free the atmosphere was. To Roger Williams belongs the glory of having
founded the first modern State which was really tolerant and was based
on the principle of taking the control of religious matters entirely out
of the hands of the civil government.

Toleration was also established in the Roman Catholic colony of
Maryland, but in a different way. Through the influence of Lord
Baltimore an Act of Toleration was passed in 1649, notable as the first
decree, voted by a legal assembly, granting complete freedom to all
Christians. No one professing faith in Christ was to be molested in
regard to his religion. But the law was heavy on all outside this pale.
Any one who blasphemed God or attacked the Trinity or any member of the
Trinity was threatened by the penalty of death. The tolerance of
Maryland attracted so many Protestant settlers from Virginia that the
Protestants became a majority, and as soon as they won political
preponderance, they introduced an Act (1654)

[98] excluding Papists and Prelatists from toleration. The rule of the
Baltimores was restored after 1660, and the old religious freedom was
revived, but with the accession of William III the Protestants again
came into power and the toleration which the Catholics had instituted in
Maryland came to an end.

It will be observed that in both these cases freedom was incomplete; but
it was much larger and more fundamental in Rhode Island, where it had
been ultimately derived from the doctrine of Socinus. [2] When the
colonies became independent of England the Federal Constitution which
they set up was absolutely secular, but it was left to each member of
the Union to adopt Separation or not (1789). If separation has become
the rule in the American States, it may be largely due to the fact that