary to law.” This astonishing charge furnished to Patrick Henry the second opportunity of dramatic exhibition before a court. He offered his services to defend the preachers, and tradition has it that he rode fifty miles to do so. In his speech he so dwelt upon the folly and wickedness of attempting “to punish a man for preaching the gospel of the Son of God,” that he overwhelmed the court and secured the immediate discharge of his clients.

But the issue of this case did not end the persecution. In 1770 two other Baptist preachers, William Webber and Joseph Anthony, were thrown into Chesterfield County jail, and there “they did much execution by preaching through the grates of their windows.” In Middlesex County several Baptist ministers were imprisoned and treated like criminals. So late as 1772 a letter in the Virginia Gazette justified the persecution, charging the Baptists with heresy and hateful

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doctrines, and with disturbing the peace of religion, and denying that they were entitled to the benefit of the toleration act. This was strange language at the very time when Virginia was ringing with the cry for freedom. But it was unheeded. The end of the persecution had come, and of all persecution in America.

Presently there was to pass into oblivion the religious establishment, in whose interest such oppression was instituted. The Church in Virginia had grown almost obsolete; its methods, its claims, its arrogance alike hateful to the great majority of the people. The causes of this issue are not far to seek. The unwillingness of the Church to permit any other worship than its own, with the consequence that many of the scattered population were deprived of all religious services; its indifference to the spiritual good of the people; the corrupt character of many of its clergy; its rancor in prosecuting any dissent; the growing sense of injustice in taxing people for the support of a religion not their own; the ill-starred Parsons’ Cause, which left upon the clergy and the Church a heavy, though unjust, burden of ridicule and contempt; the persecution of the Baptists, as the last throe of a dying tyrant; and finally the ill-judged effort to establish an American episcopate—an effort to be hereinafter detailed—all together forced the Church of England in Virginia to a dishonored fall, far different from the fate which, as shall be seen, the theocratic establishment of Massachusetts met with dignity and composure.

While we can have no sympathy with the spiritual tyranny of early Massachusetts, nor approve its oppressive measures; at the same time we cannot fail to reverence the high religious motives of its leaders, by whom God’s honor was chiefly to be sought; the learning and pure character of its ministry; its care for a “godly ministry” in every vicinage; and the decorous gravity with which it adapted itself, though unwillingly, to the growing liberty of mind. We look in vain for such traits in the Virginia establishment; a mere appendage

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of the state, with no higher demand than an outward conformity to its law, and no more earnest purpose than to secure its own perquisites and emoluments.

Thus the difference between the two institutions was immense. The Theocracy represented a magnificent dream, which had in it more of heaven than of earth—a superb effort to realize in the world the purity and duty of the City of God. The Virginia establishment debased the things of God into a mere setting for the sordidness of earth. In its fall there were few to mourn.

The details of its disestablishment will be noted in our study of the Revolutionary Period and the Final Settlements.

II. The Carolinas

The earliest settlers in the territory of the Carolinas came across the southern border of Virginia. Some of them were non-conformists who desired to escape from the intolerant measures of Berkeley. Some were Quakers; one of whose preachers, Edmundson, was the first man to preach the gospel in Carolina. Others, without any religious motive, sought “more and better land.” This desire, according to Professor Weeks,¹ “and not that for religious liberty, was the leading factor in the settlement of North Carolina.”

Governor Berkeley of Virginia had already assumed to grant property rights so far to the south as Cape Fear, but the first formal and legal action toward colonial institution in the territory was by charter, granted in 1663 by Charles II. to Lords Clarendon, Albemarle, Craven, Berkeley and Ashley, Sir George Carteret, Sir William Berkeley (governor of Virginia), and Sir John Colleton.² The charter constituted these eight men proprietaries of all the territory now included in the two Carolinas, with all privileges and powers

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possessed by “any Bishop of Durham in the County Palatine, or Bishoprick, of Durham in our Kingdom of England.” The authority thus conferred was almost regal, and was equalled among colonial charters only by that given to Baltimore, as will be noted in our sketch of Maryland. The title of “Palatine” went with these charters, and was always used by the chief of the Carolina proprietaries until the surrender of the province to the immediate government of the King; but it early fell into disuse by Baltimore.¹

By these charters given the right of “patronage and advowsons of all Chappells and Churches . . . according to the ecclesiastical law of our Kingdom of England.”² We will hereafter note the peculiar construction that Baltimore put upon this right. Unlike him, the Carolina proprietaries evidently considered it as giving to the Church of England the status of an establishment in their colony. What was lacking for that end in the charter was afterward supplied in the “Fundamental Constitutions,” presently to be noted.

