The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-03-13


of the city; the committee to report at
the next meeting, as they think wise. in
regard to permanent committee OF five
to be called committee of reference,
and to take charge of the matter.
The motion was carried, and the ap-
pointing of committee was left in
charge of President Jenkins and Seere-
tary F. V. Matthews.
The name of Rev. j. E. Aiken OF Whit
ney was proposed for membership.
Rev. Silas N. Adams, John E. Warren
and Rev. David Martin of Westbrook
were elected members of the club.
DR.. Jenkins, in introducing the speak
or of the evening, Rev. Henry S. Bur-
rage, D. D., of Portland, said that he
was thinking that the similarity between
Baptists and Congregationalists was their
belief in having the power lie in the
hands of the people and not in an hier-
archy.
Dr.. Burrage's subject was the "Con-
test for Religious Liberty in Massachu-
setts.' He first said his parents were
Congregationalists. Once there came
slave trader to the little village in Massa-
chusetts and desired communion with
the church. There were some who OPP
posed, among them his mother. Soon
after she died, and the minister of the
church would not visit her in her illness
or oficiate at her funeral. His father
obtained the services of Baptist clergy
man, and that is how he, and after him
his son, became Baptists
DR.. Burrage's paper first recounted the
restrictive religious laws of the Massa-
chusetts colony that taxed the people for
church support, demanded their attend
ance, etc. Finally one by one, the
granted exemption from taxes.
In 1857, however, the Baptists and
Quakers were no longer exempted except
those who were certified, by much red
tape, to be actually active church men,
bers. s%A
In 1869 there eliminated protest
against the oppression brought about by
this law. A committee of Baptists was
appointed to seek measures of relief. In
ITO, it was resolved to send to the
British courts for relief, if they could
not get it in this country. In 1772 an
other committee of grievances was ap-
pointed, and appealed to the people for
relief from the oppression that the
Baptists We're subjected to.
Soon after, eighteen members of
Baptist church were imprisoned, and as
a result an act more favorable to the
Baptists was finally passed. The long
struggle of the Baptists to escape from
the unjust taxation of the ecclesiastical
laws OF the great Puritan commonwealth
of Massachusetts, was considered at
length by DIR. Burrage. The Baptists
denied the right Of the general court to
impose upon them a ministerial tax, just
as they denied the right of England to,
impose the tea tax They inaugurated
small revolution of their own, and DR..
Burrage's account of it was listened to
with the greatest interest. 1t was a
revelation of the extraordinary difficulty
encountered by the Baptists in obtaining
legal right to worship by themselves as
they saw fit, and escape from taxes to
support other ministers. The part that
Robert Treat Paine. John Hancock and
other great men took in this religious
war proved of especial interest. The
paper gave evidence of the most
thorough research in tracing the sue
cessive stages of the religious enfran-
chisement of the Baptists.