Liberal Thought in America 143 



next forty years it was imitated by one state after 

 another, until all over the land religious freedom 

 came to be almost as complete as legislation could 

 make it. The qualifying adverb is still needed ; 

 for, by the constitutions of Pennsylvania and Ten 

 nessee, no man can hold office unless he believes in 

 God and a future state of rewards and punish 

 ments ; in Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, the two 

 Carolinas, and Maryland, belief in God is required ; 

 and in Arkansas and Maryland a man who does 

 not believe in God and a future state of retribu 

 tion is deemed incompetent as a witness or juror. 1 

 Such curiosities of law-making survivals from 

 a lower state, like the caudal vertebras in man 

 and the higher apes are common enough in his 

 tory. 



The various stages here mentioned in the pro 

 gress toward religious toleration, and toward the 

 separation of church and state, are important symp 

 toms of the progress of liberal thought. Of course 

 Madison s Religious Freedom Act could not have 

 been proposed by an Endicott, or sustained by a 

 community that would not endure the presence of 

 Baptists or Quakers. The sketch here given shows 

 an enormous advance in liberal thought in the 

 course of two centuries and a half. But such a 



1 Stirason, American Statute Law, 46. 



