Church life in colonial Maryland

Preface

The author, in offering this volume to the consideration of the public, does not desire that it lall be looked upon as a history of the Church • Maryland through the period which it covers, ut rather as one among many aids to the writing }t that history which is yet to be. He is aware of the existence of a considerable body of materials which he has not been able to utilize, and he has been made very conscious through all his labor in this connection, that both the engrossing nature of his i^arochial duties and the remoteness of his residence from all literary centers, would render him unfit for the ambitious plan of the history of the church in this province. The title of the work expresses its object, Clmrcli Life in Colonial Maryland ; for the writer's purpose has been, by the blending of parochial records with documentary and other evidence of a more general character, along with a continuous glance at the world outside the colony, to give as near as may be, both a peculiar and also a relative insight into the condition of the Church of our fathers. How far he has succeeded in this purpose he must leave it to others to determine.

(j CHURCH LIFE

The author feels, however, that he has some special qualifications for this work. A Maryland Churchman by birth, he is proud of her traditions, and proud of her eminent position. He also feels the heartiest sympathy with that tone of Churchmanship which permeates all parts of the commonwealth, which had its origin in those days when the Church was the Cliurch in theminds and mouths of all, when dissent was a small faction w^orshipping in its chapels, and when the parson was the generally accepted presentation of Christ's duly ordained minister. That is Maryland Churchmanship ; and it has been fostered and preserved through all the older rural districts of Maryland, where the old temples still stand, and where the children of a long line of fathers still occupy the soil.

Another qualification also, he feels that he has in being the rector of one of the first parishes in MaryLand ; first, principally because it was created along with those that were laid out under the earliest act of establishment ; first, because from that earlier day it has been blessed, almost without exception, with a long line of ministers who have furthered the kingdom and done uv dishonor to their holy calling, the parish thus enjoying an even life of high tenor ; first, because those who worship within its sanctuary, love the Holy Name, and are thankful for their Churchly inheritance ; and among the first, because though resources have been severely crippled, and numbers sadly reduced by untoward circumstances, their is a willingness to help build up Zion, to rex>air the waste places, to make the desert rejoice and blossom as the rose.

IN CO L ON I A L MA R YLA NJ). 7

Presenting, therefore bi^ claims for attention, he prays for consideration, and trusts that the effect of his labor may be to correct misapprehension, and to reveal to many the true historical position of their church in this diocese, fostering thereby their zeal in its behalf.

Chapter I. The Church Before 1692

INTRODUCTOKY.

The history of a parish in Maryland cannot properly go back beyond the year 1692 when the first act of the Colonial assembly was passed for the establishment of the church of England in the now royal province. Still it wonld be erroneous to suppose that there had been no existence of the church in the colony before. Rather the evidences are various that from the foundation of the colony there had been many members of that church among the settlers, some of them very influential , while also in the Virginia settlement on Kent Island, which had been established in 1629, years before Lord Baltimore's emigrants had arrived in the colony, the church of England services were conducted by a duly ordained minister. Lord Baltimore's endeavors had been strenuous to secure a large body of colonists, as the "Account" published with the Father White papers shows, and his invitation was in no way limited to the members of his own church, as in the nature of things it could not have been.

