These excuses, however, were not satisfactory to his judges, and the other charges against him proving only too well-founded, he was deposed from the council, and was glad enough to slip off back to England at the first chance. Three years later, Dale of the iron hand came over fresh from the Netherlands, and put religion, like everything else, under martial law. The captain of the watch was made a sort of tithing-man, whose business it was to preserve order and encourage godliness at the point of the bayonet. It was his duty, half an hour before divine service, morning and evening, to shut the ports and place sentinels, and, the bell having tolled for the last time, to search all the houses, and to command every one (with the exception of the sick and hurt) to go to church. This done, he followed the guards with their arms into the church, where he laid the keys before the governor. On Sunday he was ordered to see that the day was noways profaned by any disorders. The Ancient Planters were strict Sunday keepers. The earliest law decrees "The Sabbath to be kept holy, that no journeys be made except in case of emergent necessitie on that day, that no goods bee laden in boates, nor shooteing in gunns or the like tending to the prophanation of the day." The offender who disobeys this decree is sentenced to pay a fine of a hundred pounds of tobacco or "be layd in the stocks." Henry Coleman was excommunicated for forty days for scornful speeches, and putting on his hat in church. The minister as well as the church was protected by law from irreverence and disrespect. In 1653, it was ordered by the court that, for slandering Rev. Mr. Cotton, "Henry Charlton make a pair of stocks and set in them several Sabbath-days during divine service, and then ask Mr. Cotton's forgiveness for using offensive and slanderous words concerning him." A few years later, Mary Powell, for slandering a minister, was sentenced to receive twenty lashes on her bare shoulders, and to be banished the country. I tremble to think what would have been the fate, had he fallen into episcopal hands, of the Puritan who spoke of bishops as "proud, popish, presumptuous, paltry, pestilent, and pernicious prelates;" and further as "impudent, shameless, and _wainscot-faced_." I, for one, should have voted to take something from his punishment, on the ground of his supplying the world with a new and most expressive phrase. Maryland, liberal in all sectarian matters, strictly forbade calling names such as "Heretick, Schismatick, Idolator, Papist, Antinomian, etc.," and sentenced the offender to a fine of ten shillings. She also dealt summarily with unbelievers. Her assembly ordained that "whatsoever person or persons shall deny the Holy Trinity, or shall utter reproachful speeches concerning the Trinity or any of the said persons thereof, shall be punished with death and confiscation of land and goods to the Lord Proprietary."