who should dare to speculate too freely about the nature of Christ, or the philosophy of the plan of salvation, or to express a doubt as to the plenary inspiration of every word between the two covers of the Bible, was subject to fine and imprisonment. The tithing man still arrested the Sabbath-breakers, and shut them up in the town cage in the market-place; he stopped all unnecessary riding or driving on Sunday, and haled people off to the meeting-house whether they would or no.[27] [26] The case of Maryland is peculiar. But the reason for the toleration there seems to have been due to the desire to give Catholics a measure of freedom they could not have elsewhere in Protestant countries. [27] For a good sketch of the Puritan Sunday in New England see _The Sabbath in Puritan New England_, by Alice Morse Earle. For an account of religious intolerance see the account of the Blue Laws of Connecticut as contained in Hart's _American History told by Contemporaries_, Vol. I. And we have to remember that the intolerance shown in America was manifested by men who had left their own country on the ostensible ground of freedom of conscience. As a matter of fact, in Christian society genuine freedom of conscience was practically unknown. What was meant by the expression was the right to express one's own religious opinions, with the privilege of oppressing all with whom one happened to disagree. The majority of Christians would have as indignantly repudiated the assertion that they desired to tolerate non-Christian or anti-Christian opinions as they would the charge of themselves holding Atheistic ones. How deeply ingrained was the principle that the established religion was justified in suppressing all others may be seen from a reading of such works as Locke's _Letters on Toleration_, and Milton's _Areopagitica_, which stand in the forefront of the world's writings in favour of liberty of thought and speech. Yet Locke was of opinion that "Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an Atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all." And Milton, while holding that it was more prudent and wholesome that many be tolerated rather than all compelled, yet hastened to add "I mean not tolerated popery and open superstition, which as it extirpates all religious and civil supremacies so should itself be extirpated." In short, intolerance had become so established a part of a society saturated in religion that not even the most liberal could conceive a state of being in which all opinions should be placed upon an equal footing.