clergy was broken, and the way was opened for disestablishment. The Baptists of Virginia. Amongst most important agents in the bringing about of religious freedom were the Baptists. In 1743, a few regular Baptist families had settled in Berkeley county. They spread in the Valley and east of the Blue Ridge till, by 1770, they had churches scattered through the northern neck of Virginia. As early as 1758, Separate Baptists had made a permanent lodgement in Pittsylvania. About 1766-67 the church was planted in upper Spottsylvania, whereupon it spread rapidly between the Blue Ridge and the Bay Shore. These people were subjected to various kinds of persecutions at the hands of the friends of the Establishment. Persecutions were heaped upon them, in some cases, perhaps, because of their sharp criticisms of the Established clergy. Their preachers were jailed repeatedly in various counties, and by their zeal and constancy gave occasion to the advocates of human rights to voice the truth. The records show that the powerful advocacy of Mr. Henry was more than once successfully invoked to defend those imprisoned for the "heinous charge of worshiping God according to the dictates of their own consciences." Undeterred by persecutions, they wrought with the greatest enthusiasm in missionary labors and increased rapidly in numbers and power, while voicing their sense of injustice at their persecution. Between 1763 and 1791 a political revolution occurred, on the wheels of which Dissenters rode into their full religious rights. England, on the conclusion of the war with France, began to enforce a system of repression and taxation on the colonies which the sons of the greater Britain could not stand. In March, 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act. On May 30, 1765, Patrick Henry drew up his famous resolutions against the act. He secured their adoption in the Virginia legislature, by the aid of the upper counties, Scotch-Irish and Huguenot Dissenters-chiefly Presbyterians, as yet. He thus made the Revolutionary War inevitable, through which the establishment of religious liberty was made practicable. The Virginia Bill of Rights. By 1772 the Presbyterian Dissenters in Virginia were enjoying larger liberties than were guaranteed by the Act of Toleration; the Quakers, at least, the guaranteed toleration, and the Baptists petitioning that they might be treated "with the same indulgence in religious matters as Quakers, Presbyterians and other Protestant Dissenters." Under these circumstances a bill for extending the benefit of the several acts of toleration to His Majesty's Protestant subjects in this colony was introduced, engrossed and ordered to be read again a third time, July 1, 1772. This bill was highly objectionable to both Baptists and Presbyterians. Each body objected to certain features of the bill. Each body aimed at something more than could be properly called toleration. The petition of the Presbytery of Hanover, dated November 11, 1774, and remonstrating against the proposed Bill of Toleration, is described in The Journal of the Virginia Assembly, as "praying that no bill may pass into a law but such as will secure to the petitioners equal liberties and advantages with their fellow subjects." The petitioners declare themselves "in favor of an unlimited, impartial toleration"; but the unbiased mind will see that they are aiming at more than is denoted by the word toleration. They and the Baptists alike at this period seem to have taken toleration as an "equality of privilege and protection to all denominations, by the civil power." As the war came on "dissenting clergymen" were permitted to celebrate divine worship in the armies, "for the ease of scrupulous consciences." From the very beginning of the war the ScotchIrish, Presbyterians and Baptists, threw themselves into its support with the utmost unanimity. By their services they made it possible to obtain their religious rights. The minds of men were becoming more enlightened, too. The skeptical philosophy prevailing at that time on the continent of Europe occasioned the questioning of all institutions even by conservative men. Accordingly the Virginia convention sitting at Williamsburg in the summer of 1776 adopted a bill of rights, the last clause being in the words: "That religion, or the duty we owe our creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence, and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience, and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice forbearance, love and charity toward each other." These words, in the main, from the draft of the Bill of Rights presented by the celebrated George Mason, a member of the Established Church, were contributed to the bill by Patrick Henry. One clause only of the Henry-Mason draft received a material amendment. In their draft it is written that all should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion. Their use of the word toleration is like that of the Independents of the Westminster Assembly, implying non-interference of the state with the church; nevertheless, the word "tol |