The existence of this Protestant element also soon began to show itself, for though we do not have any early notice of a duly established congregation ministered to by a clergyman, we find Protestants assembling together for mutual edification, as in the case of the servants of Cornwallis in 16:^s ; while also in 1642 we find the small colony disturbed by an attempt to deprive certain '•Protestant Catholics'' of the use of their chapel and to despoil them of the books of the same, a term of designation which Bozman, the chief historian of that period, thinks can only mean members of the Clmrcli of England. Indeed the most recent light thrown upon the history of that time, that from the Jesuit Fathers, whose records in the matter are now^ in hand, shows that beyond all question from the beginning the Protestants were in the majorit}^; the provincial, Henry Moore, writing to Rome in 1642, saying "The affair w^as surrounded with many and great difficulties, for in leading the colony to Maryland, by far the greater part was heretics." Also we are told by the same authority that the assembly which met in 1638, in which all the freemen couJd be present eitlier personally or by proxies, "was composed with few exceptions of heretics ;" of wliom probably the larger part were of the Church of England,seeing that persons of Puritan views w^ho would seek an asylum, would rather prefer the northern colonies where everything was conducted so much more to their li^^ing. Consistent only with this fact of the majority of the colonists being Protestants, is the progress of things from the year 1648. For though up to this time Lord Baltimore had consulted his private preferences in choosing members of his church for the offices of the colony, yet now we find him aj)pointing a Protestant governor and a Protestant council, with also a Protestant secretary of State ; while also we find the embodiment of the new feature of general toleration in the oath of office, both of the governor and council, with particular definiteness in the former in favor of Roman Catholics; and the enactment by the assembly, on presentation by the Proprietary, of what is entitled an Act concerning Religion (1649) in which toleration is provided for all believers.

These things coniirm the previous evidence, if any confirmation were necessary. Maryland continued to be a refuge for Roman Catholics. Roman priests, especially the Jesuit Fathers, continued to be very active, many being sent over to the colony from time to time, though sometimes giving great trouble to the authorities, from the extravagance of their pretensions. All the way along through the whole colonial history members of this church ever wore a threatening aspect to the minds of all Protestants, and jealousy of them gave a war cry that could excite the fiercest passions. Their numbers were alwayssuch as to make them a force and sometimes a terror ; and in the many risings of the people during the first lifty-five years of the colony, dread of them was a largely prevailing cause of fear.

In 1656 one of Lord Baltimore's friends, Hammond, writing in his behalf, states that at that time the population of the colony was composed of Conformists, non- Conformists, and a few Papists, the first in which catalogue being members of the Church of England. The First minister of this church as far is known (not including the one previously settled on Kent Island) came into the colony about 1650, with his wife and daughters, and engaged in ministerial labors. The evidences, however, are that he was compelled to seek subsistence in part from sources other than the offerings of the people, a fact that has always held, not only in new countries, but in those where the population is sparse. The support and prosperity of the church in rural districts, have always been dependent upon some form of endowment or external aid. Lord Baltimore, in defending himself from charges made in 1676, asserted that the clergy then in the province had each of them a plantation, which probably they had entered and possessed on the same terms as the other private individuals. For as yet there were no parishes in existence, and besides, there was extreme jealousy felt against church or other corporations acquiring property, and it was forbidden without special license obtained from the Lord Proprietary. The statute of Mortmain was made to bear on the matter, the anxiety of Lord Baltimore and the colonial authorities being chiefly excited by the conduct of the Jesuits who took up immense tracts of land for their society, though it was held for them and was taken up in the name of private individuals. They still hold a large portion of this their former possession. Altogether at this time their relations in the colony were exceedingly strained, their assumptions of i^rerogative being very extravagant, even to the point of independence of lay jurisdiction. Their

12 CHVECH LIFE

own authorities in England disapproved of their presumption, and Lord Baltimore, by consistency and resolution, sustained as he was by members of his own church, finally succeeded in maintaining his rights against their unwarrantable encroachments.

