oyal governors, when, looking on the outward appearance, he reported:
"This government is in perfect peace and tranquillity, under a due
obedience to the royal authority and a gentlemanly conformity to the
Church of England." The poor man was soon to find how uncertain is the
peace and tranquillity that is founded on "a gentlemanly conformity."
The most honorable page in his record is the story of his effort for
the education of Indian children. His honest attempt at reformation in
the church brought him into collision not only with the worthless among
the clergy, but also on the one hand with the parish vestries, and on
the other hand with Commissary Blair. But all along the "gentlemanly
conformity" was undisturbed. A parish of French Huguenots was early
established in Henrico County, and in 1713 a parish of German exiles on
the Rappahannock, and these were expressly excepted from the Act of
Uniformity. Aside from these, the chief departures from the enforced
uniformity of worship throughout the colony in the early years of the
eighteenth century were found in a few meetings of persecuted and
vilified Quakers and Baptists. The government and clergy had little
notion of the significance of a slender stream of Scotch-Irish
emigration which, as early as 1720, began to flow into the valley of the
Shenandoah. So cheap a defense against the perils that threatened from
the western frontier it would have been folly to discourage by odious
religious proscription. The reasonable anxiety of the clergy as to what
might come of this invasion of a sturdy and uncompromising Puritanism
struggled without permanent success against the obvious interest of the
commonwealth. The addition of this new and potent element to the
Christian population of the seaboard colonies was part of the
unrecognized preparation for the Great Awakening.

FOOTNOTES:

[41:1] Bancroft, vol. i., p. 138.

[44:1] See the interesting demonstration of this point in articles by E.
D. Neill in "Hours at Home," vol. vi., pp. 22, 201.

Mr. Neill's various publications on the colonial history of Virginia and
Maryland are of the highest value and authority. They include: "The
English Colonization of America During the Seventeenth Century";
"History of the Virginia Company"; "Virginia Vetusta"; "Virginia
Carolorum"; "Terra Mariae; or, Threads of Maryland Colonial History";
"The Founders of Maryland"; "Life of Patrick Copland."

[45:1] It was customary for the Compan