In 1687, King James II. published his celebrated Declaration of Indulgence, by which, after expressing his conviction that consciences could not be forced, and religious persecution always failed of its object, he proceeded to suspend the execution of all penal laws against the Catholics and Dissenters alike, to authorize all religious bodies to hold public worship after their own fashion, and to dispense with all religious tests as qualifications for any civil or military office. Whatever may be said of the constitutionality of this declaration, it was unquestionably in accordance with the principles of freedom and justice which have since been recognized completely in this country, and are gradually becoming established in Great Britain and all other constitutional states. The Declaration of Indulgence might to-day be accepted in every particular as the platform of the English liberals or _The New York Tribune_. The Protestant party in James's day, however, was any thing but the party of religious freedom or liberal ideas. Church and state, in their minds, must be one--and that one the Protestant church. The declaration was violently resisted. A year later (April 27th, 1688,) James issued a second declaration, repeating the points of the former one, and proclaiming his unalterable resolution to carry it into effect. By an order in council he subsequently commanded that this paper should be read on two successive Sundays at the time of divine service by the officiating ministers of all the churches and chapels of the kingdom. "The clergy of the Established Church," says Macaulay, "with scarcely an exception, regarded the indulgence as a violation of the laws of the realm, as a breach of the plighted faith of the king, and as a fatal blow levelled at the interest and dignity of their own profession." The order was generally disobeyed. The Archbishop of Canterbury and six of his suffragans presented a petition to the king, recounting their objections to the declaration and their reasons for refusing to order its publication in church. For this they were committed to the tower, and tried before the court of king's bench on a charge of seditious libel. In the midst of the most intense popular excitement they were acquitted, and that day, the 30th of June, 1688, is often referred to as the crisis of the English revolution. So far as it was a political movement, this affair of the bishops represents a victory of the people over the arbitrary authority of the crown. So far as it was a religious movement, it represents a triumph of the secular power over what are called the great Protestant principles of liberty of conscience and freedom of worship. Though the bishops may have been political martyrs, they stand nevertheless as the representatives of religious intolerance, proscription, and persecution.