Page:Bruton parish church restored and its historic environments (1907 V2).djvu/50

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lege Youth" of William and Mary, to which gallery there is to be "put a door with a lock and key, the sexton to keep the key." Here the students sat and carved their names, which may be seen to-day, and doubtless indulged in incipient reasoning relative to religious liberty. Thomas Jefferson was among them. In the long records relative to the conflict as to the "right of Induction" we see the evidence of the spirit of liberty and the demand for self-government. The vestry, the representatives of the people, in these conflicts were gaining experience in the science of self-government. Their contention, that the civil authority should not impose ministers upon the congregation without the consent of the people, led to struggles which were prophetic and preparatory to the part which the vestrymen of the Church were subsequently to take in the House of Burgesses as champions of the liberties of the people of Virginia.

The Duke of Gloucester Street, looking East