The facilities, however, for acquiring an estate in the province were so great that no one needed to suffer. For according to the conditions of plantation published by Lord Baltimore in 1636, after the year 1635 one thousand acres of land might be held for a yearly rental of twenty shillings, payable in the commodities of the province, and fifty acres for twelve pence, land being granted to applicants according to the number of the laborers brought into the colony. Under these conditions any minister could secure for himself a personal estate,^ and thus be guaranteed a maintenance. We are told, however, of two endowments that were created about the year 1676, one in Baltimore county and one in St. Marj^'s, in the latter case the corporation of the county being made the custodian of the fund. The clergy of the church began now to increase in numbers. For in 1676, in the answer above noted, we find Lord Baltimore declaring that there were four in the colony ; a small number for the vast amount of work to be done. How far these were an honor to the church or efficacious for its beneficent purposes is a question ; for of two of those, probably included in the four, John Coode and John Yeo, the history is, that the former was afterwards convicted of atheism and blasphemy, and that the latter was, to say the least of him, a turbulent man. There began now also a demand for miniisrers. In 1676 the latter of the above parties represented to the Archbishop of Canterbury in the strongest language, the great need of the colony for a duly provided for ministry to prevent the falling away of many churchmen to Popery, Quakerism or fanaticism, and to control the wide spread disregard of the ordinances of religion and of the i»roprieties of morality. He describes the colony as a Sodom of uncleanness and a pest house of iniquity. Nor was this the only demand for Church of England Clergymen. For in the year 1685 we find Mary Taney, wife of the sherilf of Calvert Co., and ancestress of the late Chief Justice of the United States, addressing a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which she pleads for means to erect a church and in part to support a minister, founding her plea upon her anxiety for her own family's welfare and that of her neighbors, dreading less they might otherwise be condemned to infidelity or apostasy. She had previously petitioned Charles the II for relief, who had sent over a minister, together with a number of Bibles and other church books, and also in this case her petition was received with favor and a clergyman sent over. Nor were her anxieties and those of Mr. Yeo and others groundless ; for in the reports of the Jesuit Fathers through this period we find as the fruit of their labors seventy brought over to their church in 1672, in 1673 twenty-eight, in 1674 thirty-four, while there was also a mission carried on by the order of St. Francis.

The times of trouble were now, however, setting in upon the colony, religious matters being the great disturbing cause. The ferment that had been created in England by the report of a Popish ph)t, in which Titus Gates was the chief agitator, and used by such men as the Earl of Shaftesbury as a tool for political ends, spread also to the colony, and under Fendall and Coode the "No-Popery" cry excited a revolt in 1681. This was successfully quelled, but as the home country continued to be in a state of doubt and anxiety about the Protestant religion, the i)eople not believing in Charles the Second's faithfulness to the Church, and knowing that his prospective successor, afterwards James the Second, was an avowed papist, so the province of Maryland was disturbed ; the more particularly so, because Lord Baltimore was a member of the Roman Church. This was a natural cause for suspicion and alarm throughout all this period when the pretensions of the Roman Church to the right of interfering with states, were so much more avowed than now, and when temporal rulers could be found, under blind religious zeal, to proceed to such extremities as that of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes with its fearfully ruinous consequences ; and when the recollections of- the horri ble excesses of the thirty years war had not passed from the memories of living men, and when the echoes of the voice of Cromwell were still heard amongst the Alps shielding the hunted Waldensians from the blast of papal fury. Lord Baltimore, neither Cecilias nor Charles, deserved the susyjicion ; for both were liberal minded men, and both of them received from the Assembly of the province, testimonials of confidence and esteem, the former in 1671 and 1672, and the latter in 1676, 1682 and 1688. Still prejudices are generally ungovernable and suspicions incapable of entire restraint, and the dread oi popery and of the effect of its teachings was in the very atmosphere of that time. In 1684 the Proprietary was ordered to put all offices in the hands of Protestants, though he showed the king that all the most important offices we^^e in their hands already, and especially such offices as controlled the military establishment of the colony.

In 1681 the population numbered over 20,000, and according to an estimate at the time there were thirty Protestants to one Papist, a disxDroportion that might be supposed sufficient to give assurance to the majority. Lord Baltimore's deputies, however, managed, by some peculiar gift, to excite the anxieties of this body, already sensitive enough, so that when William of Orange was reported about to invade England, the fear of the people was that Maryland was to be placed in antagonism to this movement, which was felt to be, in the colony as well as in Great Britain, the only thing that could preserve the religion and liberties of the country. For the deputies of Lord Baltimore not only failed to proclaim the joint sovereigns when they were raised to the throne, but previously had put the colony in a state of defense by collecting arms and other materials of war, as if to resist any attempt that might be made to reduce the province to the new obedience. " No Popery" therefore again rang forth as a cry, an association was formed, the citizens were called upon to take up arms, the dej)uties were dispossessed of their authority, a convention was assembled, and a petition and address justifying their proceedings V7ere drawn up and j^resented to the king.

