disposition towards everything that seemed to affect their independence; so that for a score of years and more before the final rupture, their history was one of watchful protest against some dreaded usurpation, whether the province was a royal one, or whether it was proprietary. Theirs was a civilization in which individuality and the private rights and liberty of the citizen, were the most eminent conception, the contrary of the leading thought of royalty. And this was in a marked degree the condition of things in Maryland, where human rights and the true relations of the citizen to the government, as between the people and Lord Baltimore, had always engaged a large degree of attention. Taxation and the right of the people to make their own laws, jealousy against prerogative, government by the people for the people, these subjects agitated the people of Maryland along with all the rest of America, through this period, kindling it into a flame, as testified to by a resident of this province then.

And the result was what, may be, no one foresaw, from this great leading consideration, a great broadening out of sympathies and a laying hold of principles which in themselves are the first basis of all right government. So that when under the common agitation the issue at last was reached, Puritan New England, Quaker Pennsylvania, Church of England Maryland and Virginia, were found in substantial agreement, and all the differences that had existed, whether under statute or not, as to the ground of citizenship, ceased to be. All churches were dis-established and church rates abolished; and even the

Roman Catholic, no longer feared under the clearer light that had at length dawned, was everywhere accorded equal rights with all other men. And doubtless one cause why the Church of England was disturbed so greatly during the last decade of her existence as an establishment, why some of her most prominent sons in the controversies of the time, lifted up the heel against her as an establishment, was that the times were out of harmony with such an institution. It was a burden because it was, though as yet not perceived by the citizens of Maryland, abnormal, a violation of the true relations that exist between men in society. That any man should be disfranchised because of his religion or his want of it, or that one man should be taxed to provide min istrations and a house of worship for another, for which he himself had an aversion, whether conscientious or not, was contrary to the developing sense of American freedom."

That the church through this time had a great trial of afflictions none need question, and that without any offence or fault of her own. That she was still afflicted with some evil men was true, and that her clergy were frequently out of sympathy with the people in the great questions which the people had received as a birthright, but of which the clergy, as coming into the province only in the full years of manhood, were ignorant. Also many of the clergy, nearly onehalf, were foreigners to the colonists, who chiefly sprang from English stock; for Scotchmen and Irishmen were then, even much less than now, in harmony with the English ideas and English feelings inherited by the colonists. Also, as not

having been chosen by, but imposed upon the people, there was no mutual sense of dependence. Rather the clergy represented an extraneous power of whose every act they were jealous, which was also at this time disposed ever to assume a more imperious tone and to be more reckless of propriety in church administration, and who only resisted the introduction of Episcopacy lest it should interfere with its own untramelled influence. Unfortunately also circumstances brought the church into conflict with public sentiment at a time when the mind of the public was violently excited by other questions.

The great agitation of the year 1765 will here be remembered, and the energetic action of Maryland in common with the rest of the colonies. The spontaneous outburst of that time was only a witness to hidden fire. And the fire never went out afterwards; for there was enough in British measures, whether they were proposed or repealed, to excite the people's alarm. Here will also be remembered the great excitement produced by the Proclamation act of 1770, when the Governor attempted to regulate by his own manifesto the fees to be paid the officers of the provincial government; an assumption to resist which the people had been prepared for many years. For Maryland had to contend against a twofold encroachment, both of the English government and also of her superior Lord and his governors. All kinds of tyranny excited her, but especially that of petty tyrants.

Unfortunately, therefore, for the church, in the year 1767, the question of the induction of the clergy assumed large proportions, particularly

because his excellency the Governor in the plentitude of his power, saw fit not only to ignore the people's pleasure in not appointing the man they preferred, but in appointing the one they reprobated One parish even proceeded to extremity and refused to receive the letter of induction, and the matter, taken out of parochial bounds became a general question. The courts of the province decided in favor of the Governor's unlimited right, and his position was sustained by the best legal talents of the day. The people however, did not know how to yield, and somewhat inconsistently with their patriotic claims, carried the matter to England. But Lord Baltimore went on inducting whom he would. This question was strongly agitated in various parishes, and private terms were attempted by the vestries. Doubtless had not the Revolution cut all matters short the evils of the system would have necessarily been remedied in a very few years.

For it would not have been possible for any one, and certainly not for one whose character could not command the public esteem, as Frederick, the last of his name, to wantonly commit such outrage upon the people's highest interests. The remedy would have been found before long under any circumstances.

The old question that had been coming to the surface all through the century, and particularly when the waters were troubled, again at this time was presented, the question of a bishop for the colonies. And nothing exhibits

more

strongly the great yearning desire of the clergy for a better condition of things in the church. For they all felt that not only was the effect of

the delinquent, whoever he might be, bad upon his own work, but that all the clergy of the province were hindered and their work marred by the evil reports that got abroad. And, therefore, their urgency for this relief. But, unfortunately, they were the only persons in the colonies that had strong faith in that means, and who did not look upon the remedy as fraught with greater ills than it was intended to correct. Therefore, also, at this time they were again strongly opposed. First it was by his lordship's agent, Governor Sharpe, who in 1767 rejected the notion on the ground that it would interfere with his lordship's rights, while Governor Eden afterwards assumed a more supercilious tone, insisting that a bishop, if appointed and resident in the colony, would be able to effect nothing, because the parishes of Maryland were "donatives," over the holders of which the Bishop could have no control. Lord Baltimore in one word, would appoint whom he would, and neither his wickedness nor his mistakes should be corrected, however much the people's spiritual welfare might suffer. Dr. Hawks, however, who argues this question, shows that even being donatives, the claims of Governor Eden were false, because a clergyman holding such a living, was liable to discipline for evil manners. Gov. Eden, further chose to assume a supercilious bearing towards the clergy.

But unfortunately the people at this time cordially endorsed the action and the opinions of the Governors. For as Eddis tells us in his fourth letter written in 1770, "the colonists were strongly prejudiced against the Episcopal order,"