Haven were more closely akin in the strictness of their religious requirements; that Plymouth and Connecticut were more liberal in spirit and enactments; while New Hampshire was organized so long after the period of severity had waned that it furnishes few illustrations of our theme.

In another group are Virginia and the two Carolinas, in which the Church of England was established at their foundation and continued the State-Church until into the era of the Revolution, displaying at times strong and bitter feeling against all forms of dissent.

A third group is composed of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Georgia, in which occurred changes of attitude toward the Church. Maryland began with religious freedom, under Roman Catholic auspices, and was afterward dragooned into establishing the Church of England. In New York and New Jersey, the violence of English officials endeavored to force the same Church on a Dutch Reformed foundation, but never secured for it a legal establishment. The charter of Georgia declared liberty of worship, but on its abrogation the Church of England was established by royal edict and legislative enactment, a few years before the Revolution.

The fourth group comprises Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. The last-named, however, was for so long a time a part of Pennsylvania that its history on the religious question is merged with that of the larger colony. In these colonies no Church was ever established. More than that, the impropriety of a religious establishment was explicitly declared. Of the two, Rhode Island was far broader than Pennsylvania. The Quaker, notwithstanding his voice for liberty of conscience, could yet make no civic room for the infidel, and insisted on certain religious restrictions. Strangely enough, even to-day, Pennsylvania, by terms of its constitution, is unique among the United States, in that it restricts its civic privileges to believers in "an Almighty and Eternal God." Rhode Island from the beginning imposed no religious restrictions whatever upon its citizenship, and allowed no

question by the civil law as to the belief or unbelief of any one. The civil law knew neither theist nor atheist, neither Jew nor Christian, neither Romanist nor Protestant, neither Episcopalian nor Baptist, neither Congregationalist nor Presbyterian. There has never been a more perfect equality of religious beliefs before the law than was enacted in Rhode Island at its very beginning—a revelation and pattern to all the other colonies; by them for a long period despised and derided, but to the likeness of which they were glad at last

to come.

The stress of conflict was in Massachusetts, Virginia, Maryland, and New York, because of exceptional enthusiasm on the part of religionists meeting with exceptional determination of the civil power; or yet again of peculiar historical developments with which religious questions became mingled. Of the one the story of the Quakers in Massachusetts, and of the other the change from Dutch to English rule in New York, may serve as illustrations. For this reason our attention will be mainly directed to the history of these four colonies.

In that study another and striking contrast will appear, arising from the origin of the respective establishments. In Virginia was a Church imposed on the colony by the civil authorities without any suggestion that the people should be consulted in regard to it. It was simply a branch plucked from the Church at home and planted in the soil of Virginia, though afterward ratified by the colony. In Massachusetts was a Church native to the soil, not owing descent from any establishment across the sea, the choice of the people, by them organized and vested with the powers of the civil magistrate. In both the religious establishment was of positive character, while in Massachusetts the union of Church and State was far closer, and its spirit more inquisitorial, than in Virginia.

Yet again, in New York, after a half century of existence under the lax superintendence of the Reformed Church of Holland, was a perverse attempt - never legally successful—

to force a foreign Church upon a people, nine-tenths of whom were opposed to its policy and methods. In Maryland, also, will be seen a unique situation. Begun under the notable tolerance of a Roman Catholic proprietor with freedom not less than that of Pennsylvania, the religious life of the colony was subjected to many troublesome variations — some of them through the rivalry of Puritan and Cavalier, and others through political changes in government.

One other thing to be frequently noted is that, so far as the direct influence of the English government could affect the character of religious institutions in the colonies, the judgment was almost invariable that such institutions should be in vital relation with the Church at home. This judgment appears in charters and in frequent "instructions" to governors, often very peremptory in their terms. It found practical effect in America in all places where a stronger adverse religious sentiment of colonists did not oppose it.

With these preliminary observations we turn to the history of the different colonies. The special peculiarities require that each narrative should cover the entire colonial period without break, inasmuch as each possesses distinctions peculiarly its own. One of the most marked features of the history is in these distinctions, pronouncing often the sharpest contrast between colonies, the borders of which touched each other.

We may, however, on the line of a similarity already suggested, observe the groups into which the colonies fall by reason of the general character of their governmental attitudes toward religion and the Church. As so classed we may consider their respective stories, without rigid regard to the chronological succession in the planting of the colonies.

gious ive.

Pigh.

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

propagating of the Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness." To this admirable Christian and mission

ary 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 be- Church ginning and in the foundation of the new community was the established Church of England established in Virginia.

Hunt.

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 Robert service by the archbishop of Canterbury and for whose support the company voted £500. 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 highminded 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, "By which

1 Anderson, History of Colonial Church, I, 199.

2 Hawks, Contributions to Ecclesiastical History, I. Campbell, History of Virginia, p. 52.

Fiske, Old Virginia, I, 93.

4 Force, Historical Tracts.