Tliis was the Protestant Revolution whose object was, as stated by its friends, "The defense of the Protestant Religion, and the asserting the right of king William and queen Mary to the province of Maryland and all the English dominions.*' The convention^ when it assembled in 1689, made many charges against the management of the colony, alleging excessive Jesuit intiuence over the officers administering the governi'mt, that the churches were all appropriated tj the use of the Popish idolatary, and that under the permission or connivance of the goverment, murders and outrages of all kinds were perpetrated by the Papists upon the Protestants. They charged an arbitrary exercise of power against the Proprietary and that he had ignored, as far as possible, the soverei<j:nty possessed by the crown, allegiance to the Proprietary being alone required in the colony. And they declared themselves discharged from all fidelity to the chief magistrates of the province because they had endeavored to deprive them of their lives, prox>erty and liberties, which they were bound to protect.

The King of course listened to all this, and the consequence was that Lord Baltimore was de prived of the functions of government, of which he remained disinherited for over twenty-five years, till 1715. and the colony was erected into a Royal province, with writs running in the King's name, and the governor and othe^' officers appointed by his authority. The private rights, however, of Lord Baltimore were coDtinued to him, together with his income from the land, whether his own extensive manors or the quitrents due him from the settlers. He was the private owner of the w^hole domain. The prerogatives and emoluments of office he was stripped of, the excessive sensitiveness of the people rendering it impolitic, if not extremely dangerous to leave authority in his hands or to force back upon the citizens an administratioj: which they had so forcibly disallowed. The year before the final rujDture the President of the Assembly had openly drawn a picture of the prevailing immorality of the colony in respect of drunkenness, adultery. Sabbath breaking and swearing, that, having the endorsement of the lower house, shows that Lord Baltimore's influence in the administration of the colony had not been in the highest degree successful, and that radical measures had now become necessary. The establishment afterwards sprang into existence in answer to that need as the one thingmost likely to prove efficacious; and doubtless it did so in an eminent degree, for from the beginning, in addition to the silent influence of the church, we And its authorities doing all in their power under the law to suppress immorality.

CHUBCH LIFE

Chapter II. The Establishment Of The Church

Under the Royal government of the colony the recond act of the first assembly, convened in 1692, was that providing for the establishment of the Church of England, nnder which functions and prerogatives were given the said church endowing it with great and exclusive privileges. Nor are we to be surprised at such a measure; for the establishment of the church was looked upon throughout the world as legitimate and proper, such ideas coming down unquestioned from the remotest Christian antiquity. And even among the barbarians, as well as among the heathen of civilized states, it appeared to the rulers of kingdoms, with their generally arbitary power, to be only proper that they should provide for the support of religion, and in various ways control and direct its ministrations. Men had not yet outgrown this notion, and so during the period of the Commonwealth in England the Presbyterian church was established, and in New England, and in New York after a manner, as well as in V^irginia and the more southern colonies, establishments were now the rule. There is no great wonder, therefore, that the colonists in Maryland proceeded to this step, in as much also as it appeared to them to be the only means to ends they fondly desired, the restraint of the Roman Catholic Church and the correction and improvement of the morals of the colony. For one of the assigned causes for their overthrow of the Proprietary's authority was the inlluence the Jesuits were able to wield in the government of the colony, a cause for alarm which may or may not have existed. One thing the people knew, the Roman priests were exceedingly energetic; and to counteract their influence, on the one side, as they won away Protestants in the dearth of spiritual ministration, and on the other, to save the people from the depths of immorality, into which from the same cause they were falling, provision was made under law by the unanimous voice of the representatives of the inhabitants, for the support of a Protestant ministry; and the Church of England was chosen because it had the affections and loyalty of by far the largest part of the people of the colony. All differences were sunk in the Assembly under the sense of a great constraining necessity.