At the same time the charter accorded large liberty to those “who cannot conform to . . . the liturgy, forms, and ceremonies of the Church of England, or take and subscribe the oaths and articles.” To such persons the proprietaries “have full and free license, liberty and authority, by such legal ways and means as they shall think fit, to give and grant . . . such indulgences and dispensations, for and during such time and times, and with such limitations and restrictions, as they shall in their discretion think fit and reasonable.”

Under this charter the proprietaries at once issued a “Declaration and Proposal,”³ inviting emigrants to the new colony, declaring among other things, “We will grant, in as ample manner as the undertakers shall desire, freedom and liberty of conscience in all religious and spiritual things,

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and to be kept inviolably with them, we having power in our charter so to do.” In the following year (1664) the proprietaries entered into an “Agreement” with certain “adventurers,” desiring to go from Barbadoes and elsewhere to Carolina.¹ In this agreement they declared: “8. No person . . . shall be any ways molested, punished, or called in question, for any difference in opinion or practice in matters of religious concernment, who do not actually disturb the civil peace, . . . but all and every person and persons may, from time to time and at all times, freely and fully have and enjoye his and their judgments and contiences in matters of religion throughout all the Province, they behaving themselves peaceable and quietly, and not using this liberty to Lycentiousnesse, nor to the Civill Injury or outward disturbance of others; any Law, statute or clause, usage or custom of this realm of England to the contrary hereof in any wise notwithstanding.

“9. No pretence shall be made from the charter right of advowsons to infringe the liberty above conceded . . . and we grant unto the General Assembly power to appoint ministers and establish maintenance. Giving liberty besides to any person or persons to keepe and mainteyne w^t preachers or Ministers they please.”

In 1665 Charles issued a second charter in which the concession of religious liberties was repeated.² From both instruments and from the declaration and agreement it is evident that the foundation of Carolina designed both to establish the Church of England, and, while conceding a modified liberty to dissenters, to so put religious control in the hands of the proprietary government that at any time, in their discretion, such privilege could be withdrawn. The phrase “to be kept inviolably” makes promise of security, yet other portions of the instruments and the subsequent conduct of the proprietary government make it clear that

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the authorities had no intention of abridging their own power in religious and ecclesiastical affairs. Thus, the first person appointed as governor, Sir John Yeamans, was instructed to observe the promise of religious liberty, and also to use his influence to dissuade non-conformists from settling in the colony.¹ This may be regarded merely as an indication of the proprietaries’ desire, never expressed in any exclusive prescriptions. The fact was, that with their wish to obtain settlers in the colony, they were forced to content themselves with such as came, the main drift of whom were from sources outside of the Church of England. For the first twenty years the immense majority of the immigration was composed of dissenters. The Quakers scattered themselves over the whole province, but settled in largest numbers in the northern division, acquiring very considerable political power and furnishing to the proprietaries and the High Church party a constant exasperation. Joseph Blake, brother of the great admiral, led a large company of English dissenters to the settlement of Charleston. Thither, also, came many Huguenots, who located themselves in that city and on the banks of the Cooper and Santee.² Scotland also sent many of her Presbyterians, fleeing from Claverhouse to find a refuge in North Carolina and become the fathers of those sturdy men who, in the Mecklenberg Declaration, sounded the first clear trumpet of American Independence. Baptists also appeared. Some of that faith were in Blake’s Company, and in 1684 a Baptist Church migrated from Massachusetts under the lead of their pastor, William Screven. The Dutch Reformed added to the number, two shiploads of them going to Carolina from New York, in resentment of the course pursued by the English authorities on ecclesiastical questions.³ These made the great volume of immigration. Clearly, the tide of dissent was too strong and too valuable for the proprietaries

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to stem; and with too much power to permit the success of subsequent schemes to aggrandize the Church of England. Though that Church was legally established in the Carolinas, yet it never laid hold upon the religious affections of the people at large; and only once, and then disastrously for themselves, did the authorities venture on any measure of proscription toward dissenters.

