No regard was paid to individual opinions or conscience in matters of religion. Individual liberty was crushed out; and all persons were required to conform to the established orthodox faith, worship, and discipline; or else they were denounced as heretics or schismatics, and laws were passed by the colonial legislatures, denouncing them as seditious persons, and disturbers of the public peace and subjecting them to fines, imprisonment, banishment, and various other modes of punishment; and death as a last

resort.

By such means, the clergy, and a few of the shrewdest and most adroit politicians among the laity, ruled both church and state with a rod of iron. They established uniformity in matters of religion, and enforced it with more searching vigilance, and greater severity, than was ever done in England under the English acts of uniformity; and for about sixty years, and until after the English revolution of 1688, they actually attained as near an approximation to uniformity of opinion and religious worship, as was ever attained in Italy or Spain, under the Popish Inquisition.

That distinguished American geographer, the Rev. Jedidiah Morse, D. D., himself a Puritan by birth and education-born and educated in Connecticut, and for more than twenty years a Congregational minister in Massachusetts, says in his geography:

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"Mr. Roger Williams, a minister who came over to New England in 1631, was charged with holding a variety of errors, and was on that account cruelly forced to leave his house, land, wife and children, at Salem, in the dead of winter, and to seek a residence without the limits of Massachusetts. * In 1636, Mr. Williams and four others, crossed Seekhonk river, and landed among the Indians, by whom they were hospitably received, and thus laid the foundation of a town, which from a seuse of God's merciful Providence to him, he called Providence."

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"The unhappy divisions and contentions in Massachusetts still prevailed, and in the year 1636, Gov. Winthrop strove to exterminate the opinions which he disapproved. Accordingly a synod was called at Newtown, (now Cambridge), on the 30th of August, when eighty erroneous opinions were presented, debated and condemned; and a court holden in October following, at the same place, banished a few leading persons of those accused of these errors, and censured several others."

"The whole colony of Massachusetts, at this time, was in a violent ferment. The election of civil officers was carried by a party spirit, excited by religious dissention. Those who were banished by the court, joined by a number of their friends, went in quest of a new settlement, and came to Providence, where they were kindly entertained by Mr. R. Williams; who,

by the assistance of Sir Henry Vane, jun., procured for them, from the Indians, Aquidnick, now Rhode Island. Here, in 1638, the people, eighteen in number, formed themselves into a body politic, and chose Mr. Coddington their leader, to be their judge or chief magistrate. This same year the sachems signed the deed or grant of the island."

The theocracy of Massachusetts was overturned, their despotic power limited, and their political and religious tyranny moderated by the British crown; first, by forfeiting their charter, on account of the tyranny practiced under it; secondly, by limiting their powers under the new charter of 1691, and making all their laws subject to the approval of the crown of England; and, lastly, by vetoing and annulling their sanguinary and tyrannical laws for hanging witches, and persecuting, banishing, and otherwise punishing Quakers and other persons for their religious opinions; whereby some degree of religious toleration was established in the Puritan colonies. But religious liberty was not fully established in Connecticut, until the year 1818, and not in Massachusetts until the year 1833. [See ante. pages 81, 94, 98, 109, and 110.] Religious liberty, in modern times, has been of slow growth. It is generally the last kind of liberty which man obtains.

Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont.

The first settlers of Rhode Island were fugitives from the religious persecutions of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, as before stated. [See ante. page 199.] Perfect religious liberty was first established in America, by Roger Williams, at Providence, in Rhode Island. [See ante. page 81.] It had not existed in Europe, since the reign of the Roman Emperor, Constantine, in the fourth century. That noble act of Roger Williams and his fellow colonists, constitutes an era in the history of modern civilization. It soon taught the christian world by example, that different sects of christians, (each enjoying full religious liberty), could live together in peace and harmony. It constituted the germ of truth, which served to enlighten the people of other colonies and nations; pointed out the way by which religious liberty has been fully established in all the states of this Union; and has had its influence upon every country of Europe.

Other fugitives from the religious persecutions of Massachusetts and other Puritan colonies followed. When the persecution of the Quakers by the Puritans ccommenced in 1658, many of them

fled to Rhode Island, as a place of refuge; and in a comparatively few years, they had societies of Baptists, Episcopalians, and Quakers, and afterwards Moravians and Jews; all of whom were excluded from the Puritan colonies.

Though many Puritans emigrated to New Hampshire and Maine, yet the great body of the early settlers were Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Quakers, all of whom, except the Congregationalists, were excluded from the Puritan colonies, and some of them were fugitives from Puritan persecution.

The Puritans never had any influence either in the colony or state of Rhode Island, and very little in New Hampshire, and at this day, there is greater affinity between the people of Western New York and Massachusetts, than there is between the latter and either Rhode Island, New Hampshire, or even Maine.

