The faith of our fathers - Carmel Apologetics

""TheCIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 273take allmy praise of Maryland toleration, I shallmy historical facts from Bancroft, a New EnglandProtestant clergyman.Leonard Calvert, the brother of Lord Baltimore,and the leader of the Catholic colony, having sailedfrom England in the Ark and the Dove, reached hisdestination on the Potomac in March, 1634.The Catholics took quiet possessionof the littleplace, and religious liberty obtained a home, its onlyhome in the wide world, at the humble village which*bore the name of St. s."Maryfoundation of the colony of Maryland waspeacefully and happily laid. Within six months,it had advanced more than Virginia had done in as. . .many years.But far more memorable was thecharacter of the Maryland institutions. Every othercountry in the world had persecuting laws but;through the benign administration of the government of that province, no person professingto believe in Jesus Christ was permitted to be molestedon account of religion. Under the munificenceand superintending mildness of Lord Baltimore,a dreary wilderness was soon quickened with theswarming life and activity of prosperous settlements; the Roman Catholics who were oppressedby the laws of England were sure to find a peacefulasylum in the quiet harbors of the Chesapeake and;there, too, Protestants were sheltered against Protestantintolerance. Such were the beautiful auspices under1Bancroft s History of the United States, Vol. I., ch. viLS