The formal establishment of the Church was effected by the famous “Fundamental Constitutions,” the most singular and fantastic instrument of government ever devised by the human mind. It essayed to combine relics of a dead feudalism with institutions of the new popular power in a mixture both absurd and unserviceable. In practical working the scheme proved itself impossible and in less than fifteen years was formally annulled. The only permanent impress left on the colony was in the Church established and the laws relating to dissent. For this reason, and also because of the unique terms and details in which the religious sections are expressed, its provisions may be here very properly recited.

The credit of framing the fundamental Constitutions has been generally given to the philosopher Locke. If this attribution is just, it may well serve to illustrate the fact that the deepest philosophic mind may be at fault, when called to deal with practical affairs and the uncertain quantities possible in human nature and will. The latest biographer of Locke¹ questions this usually alleged authorship, and accounts for it by the facts, that Locke was an intimate personal friend of Ashley, for many years an inmate of his lordship’s household, and at the same time the secretary of the associated proprietaries. The scheme of political government, with its palatine, landgraves, barons, and caciques, Fowler judges must have been impossible for Locke to conceive and distasteful to him when suggested by others. He concedes that it is easy to discern Locke’s hand in the articles on religion, which especially concern us here.

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These articles are eleven in number, entering into matters of detail with a notable particularity, and, while extending a large liberty to certain sorts of dissent, putting other sorts under a sharp ban.¹ The first specification excludes atheists and non-religionists: “95. No man shall be permitted to be a freeman of Carolina, or to have any estate or habitation within it, that doth not acknowledge a God, and that God is publicly and solemnly to be worshipped.” The next article establishes the Church of England: “96. As the country comes to be sufficiently planted . . . it shall belong to the parliament to take care for the building of Churches and the public maintenance of divines, to be employed in the exercise of religion according to the Church of England, which, being the only true and orthodox and the natural religion of all the King’s dominions, is so also of Carolina; and, therefore, it alone shall be allowed to receive public maintenance by grant of parliament.”

The next article is in form the most remarkable decree of toleration on record: “97. But since the natives of that place . . . are utterly strangers to Christianity, whose idolatry, ignorance, or mistake gives us no reason to expel or use them ill; and those, who remove from other parts there, will unavoidably be of different opinions concerning matters of religion, the liberty whereof they will expect to have allowed them, and it will not be reasonable for us on this account to keep them out: that civil liberty may be obtained amidst diversity of opinions, and our agreement and compact with all men may be duly and faithfully observed; the violation whereof, upon what pretence soever, cannot be without great offence to Almighty God and great scandal to the true religion which we profess; and also that Jews, Heathens, and other dissenters from the purity of the Christian religion may not be scared and kept at a distance from it, but, having an opportunity of acquainting themselves with the truth and reasonableness of its doctrine, and the peaceableness and inoffensiveness

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of its professors, may, by good usage and persuasion and all those convincing methods of gentleness and meekness suitable to the rules and designs of the gospel, be won over to embrace and unfeignedly receive the truth;—Therefore, any Seven or more persons, agreeing in any religion, shall constitute a Church or profession, to which they shall give some name to distinguish it from others.”

Certain rules for the formation and faith of such dissenting Churches are next imposed. “98. The terms of admittance and communion with any Church or profession shall be written in a book, and therein be subscribed by all members of said Church or profession, which book shall be kept by the public Register of the Precinct wherein they reside. 99. The time of every one’s subscription and admittance shall be dated in the said book of religious record.

“100. In the terms of communion of every Church or profession these following shall be there, without which no agreement or assembly of men upon pretence of religion shall be accounted a Church or profession within these rules:—

1. That there is a God;
2. That God is publickly to be worshipped;
3. That it is lawful and the duty of every man, being thereunto called by them that govern, to bear witness to truth; and that every Church or profession shall in their terms of communion set down the eternal way whereby they witness a truth as in the presence of God; whether it be by laying hands on, or kissing, the bible, as in the Church of England, or by holding up the hand, or any other sensible way.

“104. Any person subscribing the terms of communion . . . before the precinct Register and any five members of said Church, or profession, shall be thereby made a member.”

“108. Associations, upon any pretence whatsoever, not observing or performing the above rules, shall not be esteemed

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as Churches, but unlawful meetings, and be punished as other riots.”

There is provision made that slaves can be members of the Church or profession, but shall “not thereby be freed from the civil dominion of their masters.”

Two sections forbid molestation:

“106. No person shall use any reproachful, reviling, or abusive language against any religion of any Church or profession.”