Much has been said about the ingratitude of this act and the consequent repression of the Roman Catholics, by whom, as is alleged, great liberality had formerly been shown; and certainly the thing is against all our x^resent American" notions But the whole matter of the toleration secured in 1649, and what motives may have impelled the then Proprietary to lay it before the Assembl}^ are too fully presented to us now to justify any further talk about Protes tant ingratitude. For as we have seen, there is the best evidence that the Protestants were in a majority in the very lirst body of emigrants, a prej)onderance in strength which they always preserved ; and any toleration that had ever been in the colony to this time had rather been by them than of them. The act must be looked at in the leading question of how far an establishment is ever justifiable. The Roman Catholics had been tolerated down this far in Maryland history. Consideration for them was opposed by the English ideas of that day. They dared not have established their own church, even had they had the power, or in any way have repressed persons of the Protestant faith. Lord Baltimore ever felt the force cf this, and was earnest to impress upon the powers at home, that Roman Catholic as he was, and associated with the Jesuits as he was, equal liberties Avere enjoyed by all. A royal proclamation or an act of Parliament could at any time have deprived him of power in the case ; as was done in the days of Cromwell, and again when Charles II. directed him to put all offices in the hands of Protestants, and finally when he was deprived of all government jurisdiction at the time of the Protestant Revolution.

Also in the days of James II. the writ of quo warranto sued out by his royal majesty, made not only Lord Baltimore tremble, but the holders of many other charters besides. There was no ingratitude at all in the case. Neither Lord Baltimore nor his church ever had any j^ower to establish their form of religion or to disfranchise other bodies than their own : and had they had the power they would not for a moment have dared to exercise it. The thunders of royal wrath and Parliamentary indignation would have overwhelmed the attempt in an instant. There was no ingratitude in the case ; while we can sympathize with the colonists in their laying hold on the only available means of repressing a faction whose extravagant pretensions had, even in Maryland, given so much trouble to Lord Baltimore in the past, and whose principles had brought such trouble and mischief ujion the world. For it was only seven year before this that Louis XIY. had revoked the Edict of Nantes which wrought intolerable and widespread ruin upon hundreds of thousands of Huguenots, depriving them in many instances of life and in almost all of property, and taking away rights dearer than life or property. It was the personal act of the king indeed, but received the approval both of the country and the church. It was at this time also that James the Second's conduct manifested all the qualities that the Roman Church might tolerate, violating his promises to maintain the Church of England, introducing the rites and customs of the Roman Communion, endeavoring to put places of trust and power in the hands of the members of that profession, seeking to ride down all law by suspending, by edict, every statute that might imjDede his will, and imprisoning the best and most exalted men of the realm whose faithful loyalty as citizens and ministers of the gospel prevented them from becoming the weak and pliable instruments for his tyrannical and arbitrary purposes. These things we must remember ; nor can we forget the great agitation concerning the Popish Plot, which tliough granted, as we now see it, to have been a marvelous extravagance, still had some ground to rest on, and was lirmly believed in by almost every one of that day.

Because of these things we can sympathize with the colonists of that time, and the more so when we recollect what the pretensions of the Koman communion were in regard to civil rulers and what had been attempted against the liberties of England in the days both of James I. and of Elizabeth, and that there was no place in Europe where the Roman Church was in the ascendency, where there was any toleration of divergent opinions. The mountains of the south of France were now ringing with the cries of the Camisards, struggling heroically against fearful odds for home and liber tj^ and life, and the brutality of the house of Savoy, shown in the interests of religion, had not been forgotten. The true i)icture of the times was fearfullj^ vivid to the minds of Maryland men at that period. With our American notions in this nineteenth century we disapprove of establishments altogether, and certainlj^ such exclusive ones as that attempted in 1692. But the men of the seventeenth century were wise in their generation. They were educated by the circumstances of their day. Only the times have changed and we are changed with them.

