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power of granting dispensations, and the Constitution was with
equal dexterity and ingenuity construed to mean when it says,
"no religious test shall ever be required," as binding only agents,
and giving license to the actual parties to the compact to apply
any test they pleased to whoever they pleased. Their numbers
thus augmented, the party triumphed, and Know-Nothingism is
dominant now in Maryland, "Tell it not in Gath; publish it not
in the streets of Eshkalon !"

Maryland, in an especial manner, hitherto the chosen seat of
liberty, civil and religions,—Maryland, where first shone forth
and peered above the horizon after the darker ages the bright star
of man's deliverance from the horrors of religious persecution,—
Maryland, the founders of whose dominion and the authors of
whose glory extended of yore the hand of fellowship and the in-
vitation of fraternal love to all, of whatsoever clime or creed,
where oppression was felt, to come and abide in peace and free-
dom within her borders,—where, too, shines and will for ever
shine on her statute book of 1649, with the calm lustre of purity
and truth, the solemn enactment, "that no man professing to be-
lieve in Jesus Christ should ever be in any manner troubled,
molested or discountenanced on account of his religion,"—
placed there, too, by the members of the now proscribed Catholic
Church. Maryland is delivered over to the fell spirit of bigotry,
and the unholy creed of the proscription of a religion and of
strangers.

But it has been asserted, if these things were, they are not now.
Would that it were so; but no sufficient evidence of that fact is
seen. On the contrary, there still exist councils, lodges, and all
the pariphernalia and machinery of the same party organization ;
oaths are still in print, and it does not appear that they have been
rescinded, repealed or annulled; by their terms it appears they
were intended to be preserved and observed through life inviola-
bly. It is known that a certain Grand Council published, no
very long time since, a platform which purported to grant plenary
indulgence and general absolution of and for oaths violated or
lesser secrets divulged, and full liberty was given to all to speak of
things already pretty generally known, and to divulge secrets which
could no longer be kept, because before disclosed. The license
was specific; and of necessity, therefore, does not include things
not specified. There is an old legal maxim to this effect, "ex-
pressio unius est exclusio alterius." There is something then,
yet, and it may be much and important matter, locked in the
sanctum sanctorum of "the order," which vulgar ears are not
allowed to hear nor vulgar eyes permitted to look upon.

A distinction is now taken between this Know-Nothing party
and what is called the American party. The name of Know-