“109. No person whatsoever shall disturb, molest, or persecute another for his special opinions in religion or his way of worship.”

But the most remarkable of all the requirements is the section which outlaws an irreligious person: “101. No person above seventeen years of age shall have any benefit or protection of the law, or be capable of any place of profit or honor, who is not a member of some Church or profession.”

This last provision is altogether unique, having no parallel in other colonial statute. The intent of it was to force an outwardly religious community, and the principle was the same as that which still operates in some European establishments, requiring confirmation and communion for every grown youth. But nowhere else can be found a formal law putting non-communicants outside the pale of law. Even in countries demanding rigid conformity to a State-Church, so long as an individual did not profess an opposing faith, a position of indifference was not counted for a crime. Of this Carolina requirement the specially novel element is that, while a broad dissent is allowed to the very limit of theism, every citizen must have some religion and be a communicant in some Church, or be an outlaw.

All the religious requirements of the “Constitutions” make a notable medley of stringency and liberty and may well take their place, along with the rules for civil foundation, among the curiosities of history. As with the civil

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regulations, these religious rules, save as regards the Church establishment, soon proved but an ideal which the proprietaries were unable to realize in the colony. It does not appear that the regulations governing dissent were observed with any strictness, or their method followed in the organizing of dissenting Churches. Nor does it appear that any irreligious person was ever put out of the colony, or under the ban, because of his lack of religion.

In fact, it is safe to say that no small proportion of the people must have been without any definite religion. This was specially true of North Carolina. Though the Church was established at the beginning, yet more than twenty years passed before its first clergyman was settled.¹ The settlers in South Carolina were of a higher type as regards religion, but there was a long-continued lack of ministers and the conveniences for public worship. The Quakers, not depending on a consecrated ministry, held their meetings with some approach to frequency, but for most of the people for many years there was a total destitution of ministry and Churches. So late as 1729, Colonel William Byrd wrote of Edenton, the then capital of North Carolina: “I believe this is the only metropolis in the Christian or Mohammedan world where there is neither Church, Chapel, Mosque, Synagogue, or any other place of worship of any sect or religion whatever. . . . They pay no tribute either to God or to Cæsar.”² One wonders whether this destitution of Churches may have caused the peculiar form of the colonial law of 1691, relating to the Sabbath. It makes no allusion, as do similar statutes in other colonies, to attendance on Church services, but, forbidding all secular work, requires that “all and every person and persons shall on every Lord’s Day apply themselves to the observance of the same by exercising themselves of piety and true religion.”³

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Before the end of the century a large number of people attached to the Church of England emigrated to Carolina. Many of them were of gentle birth, and, with the sympathies of the proprietaries, soon founded an oligarchy, grasping after political power to be controlled in the interest of the Church.¹ Their schemes precipitated an intense political strife almost entirely on religious lines. The method pursued was such as to indicate a digested conspiracy against the liberties of the People.

Its first step was the specious act of 1696 giving “liberty of the Province to Aliens,” which ran: “All Christians . . . (Papists only excepted) shall enjoy the full, free, and undisturbed exercise of their consciences, so as to be in the exercise of their worship according to the professed rules of their religion, without any lett, hindrance, or molestation by any power either ecclesiastical or civil whatever.”² The purpose of the act would seem to have been that of forestalling clamor against further intended steps and to create the impression of the widest spirit of toleration. At the same time the act is silent as to the matter of civil rights, and thus is a contradiction of the promises in the now abandoned Fundamental Constitutions.

It is noticeable that, while that abandonment seemed to the colonial authorities to make necessary this assertion of religious freedom, it did not suggest the reëstablishment of the Church by formal statute. Rather was it at first taken for granted that the principle stated in the constitutions, that the Church of England was “the only true and orthodox religion and the natural religion in all the king’s dominions, and so in Carolina,” was a sound principle. Certainly, the high-Church party accepted the establishment as thus founded and proposed no other statutes to buttress it until 1701.

The first act of detail under the establishment, to settle the maintenance of a minister, was passed in 1698.³ This

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was for the settlement at Charleston of Samuel Marshall, the first clergyman of the Church of England in Carolina. Anderson says that the legislature was moved to the action by its special pleasure in Mr. Marshall’s character and conduct. The act appropriated to him and his successors forever a yearly salary of £150; and for his peculiar benefit directed “that a negro man and woman, and four cows and calves be purchased for his use and paid for out of the public treasury.”

