76 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
seventeenth centuries. Under William III. the imperfect Tolera- 
tion Act was passed. Under Anne the burdens were made heavier 
by acts against occasional conformity, forbidding habitual dis- 
senters to attend worship and take the sacrament occasionally in 
the Established Church, and preventing dissenting teachers from 
undertaking the education of youth. On the accession of the 
House of Hanover these were repealed. Fifty years, during which 
public opinion became increasingly indifferent and therefore tol- 
erant, elapsed before a further step was made. In 1779 profession 
of a belief in the Scriptures, with the declaration of Christianity 
and Protestantism, became the legal condition of toleration, instead 
of the acceptance of the doctrinal articles of the Church ; and in 
1812 provision was made for the registration of places of worship. 
In 1813 Unitarians were first admitted to the legal benefit of 
toleration. In 1828 the Test and Corporation Acts were swept 
away. In 1829 the Catholics were emancipated. The establish- 
ment of the London University first restored to the Nonconformists 
the advantages of a university education. In our own time the 
Jews have been relieved from the final shred of their disabilities ; 
and church-rates (abolished long before in Plymouth by common 
consent) have been swept away. 
There is now greater religious liberty than the land ever knew 
before ; and the result is neither the old-time predicted anarchy 
nor immorality, but greater activity of religious life. The present 
generation has done more work in church and chapel building, and 
in religious organization, than the five preceding centuries. The 
whole fabric of persecution has been proven utterly baseless ; its 
reasons as poor as its practice was cruel; its fears as worthless 
as its hopes were vain. Faggot and scourge have done their best, 
and worst. Thumbscrew and rack have worn out in their evil 
service. Gaol and gibbet have been glutted. And what has been 
the harvest ? In the past retaliation. In the present an evil 
memory. Nought has availed to quench the fire of free opinion. 
" The Beautiful and True 
Live through all ages, while the false dies out." 
All the blood shed, all the pain wrought, but aided what they 
were meant to crush. And now the children of persecuted and 
persecutor live and work side by side, for the most part in the 
honest and honourable rivalry of good effort, though in the under- 
