reene acted as Governor. Over in England, Lord Baltimore
stood at the parting of the ways. The King's cause had a hopeless look.
Roundhead and Parliament were making way in a mighty tide. Baltimore was
marked for a royalist and a Catholic. If the tide rose farther, he might
lose Maryland. A sagacious mind, he proceeded to do all that he could,
short of denying his every belief, to placate his enemies. He appointed
as Governor of Maryland William Stone, a Puritan, and into the Council,
numbering five members, he put three Puritans. On the other hand the
interests of his Maryland Catholics must not be endangered. He required
of the new Governor not to molest any person "professing to believe
in Jesus Christ, and in particular any Roman Catholic." In this way he
thought that, right and left, he might provide against persecution.

Under these complex influences the Maryland Assembly passed in 1649 an
Act concerning Religion. It reveals, upon the one hand, Christendom's
mercilessness toward the freethinker--in which mercilessness, whether
through conviction or policy, Baltimore acquiesced--and, on the other
hand, that aspiration toward friendship within the Christian fold which
is even yet hardly more than a pious wish, and which in the seventeenth
century could have been felt by very few. To Baltimore and the Assembly
of Maryland belongs, not the glory of inaugurating an era of wide
toleration for men and women of all beliefs or disbeliefs, whether
Christian or not, but the real though lesser glory of establishing
entire toleration among the divisions within the Christian circle
itself. According to the Act,*

"Whatsoever person or persons within this Province and the Islands
thereunto belonging, shall from henceforth blaspheme God, that is curse
him, or deny our Saviour Jesus Christ to bee the sonne of God, or
shall deny the holy Trinity,... or the Godhead of any of the said three
persons of the Trinity, or the unity of the Godhead, or shall use or
utter any reproachful speeches, words or language concerning the
said Holy Trinity, or any of the said three persons thereof, shall be
punished with death and confiscation or forfeiture of all his or her
lands and goods to the Lord Proprietary and his heires.... Whatsoever
person or persons shall from henceforth use or utter any reproachfull
words, or speeches, concerning the blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of
our Saviour, or the holy Apostles or Evangelists, or any of them, sha