The next step of the Church party was perhaps the most high-handed legislation ever perpetrated in the colonies. This was in the astonishing acts of 1704, establishing the Church and disfranchising non-conformists.¹ Previously to this action, the contest between the Church party and its opponents—almost three-fourths of the population—had pronounced itself with no little bitterness, and the strife had run so high that the proprietaries had been compelled to so far yield to popular clamor as to appoint the Quaker Archdale, himself one of the proprietaries, to the office of governor. Archdale’s policy was wise. He organized his council in such proportions that the high-Church party had but one third of its membership, and his administration was for the most part peaceful.

After composing the difficulties in the colony Archdale returned to England, and on his absence the Church party found the opportunity of accomplishing their designs. By a majority of one in a small house the assembly of 1704 passed two acts which were a direct outrage upon the majority of the people. The first was entitled an “Act for the Protection of Government,” and required that all members of the legislature should be of the Church of England and should have taken the sacrament in that Church, at least once in the year past. The second act was “for establishing Religious worship according to the Church of England,” and entered

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into much detail as to erection of Churches, support of ministers, glebes, parishes, and the choice of ministers, vestries, clerks, and sextons, fixing even the salaries of clerk and sexton at £10 and £5. To these matters of routine the act added an astounding feature in providing for an ecclesiastical court, to be composed of twenty laymen, having almost episcopal powers of supervision and direction in all Church affairs. They were made competent to settle disputes, to exercise discipline, and remove ministers “for cause.”

In the next two years the assembly enacted: first, another law of establishment, but providing that nothing in the act should take away the right of dissenting ministers to baptize, marry, and bury; and second, an act creating a parish in the French settlement on the Santee, on condition that “they conform to the Church of England, and use a French translation of the Book of Common Prayer.”¹ The spirit of these acts was at the same time well illustrated by the legislative response to a petition from some dissenters living near Pamphlico River. They informed the authorities that, “trusting to the assurances of liberty,” they had settled in the colony and desired permission to engage a minister of their own faith. The request was denied, “though they offered with cheerfulness to be at the Charge of maintaining them.”²

That such legislation would raise a storm among such a people as that of Carolina was so certain, that one marvels at the audacity of the Church party in venturing the action. Doubtless, knowing the attachment of all the proprietaries, except Archdale, to the Church and their desire for a full establishment in the colony, they presumed that the proprietaries’ influence in London would win the royal approval, and thus the dissenters would be coerced into submission.

As to the people to be coerced, Commissary Blair of Virginia wrote a suggestive description in 1704:³ “The country is divided in four sorts: 1st, The Quakers, who are the most

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powerful enemies to Church government, but very ignorant of what they profess; 2d, A great many who have no religion, but would be Quakers if they would not be obliged to lead a more moral life; 3d, A sort something like Presbyterians, upheld by some idle fellows who have left employment to preach and baptize, without any orders from any sect; and 4th, Those who are zealous for the interest of the Church.” Blair’s description is of the people in the northern division, and he says that the Churchmen were by far the fewest in number and were opposed by the other three, “with common consent to prevent anything that will be chargeable to them, as they think all Church government will be.”

Of course, the Quakers were as ready in Carolina as elsewhere to resist all imposition of tithes and all forms of establishment. Governor Spotswood of Virginia wrote of them in 1711 that they were “not only the principal fomenters of the distractions in Carolina, but made it their business to instil the like pernicious notions into the minds of his majesty’s subjects in Virginia.”¹ To this settled principle of the Quakers must be added not only the resistance of the sober-minded dissenters of other sects, but also the aversion to Church taxes on the part of a large number, who had no religion at all.

These elements of opposition were not slow in making their voice heard across the water. Archdale protested against the acts of 1704 in the association of proprietaries, but a majority of that body sustained them. On this the complainants went higher, and in a petition, signed by Joseph Boone and others, laid their wrongs before parliament. The petition cited the grants of liberty in the charter and the “Fundamental Constitutions,” and alleged that the great majority of the inhabitants of Carolina were dissenters. To this petition of the dissenters was added the opinion of the only Church of England clergyman in the colony, Marshall