Vermont was settled a few years before the revolutionary war, by Puritans, and other Protestant sects from the New England colonies. It was never under the exclusive dominion of the Puritans, and was never afflicted with intolerance, or religious persecution.

The Colonies of New York and New Jersey.

The present states of New York and New Jersey were colonized and settled by the Dutch from Holland, and called New Netherlands. They named the city of New York New Amsterdam, and planted a colony there about the year 1615, at Albany, in 1614, and Bergen, in New Jersey a few years afterwards. They established the Dutch Reformed church; but being more liberal than the Puritans of New England, or the Episcopalians of Virginia, they allowed freedom of conscience and freedom of opinion in matters of religion, and tolerated private worship of other Protestant sects, but did not tolerate the erection of churches and public worship, by any religious society except the Dutch Reformed.

and

The Swedes and Finns planted settlements on both sides of the Delaware bay and river, in the southern part of New Jersey in Delaware, from 1627 to 1630, but they were conquered by the Dutch, in 1655, and subjected to the government of the Dutch colony of New Netherlands. They numbered only about 700. The Swedes and Finns were Lutherans, and the first people of that sect who emigrated to America.

The New Netherlands were conquered in 1664, by the English,

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and became British colonies.

The population was then estimated at about 10,000. In the treaty of cession, the religious rights and liberties of the Dutch were granted to them; which ever thereafter secured religious toleration in the colonies of New York and New Jersey; and those colonies soon became an asylum for the persecuted sects that were excluded from the Puritan colonies.

Under the English dominion, the Episcopal church was established in the colonies of New York and New Jersey, but following the spirit of the treaty with the Dutch, and the noble example of religious freedom set in Rhode Island and Maryland, all other sects of Protestants were tolerated.

New Jersey was divided into East and West Jersey, in 1674, and the proprietary interest in West Jersey was sold to the Quakers. They purchased it for an asylum for that sect of people, who were cruelly persecuted in England, and also in Virginia and the Puritan colonies of New England. The Quakers soon formed large settlements in West Jersey, and in some counties of New York.

The Colony of Maryland.

In 1632, a patent was issued by King Charles, to the son and heir of Lord Baltimore, for the present state of Maryland, with power to establish and maintain a colonial government therein, subject to the British crown. He and his friends planted in Maryland the first and only colony of English Catholics ever established on this continent. He was an educated gentleınan of much prudence, wisdom, and sagacity. Having witnessed and felt the influence of the cruel persecutions which the Catholics had suffered in England, he appreciated the virtues which were called christian, during the first three and a half centuries of the christian era; but which had been generally repudiated in Europe during more than twelve centuries. He invited Protestant as well as Catholic settlers, and practically established religious toleration in Maryland, from the first settlement of the province; and with the example before him of some degree of religious toleration in Holland and in the New Netherlands, and the still brighter example of religious liberty in Rhode Island, he drew up a bill which was passed by the provincial assembly, in 1649, and became a law, in which it was provided,

"That no persons professing to belleve in Jesus Christ, should be molested in respect to their religion, or in the free exercise thereof, or be compelled to the exercise of any other religion against their consent; so that they be not unfaithful to the proprietary, or conspire against the civil government."

Dr. Morse remarked upon the subject, (referring to the period of 1649), as follows:

"Virginia, at this period, animated by a very different spirit, passed severe laws against the Puritans, whose ministers were not suffered to preach. This occasioned numbers to emigrate to Maryland.'

"Extraordinary scenes were, at this time, exhibited on the colonial theatres. In Massachusetts, the Congregationalists, intolerant towards the Episcopalians, and every other sect; the Episcopal church retaliating upon them in Virginia; and the Roman Catholics of Maryland, tolerating and protecting all."

Not only Puritans, but many Baptists, Presbyterians, German Lutherans, and Quakers also, went to Maryland, as an asylum from religious persecution. The Quakers went there before their purchase of West Jersey, as heretofore stated.

Settlement of North and South Carolina.

The first permanent settlement made in North Carolina was made at Albermarle, about the year 1660, by refugees who fled from religious persecution in Virginia. In 1662, king Charles II, granted to Lord Clarendon and seven others, a charter or patent for the whole of the present states of North and South Carolina, and part of Georgia. Under that grant a settlement was made at Charleston, in 1669, and at some other places soon afterwards, and a proprietary government was established. Some Germans emigrated to the Carolinas, but the most of the settlers were from Great Britain, Virginia, and New England, until after the revocation of the edict of Nantz, by Louis XIV, in 1685. The religious persecutions following the revocation of that edict, drove out of France great numbers of Protestants, who were called in derision, Huguenots. Some escaped to Switzerland, some to Germany, and others to Holland, many to Great Britain, and a considerable number eventually made their way to America, and settled in the provinces of New York and South Carolina.

The church of England was established with cer.ain privileges; but all sects of Protestant christians were tolerated, and no religious persecutions ever occurred in the Carolinas.