sing discontent, and creating a violent and general antipathy to the system and agents of oppression. Sir William Berkeley, who, although an accomplished gentleman, belonged to the same arbitrary school, reaped a bitter harvest from the seeds which his predecessor had sowed. One incident will show not only the condition of things at that time, but the spirit that Berkeley was of. As before mentioned, the decisions of "The Court of High Commission" were recognized as binding in the colony, and the authority of Archbishop Laud was no less conclusive in Virginia than in England. "His opinions concerning the Puritans were implicitly received and acted on, so that the colony afforded no countenance, nor even a home to one of that class." Between the time of Harvey and Berkeley, i. e., between 1639 and 1641, laws were enacted against the Puritans, not because there were any, but, it was said, "to prevent the infection from reaching the colony." Such was the state of feeling and law at the accession of Berkeley. Although Strafford had already fallen under the revolutionary axe, and Laud too was nearing the block, and the Parliament commencing war against the King, the loyalty and bigotry of the Governor of Virginia were alike unshaken. The latter feeling found vent in an outrage on a man named "Stephen Reek," who was heard to say jocularly: "that his majesty was at confession with my lord of Canterbury." For this insinuation, that the primate was tending towards Rome, and had too much influence with the monarch, which the body of the English people, and many excellent Episcopalians, fully believed, "he was pilloried for two hours, with a label on his back setting forth his offence, fined fifty pounds, and imprisoned during pleasure." The very year of this atrocity, which must have shocked every independent citizen, "The General Court of Massachusetts" was applied to from Virginia, to send ministers of the gospel into that region, that the inhabitants might be privileged with the preaching and ordinances of Jesus Christ. From this it is plain, that "the case of Reek, which did not stand alone," (we quote from Hawks,) weakened, instead of strengthening, the cause of Episcopacy. Whether the ap

plication mentioned was prompted by a remnant of the Puritans, who settled in 1619, or by some who came from Massachusetts in 1640, it shows a growing sympathy with that sect, just on the point of becoming predominant in England. However that may have been, the three ministers who came at this request were met by "a law which compelled their speedy return." Loyalty and bigotry were more completely in the ascendant than in the mother country.

After the treaty with Cromwell, or rather with the Commonwealth, the colonists continued to use the Episcopal forms, except prayers for monarchy, and dissenters were not molested until an act was passed against the Quakers, just before the Restoration, probably just about the time when Sir W. Berkeley was restored to power. Yet, even in this interval, it may be inferred from circumstances, that Puritanism was adverse to the general sentiment, and progressed slowly. It is stated by the author of "Leah and Rachel," that Cromwell employed "in the holy work of rooting out Popery and prelacy in Maryland," Claiborne, who had been guilty, if not convicted, of rebellion in that colony, in his resistance to the decree assigning Kent Island, previously settled by him, to the Proprietary, Lord BaltiThe people of Virginia, from which this man had gone, and where he was not liked, had no mind to aid him in the work, which, it is said, he was induced to undertake, "not by religion," but "that sweet, that rich, that large country they aimed at. The Virginians gave refuge to those whom he drove from Maryland, and were, therefore, charged with an "attempt to interrupt the work of righteousness, and retard the establishment of God's religion and the dominion of the saints." Cromwell, who, it seems to us, has been, of late years, as much over-praised as he was once calumniated, sternly reproved the Governor and Council for "the presumption and impiety of their interference, and admonished Virginia to mind her own business.'

more.

Yet their conduct was certainly right, although it may not have been dictated by that pure attachment to religious liberty, which ought equally to have protected the unoffend

ing Lord Baltimore, a quarter of a century before. Hatred for Cromwell and Claiborne, must have originated a new compassion for Catholics, naturally supposed more favorable to the Stuarts than to Cromwell, the common enemy of Papists and that dynasty. This was certainly the feeling of another set of refugees, who met with a still more cordial reception in the colony. These were the English cavaliers, to whom "the house and the purse of Sir W. Berkeley," and doubtless of others also, "were open."

At the Restoration, the religious condition of Virginia was deplorable. Out of fifty parishes, into which it was divided, only ten were supplied with ministers, and many of them had "neither church, parsonage, nor glebe." Little had been effected by an offer, which the Legislature made in 1656, "of twenty pounds to any person who should, at his own proper cost and charge, transport a sufficient minister into the colony."

