and the plaintive Celtic tones which uttered God's praises upon the shores of Lough Foyle now speak the honors of Jesus on the banks of the Pocomoke. The third family come from among the vineyards of Languedoc, bringing with them the traditions of an ancestry who fought under the prince of Condé and Henry, of Navarre, and who have handed down from father to son stories of the horrors of St. Bartholomew's Day. Louis XIV., growing more superstitious as he grows older, and falling more and more under the influence of Madame de Maintenon, has been steadily deepening his despotism over the Huguenots, and is evidently contemplating a revocation of the Edict of Nantes. To escape present hardships and more terrible probabilities, our friends fled first to London, but, seeing intolerance and wrong reigning there too, they set sail for the New World. The soft accent, broken but sweet, has sounded very charmingly to John and myself to-day while comparing Maryland's balmy evenings to the skies and the skies and breezes of Southern France. Then we listen to the entrancing voice of Margaret-named for the good Queen Margaret of Navarre-while she sings to us some sad ballad concerning the persecutions of the Albigenses or the heroism of Roger Raymond. Now, again, the sweet Southern voice sings a selection from the Holy SongBook of Clement Marot, written one hundred and forty-six years ago under the auspices of Beza and Calvin and set to an air composed by the martyrmusician Gaudemel. My philosophic father has been speculating upon the future characteristics of the Presbyterianism settling upon our soil from so many various tributaries. Immediately around us here the sturdy conscientiousness of English Nonconformity, the Scot's undying loyalty to the crown-rights of Jesus, the generous fervor of Irish piety, the enthusiastic devotion of the countrymen of Farel and Jean Claude, he sees in the commingling of these noble types the promise of a new and mighty evangelization. If my brother John continues to listen as he did today to those troubadour canzos, I see some possibilities, too. However all that may be, I am delighted to include among my American friendships Mary, the rosy Scotch lassie; Peggy, the blue-eyed maid of Ulster; and Margaret, the sweet-toned singer of the Vincennes. In the very midst of our welcomes to these fugitives from the harassments of the established religions of Europe, startling reports burst upon us. Rebellion in the province! A plot against the Proprietary ! Bloodshed imminent! We wait and listen. John is thinking of Roger Raymond and polishing his gun. New colonists are always excitable. Without mails, the rumors may be exaggerated or they may not equal the truth. Oh, why will not wicked men permit the province to enjoy the peace which tranquil Nature breathes around? The Eastern Shore is almost wholly Protestant, and Lord Baltimore and his Church have never disturbed us. But there is a growing restlessness and agitation abroad not confined wholly to the other side of the bay. The domination and state support long enjoyed in Europe are still lusted after by our prelatic neighbors. Many from Virginia long to bring with them across the line a right to supremacy and to the tithes. Five years ago-May, 1676-one of their Western Shore clergymen, John Yeo, wrote to the archbishop of Canterbury invoking direct interference by the English authorities. He said, “Here are in this province ten or twelve thousand souls, and but three Protestant ministers of us that are conformable to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England." He begs "that a maintenance for a Protestant ministry may be established as well in this province as in Virginia. I think that the generality of the people may be brought by degrees to a uniformity, provided we had more ministers that were truly conformable to our mother the Church, and none but such were suffered to preach among us.” Ah, yes, John Yeo! and to prevent them from preaching among us I suppose you are ready to use the same appliances of thumb-screw and gunpowder as in bleeding Scotland. Until you are permitted to do that you will still continue to call our Maryland a Sodom of uncleanness and a pesthouse of iniquity." 66 To that mournful statement of grievances the Lord Proprietary, then in England, replied, "The act of 1649, confirmed in 1676, tolerates and protects every sect. Four ministers of the Church of England are in possession of plantations which afford them a decent subsistence. From the various religious tenets of the members of the Assembly, it would be extremely difficult to induce it to consent to a law that shall oblige any sect to maintain other ministers than its own" (12). Plantations would not satisfy these grasping clergy men without a tax upon all who differ with them, and without the prohibition of all other worship except their own. Thus failed that attempt to override the noble policy of the colony and to force Episcopacy upon the necks of an unwilling people. But the agitations and contentions have continued, until Governor Culpeper of Virginia has just written to the home-government: "Maryland is now in a ferment, and not only troubled with our disease, poverty, but in very great danger of falling in pieces; whether it be that the old Lord Baltimore's politic maxims are not followed by the son or that they will not do in the present age." The difficulty was not in the policy of the Proprietary, except as it conflicted with the designs of ecclesiastical factionists. It is said that it was this growing turbulence which discouraged the good Matthew Hill and lost him to our province. This Rev. John Yeo-a man of little culture, and as little Christian charity-after making his appeal for the tithes in vain, left for Hoarkil (Lewes), at the capes of the Delaware, where he was the cause of constant disturbance, and at length was arrested and prosecuted. Lately he has returned to the Western Shore to contribute his influence to the disaffection of the people there. Suddenly the news flashes along the Pocomoke of an insurrection on the other side of the bay against the Proprietary government. His life once forfeited and spared, the chronic revolutionist Fendal has been joined in new plots by the characterless clergyman John Coode. The name of the latter accomplice throws some light upon the actuating motive. Without respectability, but dignified by the imposition of a bishop's hands, his zeal for the Church, inspired by her emoluments, fits him to trample upon all rights that conflict with his own aggrandizement. Earth's worst embodiments of malevolence have been draped in soiled clerical robes (13). Better news at last. John has put away his gun. Our Proprietary has not been caught napping. The two leaders have been brought to trial and convicted. We expected that they must atone for their crimes with their lives, but the clemency of our Proprietary has spared them. Colonel Stevens thinks it will result in new troubles in the future. We often rejoice that our grand Chesapeake Bay separates us from these Western Shore turmoils, but there are others around us whose countenances wear the shadows of poorlyconcealed disappointment. "'Tis said the Gods lower down that chain above Eclipse most States be always Lights to you; The only Emblem of Tranquillity!" So sang in our province the rollicking indentured servant George Alsop eighteen years ago, and so we would ever sing. After the anxiety was over and the exquisite Indiansummer days again had come, we went upon a notable excursion of thirty miles to our sister-colony. To the favoring breezes our little Dove spreads her pinions, and in less than a day we fly down the river, waving salutations to the Stevens and Jenkins families |