not to officers of government; and as our constitution says “No subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law," those laws are repealed thereby. And as the constitution was established by the people, it is stronger than any law the assembly can make, it being the foundation whereon they stand. Also the society to which the appellant joined is as regular a society as the other that taxed him.

These points were learnedly discussed on March 16, 1782, after which the justices retired a little by themselves, and then returned and declared "that they were unanimously agreed in giving the appellant damages and costs," which judgment not only settled the controversy in Attleborough, but has been extensively beneficial elsewhere.

XI. THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ACT OF 1811.

A wide movement of the people about this time in earnest endeavor for religious freedom resulted in an act of the legislature with which Dr. Baldwin, at a later period, expressed himself as quite well satisfied were it only generally enforced and had no attempts been made to repeal it.

In a suit, for money paid for ministerial rates, Chief Justice Theophilus Parsons decided that no society, except it be incorporated by law, could get back the money thus paid. A petition signed by many thousands of the citizens of the State was presented to the legislature, urging it to so revise and amend the existing laws respecting the support of public worship that "all denominations of Christians may be exempt from being taxed for the support of religious teachers, excepting those whose ministrations they voluntarily attend." In sup

port of this petition, Elder John Leland made a characteristic speech from which we make the following

extract:

Mr. Speaker, according to a late decision of the bench in the County of Cumberland, which it is presumed is to be a precedent for future decisions, these non-incorporated societies are nobody, can do nothing, and are never to be known except in shearing time when their money is wanted to support teachers that they never hear. And all this must be done for the good of the State. One hundred and seventeen years ago, wearing long hair was considered the crying sin of the land. A convention was called March 18, 1694, in Boston to prevent it. After a long expostulation the Convention closes thus: "If any man will now presume to wear long hair, let him know that God and man witnesses against him. Our pious ancestors were for bobbing the hair for the good of the Colony.; but now, sir, not the hair but the purses must be bobbed for the good of the State. The petitioners pray for the right of going to heaven in that way which they believe is the most direct; and shall this be denied them? Must they be obliged to pay legal toll for walking the king's highway which he has made free for all? Is not this a greater subordination than to sail under British licenses, or to pay three pence on every pound of tea? In Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, of the old Colonies; and in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio, the new States, there has never been any legal establishment of religion, nor any assessment to support Protestant Christianity for the good of the States; and yet, sir, these States have stood and flourished as well as Massachusetts. Since the Revolution,

1 A manifesto against "the wearing of long hair after the manner of Russians and barbarous Indians” was put forth "the third month [May] 10th day, 1649," by Endicott, Dudley, and seven other Magistrates; the full text of which is given in Hutchinson's "History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay," Vol. I., p. 151. This document also declares in closing, that "such as shall prove obstinate and will not reforme themselves may have God and man to witness against them." Were not the dates given by Mr. Leland so specific, we might suppose his reference was to this earlier manifesto.

all the old States, except two or three in New England, have established religious liberty upon its true bottom; and yet they are not sunk with earthquakes or destroyed with fire and brimstone. Should this Commonwealth, Mr. Speaker, proceed so far as to distribute all settlements and meeting-houses, which were procured by public taxes, among all the inhabitants without regard to denomination, it is probable that the outcry of sacrilege, profanity, and infidelity would be echoed around; and yet, sir, all this has been done in a State which has given birth and education to a Henry, a Washington, a Jefferson, and a Madison; each of whom contributed their aid to effect the grand event. . . These petitioners, sir, pay the civil list and arm to defend their country as readily as others, and only ask for the liberty of forming their societies and paying their preachers in the only way that the Christians did for the first three centuries after Christ. Any gentleman upon this floor is invited to produce an instance that Christian societies were ever formed, Christian Sabbaths ever enjoined, Christian salaries ever levied, or Christian worship ever enforced by law before the reign of Constantine. Yet Christianity did stand and flourish not only without the aid of the law and the schools, but in opposition to both. We hope, therefore, Mr. Speaker, that the prayers of thirty thousand, on this occasion, will be heard, and that they will obtain the exemption for which they pray.

In June, 1811, a law was passed by the General Court, providing that whenever any person shall become a member of any religious society, incorporate or unincorporate (this latter term rendering any such decision as Justice Parsons' nugatory), and shall produce a certificate of such membership to the clerk of the town where he resides, signed by a Committee of the Society chosen for the purpose, such person shall ever afterward, so long as he continues such membership, be exempted from taxation for the support of public worship and public teachers of religion in every other religious corporation whatever.

This "Religious Freedom Act," though a great advance upon its predecessors, was not wholly satisfactory to the Baptists, as it retained the odious certificate system, yet it afforded great relief from the oppressions they had so long endured. At a meeting of the Warren Association in Boston this year, which was also the year when the Boston Association was organized, the author of the circular letter, Ensign Lincoln, says:

We meet under external circumstances far different from our fathers. Unmolested in the enjoyment of our religious privileges, we sit quietly under our vine and under our fig tree. By a late provision of the civil government of this Commonwealth, those embarrassments which have heretofore existed are removed; and we are under increased obligations for gratitude to our heavenly Parent for his bountiful provision.

XII. THE DELAYED EMANCIPATION OF MASSACHUSETTS.

It was the hope of many, founded doubtless on the advanced movement of 1811, that the State Constitutional Convention of 1820 would be the means of establishing not toleration only, but full religious liberty.1 Strenuous efforts were, indeed, made to effect this result, but they proved unavailing. John Adams, who struggled so long and so hard to secure our national

1 Rev. George E. Horr, Jr., in his remarks at the Backus Monument Celebration, made a brief but very clear distinction between these two things which are often confounded together. "Toleration," he said "is for the magistrate to say to us 'I will not give you the right to think and worship as you please, but I will wink at your violation of the law.' Liberty is for you to say to me, 'I shall believe and worship God according to the dictates of my own conscience and I disclaim your right to impose, in these matters, any law upon me.'"' See also Washington's definition of toleration, p. 237.

independence,' was at the age of nearly eighty-six years a member of the Convention, and although he still felt it hazardous to abolish the religious establishment of the State, to which formerly he clung so tenaciously, yet in accordance with the extreme liberalism of his religious views in old age, he sought to effect a modification in the third article of the Bill of Rights, so that "all men of all religions, demeaning themselves as good subjects, shall enjoy the equal protection of the laws." Daniel Webster, also a member of the Convention, thought it a duty to provide for the support of public worship, and felt no objection to taxation therefor on account of conscience, yet was for striking out of the constitution "that part which respects enjoining attendance on public worship," and also favored the expenditure of moneys paid by any one for public worship, on the religious teacher whose instructions he attended.

The early Baptist leaders, Manning, Alden, Smith, Backus, Stillman (died respectively in 1791, 1797, 1805, 1806, 1807), had been called to enter into rest. But other Baptist champions of religious liberty remained,

1 Along with Adams' recommendation of the use of bells, guns, and other noisy instruments to celebrate the Declaration of Independence in all coming time, we would like to have some other words of his (primarily addressed to his wife, see his "Letters," pp. 214, 265) go down the ages also. He says: "This country knows not and never can know the torments I have endured for its sake. I am glad it never can know, for it would give more pain to the benevolent and humane than I could wish even the wicked and malicious to feel. . . Posterity! you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not I shall repent it in heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it." Verily "with a great sum," did our fathers obtain for us our civil and religious freedom.