[Footnote 750: LODGE, _Short History_, 105. Elsewhere this writer says the Episcopal church in Maryland was as "contemptible an ecclesiastical organization as history can show." "It is not easy to conceive the utter degradation of the mass of the Maryland clergy. Secure in their houses and glebes, with a tax settled by law, and collected by the sheriffs for their benefit, they set decency and public opinion at defiance. They hunted, raced horses, drank, gambled, and were the parasites and boon companions of the wealthy planters. A common jest was the question: 'Who is a monster of the first renown? 'A lettered sot, a drunkard in a gown.' "They extorted marriage fees from the poor by breaking off in the middle of the service, and refusing to continue until they were paid."--_Ibid._, 123, 120-24; _cf._ BROWNE, _Maryland_, 184 ff.] [Footnote 751: See, however, the case of North Carolina below, where the original toleration of the early years was later somewhat curtailed; and that of West Virginia.] [Footnote 752: Compare COOK, "Mar. Cel. in the Colonies," _Atlantic_, LXI, 356, 357.] The change did not take place all at once. A beginning was made by the law of 1692 which in part deprived members of the established church of the privilege of the civil celebration, but as yet did not interfere with the liberty of others. As under the preceding acts, either a minister or a magistrate may perform the ceremony; but now it is provided that he "shall joyn them in manner and forme as is sett down & expressed in the Liturgy of the Church of England w^{ch} being finished the Minister, Pastor, or Magistrate shall say I being hereunto by Law Authorized do pronounce you lawfull man and wife."[753] [Footnote 753: _Archives of Md.: Procds. and Acts of the Gen. Assem._, 1684-92, 450, 451.] A more rigorous statute, affecting members of the establishment, appears in 1702. To "prevent all illegal and unlawful Marriages, not allowable by the Church of England," it is enacted that "no Minister, Priest or Magistrate shall presume to join together in Marriage, any persons whatsoever, contrary to the Table of Marriages, by this Act appointed to be set up in every Parish-Church within this Province," under penalty of five thousand pounds of tobacco for violation, and with a like punishment for each of the parties to such a marriage. To "prevent any Lay-Persons" from acting "where any Minister or Priest can be had, and to ascertain what shall be paid for Marriages," it is provided that "in every Parish where any Minister or Incumbent shall reside and have charge of souls therein, no Justice or Magistrate, being a Lay-Man, shall join any Persons in Marriage, under penalty of Five Thousand Pounds of Tobacco ... to our Sovereign Lord the King." The marriage fee is fixed at five shillings sterling, provided the persons to be married come to the parish church or chapel at time of divine service.[754]