to support the Established Church. As for the 'Papists,' it is
needless to say that there was no exemption nor license for them."(311)

The author then sets before us the three kinds of toleration, like three
portraits, so that their distinctive features appear in bold relief.

"We may now," he says, "place side by side the three tolerations of
Maryland."

The toleration of the (Catholic) Proprietaries lasted fifty years, and
under it all believers in Christ were equal before the law, and all
support to churches or ministers was voluntary.

The Puritan toleration lasted six years, and included all but Papists,
Prelatists and those who held objectional doctrines.

The Anglican toleration lasted eighty years, and had glebes and churches
for the Establishment, connivance for Dissenters, the penal laws for
Catholics, and for all, the forty per poll.

In fact, an additional turn was given to the screw in this year; the oath
of "abhorrency," a more offensive form of the oath of supremacy, being
required, beside the oath of allegiance, and for one thing, no Catholic
attorney was allowed to practise in the Province.(312)

When the members of the Constitutional Convention declared in 1787, that
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof," it is worthy of note that they
were echoing the sentiments, and even repeating the language of the
Maryland Assembly of 1649, which declared that "No person whatsoever
within this Province, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from
henceforth be any ways molested for his or her religion, nor in the free
exercise thereof."

We may therefore affirm that Lord Baltimore's Toleration Act of 1649 was
the bright dawn that ushered in the noon-day sun of freedom in 1787. And
we have every reason to believe that the Proprietary's charter of liberty
with its attendant blessings, served as an example, an incentive, and an
inspiration to some at least of the framers of the Constitution, to extend
over the new Republic, the precious boon of civil and religious liberty.

It is proper to also observe that the Act of 1649 was not a new
declaration of religious freedom on the part of Lord Baltimore's
administration, but was a solemn affirmation of the toleration granted by
the Catholic Proprietary from the beginning of the Settlement in 1634.

I will close this subject in the words of a distinguished member of the
Maryland Histo