consequence in those
commonwealths where it has been practiced, and for the more quiet and
peaceable government of this province, and the better to preserve mutual
love and unity amongst the inhabitants, no person whatsoever within this
province professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall from henceforth be
anyways troubled or molested for his or her religion, nor in the free
exercise thereof, nor anyway compelled to the belief or exercise of any
other religion against his or her consent."(305)

Upon this noble statute Bancroft makes the following candid and judicious
comment: "The design of the law of Maryland was to protect freedom of
conscience; and some years after it had been confirmed the apologist of
Lord Baltimore could assert that his government had never given
disturbance to any person in Maryland for matter of religion; that the
colonists enjoyed freedom of conscience, not less than freedom of person
and estate, as amply as ever any people in any place of the world. The
disfranchised friends of Prelacy from Massachusetts and the Puritans from
Virginia were welcomed to equal liberty of conscience and political rights
in the Roman Catholic province of Maryland."(306)

Five years later, when the Puritans gained the ascendency in Maryland,
they were guilty of the infamous ingratitude of disfranchising the very
Catholic settlers by whom they had been so hospitably entertained. They
"had neither the gratitude to respect the rights of the government by
which they had been received and fostered, nor magnanimity to continue the
toleration to which alone they were indebted for their residence in the
colony. An act concerning religion forbade liberty of conscience to be
extended to 'Popery,' 'Prelacy,' or 'licentiousness of opinion.' "(307)

I shall also quote from "Maryland, the History of a Palatinate," by
William Hand Browne.(308) Mr. Browne was a graduate of the University of
Maryland. For several years he was editor of the Maryland Archives, and of
the Maryland Historical Society. He became afterward Professor of English
Literature in the Johns Hopkins University. He devoted his long life to
the Colonial history of Maryland, and is justly recognized as a standard
authority on that subject. I may add that he cannot be suspected of undue
partiality, as he was not a member of the Catholic Church.

Speaking of Calvert, the Proprietary of the Maryland Colony, the author
remarks that "while as yet there was no spot in