to organize, 1 all serve to indicate the strength of the reaction that had set in.
The impressions produced by this excess were even more significant than the direct results, deplorable as the latter were. 2 In the middle of the eighteenth century the Standing Order in Connecticut had gained for themselves an unenviable record for bigotry and persecution from which the events of the latter half of the century by no means cleared them.
For a quarter of a century following the enactment of the legislative measures just considered, no advance step, general in its nature, was taken. Here and there a little larger measure of freedom was doled out to this or that aggrieved dissenting minister or church; but the situation as a whole was not materially changed. "Restriction was the rule, freedom the exception, and government the absolute and irresponsible dispenser of both." 3 Finally, in 1778 some evidence that a change in sentiment was under way appeared in the fact that Separatists were exempted from taxes to support the state church. Six years later, in 1784, more satisfactory proof was forthcoming. That year, by the passing of an act entitled, " An Act for Securing the Rights of Conscience in Matters of Religion, to Christians of Every Denomination in this State," 4 the General Court tacitly abrogated the Saybrook Platform and set the institutions of religion in Connecticut upon a new base. The act declared
- 1 Greene, The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, pp. 248-262. The difficulties experienced by three congregations in New Haven, Canterbury, and Enfield, are dealt with in detail.
- 2 A revision of Connecticut laws took place in 1750. The unjust legislation of 1742-43 and of the following years was quietly left out.
- 3 Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, vol. iii, pp. 398 et seq.
- 4 Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut, in America, p. 21.
