Page:William Penn the Friend of Catholics.pdf/11

Rh even more plainly, "By liberty of conscience I mean a free and open profession of that duty."

That was the "cause I have with all humility undertaken to place against the prejudices of the times," said he, and shall I, a Catholic, withhold words of justice from him who pleaded that my forefathers in the faith, were entitled beyond all human laws, to enjoy "the free and open profession" of their faith and practices of their religion? No.

He suffered for his creed and he suffered under laws intended to crush "Popery," and he had to be charged with being a Papist to even attempt to justify the wrong against him. His principles and his sufferings for them taught him "not to vex men for their belief and modest practice of their faith with respect to the other world into which province and sovereignty temporal power reaches not from its very nature and end."

Such were Penn's professions before the King of England granted him this land. How did he act then?

The Frame of Government granted Religious Liberty. The Great Law passed at Chester December 10, 1682, also proclaimed it.

"The Great Law declares: All persons living in this Province shall in no way be molested or prejudiced in their religious persuasion or practice or in matters of faith or worship."

Penn, in A Further Account of the Province of Pennsylvania and its Improvements, says "of the Government"—"We aim at duty to the King, the Preservation of Right to all, the Suppression of Vice and Encouragement of Virtue and Arts ''with Liberty to all People to Worship Almighty God according to their Faith and Persuasion." Pa. Mag. Apr.'' 1885, p. 79.

Benjamin Furley, Penn's agent at Rotterdam in Explanation concerning the establishment of Pennsylvania, issued Mar. 6, 1684, says:

And in order that each may enjoy that liberty of conscience, which is a natural right belonging to all men, and which is so comformable to the genius and character of peaceable people and friends of repose, it is established firmly, not only that no one be forced to assist in any public exercise of religion, but also full power is given to each to make freely the public exercise of his own without meeting with any trouble or interference of any kind; provided that he profess to believe in one eternal God all powerful who is the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of the world, and that he fulfil all the duties of civil society which he is bound to perform towards his fellow citizens."

Note that Penn always speaks of the right to practise one's religion as well as to profess it. One is naturally contained in the other, but in Penn's day it was not the profession, but the practices of his creed and that of the Catholics that were punished. It was the Mass that was specially objectionable. As regards Catholics, Protestant opinion was aptly summarized by Cromwell's order that liberty of conscience should prevail in Ireland, but no Mass. So that if Penn really meant anything just or wise concerning Catholics and liberty of conscience, he meant above all things else concerning them that Mass should be celebrated in his colony. And history proves it so.

There were Catholics in Philadelphia as early as 1686, and one Peter Debuc, who died in 1693, whose will I have examined, bequeathed £50 to Father Smith—supposed to an alias for Father Harrison, or Harvey, as investigation may show. Now, if half a dozen Catholics could be gathered together in the new city during this time, they surely had Mass celebrated by the Jesuit—who visited them when journeying from Maryland to New York, or on his return.

After 1692, until the Revolutionary War, nowhere else in the British Provinces was Mass allowed to be publicly celebrated but in Philadelphia—or else where in Pennsylvania. Even in Mary land, founded as it had been by Catholics who welcomed all, Catholics were, as soon as Protestants got the power, oppressed for their religion, and doubly taxed, and the public exercise of their religion prohibited. Mass could only be