t have been
expected. Rigorous measures were instituted for the suppression of
nonconformity, Quaker preachers were severely dealt with, and clergymen,
such as they were, were imposed upon the more or less reluctant
parishes. But though the governor held the right of presentation, the
vestry of each parish asserted and maintained the right of induction or
of refusing to induct. Without the consent of these representatives of
the people the candidate could secure for himself no more than the
people should from year to year consent to allow him. It was the only
protection of the people from absolute spiritual despotism. The power
might be used to repel a too faithful pastor, but if there was sometimes
a temptation to this, the occasion was far more frequent for putting the
people's reprobation upon the unfaithful and unfit. The colony, growing
in wealth and population, soon became infested with a rabble of
worthless and scandalous priests. In a report which has been often
quoted, Governor Berkeley, after giving account of the material
prosperity of the colony, sums up, under date of 1671, the results of
his fostering care over its spiritual interests in these words: "There
are forty-eight parishes, and the ministers well paid. The clergy by my
consent would be better if they would pray oftener and preach less. But
of all other commodities, so of this, the worst are sent us. But I thank
God there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not
have, these hundred years."

The scandal of the Virginia clergy went on from bad to worse. Whatever
could be done by the courage and earnestness of one man was done by Dr.
Blair, who arrived in 1689 with limited powers as commissary of the
Bishop of London, and for more than fifty years struggled against
adverse influences to recover the church from its degradation. He
succeeded in getting a charter for William and Mary College, but the
generous endowments of the institution were wasted, and the college
languished in doing the work of a grammar school. Something was
accomplished in the way of discipline, though the cane of Governor
Nicholson over the back of an insolent priest was doubtless more
effective than the commissary's admonitions. But discipline, while it
may do something toward abating scandals, cannot create life from the
dead; and the church established in Virginia had hardly more than a name
to live. Its best estate is described by Spotswood, the best of the
r