Gookin, who bravely defended his house at "Mary's Mount" during the Indian massacre, was doubtless a Puritan. His son of the same name was; he was driven away from Virginia for non-conformity; went to Boston, where he became a man of distinction; and thence to England, where he consulted with Oliver Cromwell, and no doubt gave a very bad character to the Virginians. In these years the Puritan people are struggling to gain a foothold. They will insist on intruding themselves on the good old cavaliers of the good old cavalier colony of Virginia. Why are they not satisfied with their country of New England? They have been notified that their presence in Virginia is not desired. The pioneers of 1619 were to have been followed by a large body, but his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury had very properly induced his Majesty to issue his proclamation against them. The first comers had obstinately remained in spite of their ill welcome; and now (1642) in response to the petition of these Virginia dissenters, the Puritan city of Boston sends a supply of "pastors" to Virginia. They come with letters of recommendation to the Honorable Governor, Sir William Berkeley, and are preaching in all parts of the colony to numbers of people who flock to hear them. Nevertheless they are not to be tolerated. In the next year (1643), the Assembly will decree that "for the preservation of the purity of doctrine and unity of the church, all ministers whatsoever which shall reside in the colony, are to be conformable to the orders and constitutions of the Church of England and the laws therein established, and not otherwise to be admitted to teach or preach publicly or privately; and that the Governor and Council do take care that all

non-conformists upon notice to them shall be compelled to depart out of the colony with all convenience."

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This fulmination the Church of England Virginians hoped would extinguish the heresy and heretics. The law was rigidly enforced. The dissenters, or "Independents," as they styled themselves, had a large congregation, probably in Nansemond; and said that in Virginia one thousand of the people were, by conjecture, of a similar mind." If this conjecture was correct, about seven per cent. of the people sympathized with dissent. But the pastors had to go; their enemies were too strong for them. Some were fined, others imprisoned; nearly all were driven out of the colony and retired to Maryland or New England ; and that was the end of dissent for the time in Virginia.

Why waste time in comment? That frightful intolerance will no doubt shock the Virginians of to-day who read of it. It is a very old story, which the writer of history has ever to repeat. That age scarcely knew the meaning of the word tolerance; scarce anywhere did anybody practice it - Catholic Maryland was nearly its only refuge. The Virginia adherents of Monarchy and Episcopacy fought the "Independents" who came to their soil, just as the Independents of New England fought the Church of England people there. It was all wretchedly narrow and shallow, of course, and we wonder at it to-day, seeing clearly, now, that religious freedom is the corner-stone not only of good government, but of society; that without it the state grows gangrened and all progress stops. But the old-time Virginians would not or could not see that, then or for long years afterwards.

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Would the reader like to see what they decreed even in the next century, when one might have fancied that enlightenment had come?" The new thunder was not aimed at the old Puritans now, but at themselves. "If any person brought up in the Christian religion," said the Burgesses (1705), "shall by writing, printing, teaching or advised speaking deny the being of a God or the Holy Trinity, or shall assert or maintain that there are more Gods than one, or shall deny the Christian religion to be true, or the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be of divine authority," such person or persons should be "disabled in law to hold any office or employment, ecclesiastical, civil, or military." And if a second time tried and convicted, the atheists, pantheists, evolutionists, agnostics, or infidels should be outlawed; should not sue for their rights in any court; or be guardians or executors; or execute any deeds or make any wills; and should "suffer three years' imprisonment without bail or mainprise." The friends of the development and other theories are fortunate in living in the nineteenth century. Skepticism was not in vogue in those old days of the Virginia colony, and Mr. Mill, Mr. Darwin, Mr. Spencer and their disciples would have had a bard time of it.

So the former Virginians could not bear the Puritan intruders to return to the earlier times. They perse

cuted them without mercy, and would have them go to prison, or out of the country. These honest people thought that it was their duty to check the spread of a creed which they believed to be false; that the true faith and worship were so unspeakably important that they ought to be protected by force. That pernicious stuff deceived the first minds of the time, not only in

Virginia, but everywhere. But even if there had been the least semblance of truth in it, it never attained its end. Dissent only grew more embittered and struck its roots deeper, since persecution fertilizes.

was an earn

They were not

But in things evil there is often the good motive stirring beneath. Disgust at this black poison of intolerance ought not to blind us to what it sprung from. Here, as in New England, it was the rank outgrowth as of noxious weeds from a strong soil of faith. These men at least believed. Life, which in this weary world of to-day is so vain a thing to many a flitting gleam fading away into ever-deepening shadow est affair to the men of that century. half believers or no believers at all, with the "sick hurry, the divided aims and the strange disease of modern life" as the modern poet sings. They were very far, indeed, from that. The flying mists and primordial germs gave them no trouble. Languid or fierce doubt never disturbed them. They believed with all their might, these intolerant ancestors of the tolerant men of to-day who believe in nothing. The vast and wretched blunder, and all the sin and folly of forcing their faith on other people, are now plain. But looking at the world of this nineteenth century when Faith, the white maid, is laughed at in the market-place, one is tempted to envy the epoch when men fought for her, and committed crime for love of her.

IV.

CLAYBORNE, "THE REBEL."

THUS these excellent narrow-minded Virginians, of the seventeenth century, followed the wont of their contemporaries, putting those who differed with them in jail, or ordering them to go out of the country; and it was not the Puritan dissenters only who fell under their displeasure. They were even more severe on the unlucky Roman Catholics, and had already seized the occasion, a little while before, to show their rooted aversion for things papistical.

Sir George Calvert, Baron Baltimore, a popish recusant of high character, came to Virginia in 1630, with the object of looking at the country and securing a retreat for the free exercise of his religion. He was not

a bigot, just the opposite in fact, and his enterprise was not an unworthy one. Obloquy and persecution were the lot of Roman Catholics in England, and the worthy Baron came to Virginia, as the Pilgrim settlers came to Massachusetts, to live in peace. But he found only

enemies in Virginia, as in England. As soon as his ship entered the capes, a stir ran through the colony. How he succeeded in passing that watch-dog, the "Captain of the Fort," at Point Comfort, without taking the oath of supremacy, is not explained in the archives; but he did pass by safely, without being brought to by the thunder of cannon, and arrived at Jamestown.

Here he found the Assembly sitting, but they gave him scant welcome. The same stubborn spirit of intolerance met him, which afterwards drove away the Puri