230 The Faith of Our Fathers Five years later, when the Puritans gained the ascendency in Maryland, they were guilty of the infamous ingratitude of disfranchising the very Catholic settlers by whom they had been so hospitably entertained. They "had neither the gratitude to respect the rights of the government by which they had been received and fostered, nor magnanimity to continue the toleration to which alone they were indebted for their residence in the colony. An act concerning religion forbade liberty of conscience to be extended to 'Popery,' 'Prelacy,' or 'licentiousness of opinion.' "307 I shall also quote from "Maryland, the History of a Palatinate," by William Hand Browne.308 Mr. Browne was a graduate of the University of Maryland. For several years he was editor of the Maryland Archives, and of the Maryland Historical Society. He became afterward Professor of English Literature in the Johns Hopkins University. He devoted his long life to the Colonial history of Maryland, and is justly recognized as a standard authority on that subject. I may add that he cannot be suspected of undue partiality, as he was not a member of the Catholic [237] Church. Speaking of Calvert, the Proprietary of the Maryland Colony, the author remarks that "while as yet there was no spot in Christendom where religious belief was free, and when even the Commons of England had openly declared against toleration, Calvert founded a community wherein no man was to be molested for his faith. At a time when absolutism had struck down representative government in England and it was doubtful if a Parliament of freemen would ever meet again, he founded a community in which no laws were to be made without the consent of the freemen. The Ark and the Dove were names of happy omen. The one 307 Bancroft's "History of the United States," Vol. I., ch. vii. Vide Bacon's Laws. 308 Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1884.