Page:New England and the Bavarian Illuminati.djvu/43

 age, was not the least of the bitter taunts which dissenters had to bear.

(a) Massachusetts

In Massachusetts the eighteenth century dawned with some faint promise of a kindlier day. The Charter of 1691 granted full liberty of conscience to all Christians except Roman Catholics. 1 The practical effects of this apparently sweeping reform were largely nullified, however, when in the following year the General Court made it obligatory for each town to have a minister for whose support all its inhabitants should be taxed. 2 With the removal of all bonds upon conscience and of all religious restrictions upon the right of suffrage on the one hand, but with the principle of enforced support of the institutions of religion on the other, the hallowed union of church and state in Massachusetts obviously stood in no immediate danger. The slight modifications speedily made in the law of 1692 did not touch the principle of taxation in the interests of religious worship. 8

A measure of relief came to the Episcopalians in 1727,*


 * 1 The Charter Granted by Their Majesties King William and Queen Mary, to the Inhabitants of the Massachusetts-Bay in New-England, Boston in New England, 1726, p. 9. The principle of church membership as a qualification for voting was set aside for a property qualification.


 * 2 Backus, History of New England, vol. i, pp. 446 et seq. Cf. Reed, Church and State in Massachusetts, 1601-1740, pp. 23 et seq.


 * 3 Backus, History of New England, vol. i, p. 448.


 * 4 Charters and "Acts and Laws" of the Province of Massachusetts-Bay, With Appended Acts and Laws, Boston, 1726-1735, p. 383. The law provided that "all persons who profess themselves to be of the Church of England", and who were so situated that " there is a Person in Orders according to the Rules of the Church of (England setled [sif], and abiding among them and performing Divine Service within Five Miles of the Habitation, or usual Residence of any Person professing himself as aforesaid of the Church of England", might have his rate-money reserved for the support of the Episcopal church.