Hawks tells us "the country was not in the best repute, and that but few clergymen of merit were found willing to make it their permanent habitation." Hammond says: "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." Sometimes indeed "these wolves in sheep's clothing were, by their assemblies, questioned, silenced, and some forced to depart the country." This was a church worthy the "merry monarch," to whose allegiance Virginia is said to have returned first among the colonies. The Virginians have reason to bless God, that the evil influence of that, and of many following days, did not ultimately prevent them from becoming the earnest and foremost advocates of religious and civil freedom. A century afterwards, the political heavens of "The Old Dominion" were radiant with a galaxy of heroes and patriots. This favorable change was certainly not brought about by the careful re-establishment of the Episcopal, as it certainly could not have been by the re-establishment of any church, but by causes entirely independent of civil magistrates and penalties.

The high-handed Berkeley procured in 1662, the passage

of an act still more severe against the Quakers, which is very justly and strongly censured by Dr. Hawks. He exposes the falsehood of the preamble, which states that "persons often assemble themselves in great numbers, to the great endangering of the public peace and safety,” while in fact there was only one, if one, congregation of Quakers, whose persecution this statement was designed to justify.

He suggests, that the true motive of this severity was subserviency to Charles the Second, who declared the prinples of this sect inconsistent with any kind of government, and in a letter to the Massachusetts authorities, distinctly informed them, that he did not "wish any indulgence whatsoever should be granted to those persons, commonly called Quakers." We can hardly imagine, that even the proud Virginia cavaliers, always loyal, were exempt from the servility that disgraced the era of the Restoration, and the best we can say is, that it never led them to hang Quakers, as the earnest bigotry of Massachusetts did, even before the Restoration.

It is said by Bancroft, that "They riotously interrupted public worship; and women, forgetting the decorum of their sex, and claiming a Divine origin for their absurd caprices, smeared their faces, and even went naked through the streets." "Indecency, however," as he justly remarks, "is best punished by slight chastisements." Quakers are now the most inoffensive of all denominations. The only ground of complaint against them is their refusal to aid, by personal service or money, in the defence of the country. It may be plausibly maintained, that it is a case, in which the civil arm must interfere with the rights of conscience; for, after all, Archbishop Hughes is right in the position, that there must be a limit to religious freedom, although we should differ widely from him, as to the point at which that limit should be placed. Men are fond of indulging in the use of those sounding generalities, absolute freedom and absolute despotism; but there is in all human affairs such a clashing of rights, and duties, and powers, that these absolute quantities can never exist. "Sic utere tuo ut alienum non lædas," must limit the exercise of religious, as well as proper

ty rights. No man can act out the sincerest religious convictions without regard to the peace and safety of the community. Ravaillac may have thought it a religious duty to kill Henry the Fourth; yet it certainly ought not to have exempted him from the gallows. Persons who appear naked, or use improper language in promiscuous assemblies, must expect the jail and the lunatic asylum. Shall Mormons, admitting their sincere belief in the lawfulness and expediency, and even duty, of polygamy, be permitted to break down one of the bulwarks of civilization, morality, and social happiness? Ought Quakers to enjoy the same protection as other citizens, while conscience forbids them to put out a finger or a farthing to aid in that defense? We, of course, are not advocating severity to Quakers, but merely stating a difficulty in applying the great principles of religious freedom to their case. We can dispense with a Quaker's oaths. Can we, likewise, dispense with his military services?

The general proposition, that government must confine itself to temporal interests, is clear as day-light, and worthy of being defended by the life-blood of every man who loves his race. Yet, in candor it must be admitted, that legislators, in honestly promoting those temporal interests, must and will do so, in accordance with the system of religion in which they have been educated, and thus, often jostle against opposing prejudices and habits. A Christian legislator will thus come in conflict with Moslem convictions, and a Moslem legislator with Christian convictions. This difficulty, although real, has not been practically great, in the United States, although it may turn out to be so in the case of the Mormons.

To return from this digression, another act, or part of the same act, may have been directed against the Baptists, if there were any in the colony, unless this, too, was also aimed at the Quakers, who equally refused to bring their children to baptism. It was enacted that "Whoever, in contempt of the Divine sacrament of baptism, should thus refuse, when he might carry his child to a lawful minister within the county, to be baptized, should be amerced two thousand pounds of tobacco, half to the parish and half to the inform