The colonists, however, did not immediately succeed in their attempt. The law was not approved by the home government, which was neccessary now for its rinal validity, as in former days the ai3proval of the Proprietary had been necessary. The cause of this non-approval was that the king regarded it as too exclusive ; for brought up with his liberal Dutch notions he was far in advance of most 2)ersons in his day. Again and again was the law enacted with modifications, but as often rejected, until the year 1702, when Dr. Bray, the great friend of Maryland, and commissary, having returned to England, obtained permission to have an acceptable law drawn up, with the assurance that having been duly passed by the colonial Assembly it should stand approved. It was done, and in that year the Church of England was iinally established in Maryland. The great hindrance all along had been the difficulty raised chiefly by the Quakers, though the Roman Catholics also exerted quietly some influence. The true position of the former had come now to be better understood, and the days of their persecution were over ; so that the king confirmed the Mary- y. land act with these words, "Have the Quakers -^ the benefit of a toleration 'i Let the established church have an established maintenance." To the north of Maryland there had been granted to William Penn an extensive tract, on which many of his co-religionists were settled, and over which he had established a provincial government. Also by the toleration act passed in England in 16S9 the Friends were granted freedom of worship. <^

That they should oppose, therefore, the act of establishment that would restrict their liberties was only natural, especially as now they formed a very considerable portion of the population, reckoned at this time at one-twelfth, among wliom were included some of the most intelligent and thrifty citizens of the province. This is proven by various circumstances, as by the names of the j)ersons who were members of the meeting, by the influence they exerted with the authorities, by their readiness and boldness in discussion, and by their threat to prosecute any priest or magistrate who should marry any Quaker children without their parents' or guardians' consent. This was done at a yearly meeting held in 16S8, and of itself shows how secure they felt themselves to be. Their opposition w^e have seen w^as influential, but it was not Anally effectual ; for the king was content to secure for them the toleration of their separate assemblages, while they were required, along with all other persons, to contribute according to law to the support of the established church. For the act as Anally passed, provided that the church of England should be established, and that for its support there should be levied annually a tax of forty pounds of tobacco per poll uj)on all the taxables of the colony; to be collected by the sheriff'. The appointment of ministers to parishes Avas to be by the governor without appeal, induction being in his hands; the minister was to keep and provide for a clerk out of his income.

Other sections of the law regarded marriages, and a table declaring who might marry was to be set up in the Churches. Only a minister could marry when there was one resident, his fee being Ave shillings sterling. The number of vestrymen was set at six at the least, two to be dropped every year. By a subsequent law in 1730 the two eldest in office were to be dropped and not to be liable again for tliree years. The minister was also a vestryman. A register of births, marriages and burials was to be kept, and by several clauses of the law the vestry was required to meet on a certain day in each month, the time fixed once for all ''to prevent surprise." Provision was made for the current expenses of the parish, to be levied by the county courts. Persons refusing to become wardens were fined one thousand pounds of tobacco, to go to the king, a stronger assurance that the fine would be collected. No minister could hold more than two parishes, nor could he hold them without the consent of the vestries of both and the appointment of the ordinary. The vestry had the power of appointing lay readers during a vacancy, who were to take the oaths with which every office was surrounded in those days. The lay readers received compensation. A vestryman could be removed if he neglected his duties, and parishioners had the riglit to inspect the vestry books and to appeal to the governor and council against vestry acts. "Py th^ twpntj^-tir.'^t section of the law^ Quakers and other dissenters were to have the benefit'~~6f~TlTeTolera!ion act, while their j)lacBs o f w^orshi p_Avere-4^^qu4red to be reported and a register of them kept.