MDDM23: Religious Eccentricity

[Dave Monroe]

   "Everyone at least knows of China,-- but imagine,
till then I had never heard of Pennsylvania.  They
meant, as it turn'd out, a place in America, where
Religious Eccentricity of all kinds was not only
tolerated, but publickly indulg'd,-- where

   Schwenkfelders might past Unitarians brush,
   And Wesleyites scarce from Quakers raise a blush,

as great Tox has it." (M&D, Ch. 37, pp. 379-80)

>From Edwin Danson, Drawing the Line: How Mason and
Dixon Surveyed the Most Famous Border in America (NY:
John Wiley & Sons, 2001), Ch. 2, "The Fortieth
Degree," pp. 10-17 ...

"In postwar England, times had become politically
very dangerous as Catholic interests vied with
Protestant aims ....  Charles II was a profligate
sovereign, and by way of cultivating favor, Admiral
Sir William Penn lent the king the vast sum of 16,000
[pounds].  On Sir William's death in 1670, his son,
also called William, inherited the debt.  The younger
William Penn (1644-1718) had embraced the Quaker faith
as a young man and his avowed intent was ... to found
a colony of religious tolerance." (p. 14)

Ch. 3, "The Great Chancery Suit," pp. 18-26 ...

   "The relationship between Thomas Penn and his
governor with the legislature of Pennsylvania was at a
low ebb.  The Pennsylvanian commisioners for the most
part were politically inclined towards the
legislature's position, opposed to their province's
condition as a proprietorial colony.  Despite the
liberality of the Charter of Privileges, the
provincial Quaker movement had always opposed the
governmental structure, in part because its rigidity
did not represent fundamental Quaker philosophy.  The
Maryland commisioners, although from a less liberal
colony, but rife with separatist feelings, were
similarly inclined.  Beneath the surface of both
colonies was a yearning for political independence
from the shackles of the proprietorial system; hence
the governors kept a distance from their commissioners
and legislatures.  This is not to say the
commissioners, or their class, were 'republican' or
activists for devolution--that was still a few years
off.  That they were kept ignorant of Penn and
Calvert's decision is not surprising and, for the
commissioners and their American surveyors, Mason and
Dixon's arrival was to come as a total surprise." 
(pp. 25-6)


Schwenkfelders

380; members of a Protestant sect founded by Kaspar
von Schwenkfeld (c.1490-1561), a German mystic. The
sect's doctrines most resembled those of the Quakers.
In 1736, 40 families emigrated to Pennsylvania where
they maintained a distinct existence.

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/mason-dixon/alpha/s.html

And see as well ...

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13597a.htm

http://pages.prodigy.com/JPBC05A/schwenk1.htm

http://www.ucc.org/aboutus/histories/chap8.htm

http://www.horseshoe.cc/pennadutch/religion/brethern/brethkle.htm

A bibliography ...

http://www.rpc.ox.ac.uk/sfld/s_biblio.htm

These might be of interest ...

http://www.schwenkfelder.com/fraktur.htm

http://antiquesandthearts.com/archive/fraktur.htm

And see esp., given the context at hand ...

http://www.anabaptists.org/history/ss8002.html

http://pages.prodigy.com/JPBC05A/schwenk3.htm

Note elements of tolerance, resistance ...


Wesleyites

Wesley, John (1703-91)
9; Englishman John Wesley founded Methodism and had a
"club" called the "Oxford Methodists." In 1735 Wesley
and his brother Charles went on a missionary trip to
Georgia where his evangelistic zealousness and
unfamiliarity with American ways caused him to incur
the wrath of the colonists;100; Wesley, 380

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/mason-dixon/alpha/w.html

Unitarians, Quakers you all know, I'm sure ...

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