Chapter X: Alarming Symptoms (8)

“We, the said lieutenant, council, burgesses, and other
_Protestant_ inhabitants above mentioned, whose names are
hereunto subscribed, do declare and certify to all persons whom
it may concern that, according to an act of Assembly here,
_and several other strict injunctions and declarations by his
said lordship_, we do here enjoy all fitting and convenient
freedom and liberty in the exercise of our religion, under his
lordship’s government and interest; and that none of us are
anyways troubled or molested, for or by reason thereof, within
his lordship’s said province.”[129]

This important document is dated the 17th of April, 1650. It proves that the religious toleration they enjoyed was not due alone to the act of 1649, but to the uniform policy of Lord Baltimore and his government; and that even for the Toleration Act itself, which had recently become a law by his signature, they were indebted to a Catholic. Comment on such testimony is unnecessary.

Chancellor Kent, with the charter, the public policy of Lord Baltimore, of his colonial officers and colonists, and the Toleration Act of 1649, all submitted to his broad and profound judicial inquiry and judgment, has rendered the following opinion and tribute to the Catholic lawgivers of Maryland, to whom he attributes the merit of the generous policy we are considering:

“The legislature had already, in 1649, declared by law that
no persons professing to believe in Jesus Christ should be
molested in respect to their religion, or in the free exercise
thereof, or compelled to the belief or exercise of any other
religion against their consent. Thus, in the words of a learned
and liberal historian (Grahame’s _History of the Rise and
Progress of the United States_), the Catholic planters of
Maryland won for their adopted country the distinguished praise
of being the first of American States in which toleration was
established by law, and while the Puritans were persecuting
their Protestant brethren in New England, and Episcopalians
retorting the same severity on the Puritans in Virginia, the
Catholics, against whom the others were combined, formed
in Maryland a sanctuary where all might worship and none
might oppress, and where even Protestants sought refuge from
Protestant intolerance.”[130]

Catholics have written comparatively little upon this subject. The historians of Maryland have been chiefly Protestants. As long as Protestants so unanimously accorded to the Catholic founders of Maryland the chief credit of this great event, it was unnecessary for Catholics to speak in their own behalf. It has remained for Mr. Gladstone and the two sectarian ministers he follows to attempt to mar the harmony of that grateful and honorable accord of the Protestant world, by which Catholic Maryland received from the united voice of Protestant history the enviable title of “_The Land of the Sanctuary_.”

ARE YOU MY WIFE?

BY THE AUTHOR OF “PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS VI.,” ETC.