ton were more common, as he used these remarkable words: "History has not pages enough to record the absurdities committed by Christian priests and princes. This is God's lesson to us. It is outlined in the history of every individual of His Church, from the savagery of St. Peter, pulling his sword to chop off the servant's ear, down to the cruel shooting of Hugo Bassi. Why do Catholic writers seek to cover up the horrors of St. Bartholomew, the cruelties of an Inquisition which burned the flesh of human beings made in God's likeness, or the self-sufficient wisdom which refused to recognize the truths discovered by Galileo?" 16 I do not love to go back in thought to these dark times, but our separated brethren compel me to show that toleration has never been a part of their creed, any more than in earlier days it was a part of our own creed. Nay it is not yet an accepted principle of the Roman faith. Even today Roman Bishops have to take a vow to assail and to persecute all heretics and schismatics."7 Undoubtedly there are kindly and tolerant bish 16 See a Hartford, Conn., newspaper, July 12, 1894, quoting Mr. J. B. Walker, Editor of Cosmopolitan. 17 66 * pro posse persequar et impugnabo." See Roman Pontifical P. 63, Ed. Rome, 1818. ops and priests of the Roman Church in our midst, and certainly their people are often lovely and pleasant in their lives, and we could ill spare their influence for good, but let none of them talk of Rome's theories of religious liberty. Let them not contradict what her chief bishops, and her greatest saints 18 and doctors have proclaimed to the world. Such teaching is false to their Church. The pope himself repudiates it, anathematizes it, casts it out, and rejects it as an unclean thing." Conditions issued directed against published. BalWith the priests (4) The fourth item on the programme was the issuing of new Conditions of Plantation. This was done July, 1649. It will be remembered that the crucial clauses of the November 10th, 1641- those the Jesuits-had never been timore had quite a free hand. hiding in exile there was now an open field. A Protestant governor would have no qualms of conscience, nor a Protestant secretary either, upon being summoned to publish Conditions which were hateful to the Jesuits. Accordingly 18 St. Thomas Aquinas says that heretics are to be killed, or as in another passage, "not to be liberated from the sentence of death," (non tamen ut liberentur a sententia mortis) or as in still another passage, "exterminated from the world." 19 See note II, page 322. the proprietary now issued Conditions of which some clauses were more sweeping and drastic than any which had preceded them. There was, to be sure, not so much reason for these restricting clauses now, but who could tell whether they might not soon be needed again. The power at which they were aimed was only scotched, not killed. Moreover there was the Puritan power to appease, and its friendship to gain. Altogether it was a difficult task which lay before the lord proprietary, but no man knew better how to accomplish it than the self-reliant, quiet, determined man who ruled Maryland from beyond the seas. CHAPTER XIX. MARYLAND UNDER PURITAN RULE. 1650-1656. "A sect, whose chief devotion lies In odd perverse antipathies : In falling out with that or this, And finding somewhat still amiss." --BUTLER: "Hudibras." Lord Baltimore's touting for emigrants in England and Ireland, in Massachusetts and Virginia, was in one respect a marked success. Hundreds of stalwart men in response to his efforts swarmed over the fertile lands which lay on both sides of Chesapeake Bay. Homesteads rose as by magic, broad acres suddenly came under cultivation, where shortly before the primeval forest had stood, and the waters of the Chesapeake, studded with the light craft of the fishermen, no longer wore the deserted appearance of a silent and unknown sea. But, alas! in the matter of the quality of his emigrants Lord Baltimore's success left something to be desired. They were a motley assemblage. Even Charles II., from his retreat in Holland, described them as "all kinds of schismatics and sectaries and other ill affected persons." This witness was true. They were of all sorts and conditions of men.' Bitterly did Lord Baltimore himself complain about the character of some of these settlers which he had been at so much pains to obtain; not hesitating to describe them as "the basest of men, and unworthy of the least favor and forbearance." The headquarters of the disturbing element were at Providence on the Severn, now Annapolis. To this place had originally come some Puritan refugees from Virginia. Others in the recent influx of population of like political and religious sympathies naturally gravitated thither, until there had grown up quite a flourishing settlement. But its whole tone and spirit was alien to the proprietary. He was a Romanist and they were Puritans. In no long time they began to seek opportunity to resist the proprietary's claims and to jeopardize his rights. This, however, by direct attack was no easy thing to do. Presently realizing the futility of their course, they adopted other tactics. Com1 See Founders of Maryland, P. 154. |