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as, “wicked and scandalous, and a notorious drunkard.”¹ “Like priest like people” also obtained, and the rector wrote of his own vestry, that they “met at an Ordinary, where rum was the chief of their business. They were most of them hot-headed.”² In like criticism wrote a Rev. Mr. Gordon, a visitor, from Perkimans: “Here are twelve vestrymen, very ignorant, loose in their lives, and unconcerned as to religion.” He says that their character had driven many of the people to the Quakers, and then attributes all the trouble of the situation to the Quaker “machinations”³

The absurd situation of a Church pretending to establishment is further illustrated by the almost total destitution of facilities for the services of the Church. This appears in many notes.⁴ The vestry of Chowan wrote to the society: “We have a large parish, one hundred miles long, with many poor at a great Distance from each other, and but one sorry Church, which has never been finished.” The secretary of the society reported in 1715, that there was but one clergyman in North Carolina and that those who were in South Carolina had mostly deserted. And in 1717 the wardens and vestry of Bath complained that they had never had a minister, that the missionaries never came to them, that the children were unbaptized, and that they were “kept from dissenting by the laws.” The condition fully bears out the statement of Rev. Miles Gale, an English rector, in a letter to the bishop of London: “I am informed from my eldest son in North Carolina that the religion of that colony is at a very low ebb, and that the little stock carried over is in danger to be totally lost, without speedy care of sending ministers.⁵

Yet there would appear to be some concern for the religious proprieties on the part of magistrates, judging from various sentences for ungodly conduct. Among them that upon John Hassell is worth citation.⁶ He was fined, in 1720, £25 for saying that he “had never been beholden to

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God for anything.” The court judged the offence worthy of punishment because tending “to the dishonor of God Almighty and his Attributes, and against the holy written Profession and Religion, now allowed and profest by authority in his now Majesty of Great Britain’s Dominions, and subverting of all the faithful and true believers and professors of the Protestant Church and Religion now by Law Established and Confirmed.”

All that remains is simply to note that until the Revolution the care of the legislature was frequently directed toward the affairs of the establishment,¹ both as affecting the colony at large and as touching individual parishes. In 1715 a new law of establishment was enacted, in which one clause bears witness to the influence of Jacobitism. It required every vestryman to make oath, “I do declare that it is not lawful on any pretence whatever to take up Arms against the King, and that I will not apugne the Liturgy of the Church of England.” The act also assessed five shillings “per Poll on all taxable persons” for support of the ministry, and imposed fines on all persons, “not dissenters,” refusing to serve as wardens and vestrymen, when elected. The act of 1722 increased the stipend of country parsons from £50 to £100, and if this were not paid within twenty-one days, the parson was authorized to sue the receiver-general. This was in South Carolina, after the annulling of the charter in 1720, the institution of the royal government, and the division of the province. By the South Carolina act of 1756 the “Chapel on James Island is established as a Chapel of Ease in the parish of St. Andrew, and the rector of said parish is hereby obliged, enjoined, and required to preach and perform divine service in said Chapel of Ease, every fourth Sunday.” If he, or any other person enjoined to serve in any Chapel of Ease, should neglect the duty, “the Public treasurer of the Province shall deduct £10” from the salary for every occasion of neglect.

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The last act of civil authority over the Church in the southern division was so late as 1785, increasing the powers of the vestries in the parishes of St. Paul and St. Andrew, and requiring the vestry of the latter parish to repair their Church building.¹ In North Carolina the last ecclesiastical act of the legislature was in 1774, and organized the parish of St. Bartholomew. In the fifty years preceding there had been various similar acts and others continuing the statute of establishment, but nothing of distinguishing character.

In the entire province after 1706, while the legislature consistently maintained the idea of a State-Church in various acts such as noted above, there was never again an approach to any other oppression than that which was involved in the tithes. The two parties struggled for power in the state with varying success, the line of partition between them being largely that of religious affiliations, yet they never again locked horns on the religious question. The dissenters in power respected the establishment, and the Churchmen respected the rights of dissent. As the decades passed away, and the country became more thickly settled, the asperities of the early contests ceased. The disproportion between the establishment and dissenters constantly increased and with it the popular unwillingness to pay taxes for a Church not their own. This was specially true of North Carolina. In the southern colony, the hold of the Church of England was much stronger, owing to the facts that its early settlers were of a more religious disposition, and that the English clergy were of a much higher character. But even in South Carolina the inequity of taxing three-fourths of the people, to support the Church of the other fourth, failed not to impress the minds of the leaders. Thus the province was prepared for that disestablishment, which followed soon upon the Revolution.