While the laws which punished interruption of religious services were still necessary and were enforced, the adoption of the proviso in the Virginian Act of 1699 was a real step forward on the way to the ultimate goal of entire freedom of worship. It made the worship of the dissenters as truly legal as that of the Established Church, and it removed from the dissenters the requirement that they attend the worship of the Anglican Church.
Thomas Story, the noted English Quaker, who wrote and published a journal of his life and work as a Quaker preacher, gives an interesting account of his two prolonged visits to Virginia in 1698/99 and in 1705. In his daily journal for 1705 he comments at every stopping-place, with manifest pleasure, upon the welcome given him and his friends and the freedom of public preaching accorded him wherever he went. He was welcomed and entertained over and again at Anglican homes and he records occasionally the fact that a county sheriff or constable or justice of the county court was present at his preaching. He does not record any instance in which anyone in civil authority in the colony protested against his preaching or attempted to stop him; and the high point of his visit came when the Governor of Virginia, learning of his approach, invited him and his friends to the Governor's mansion, entertained them and gave them fruit to carry with them on their journey toward Philadelphia.
So Virginia came to the end of its first century, having fought through the various adverse conditions which its people found along the way. The colony had come into an era of opportunity and growth with a well established government, a seaborne trade which brought prosperity, and a concept of religion which made room for all forms of the Christian faith that would remain at peace with each other, and as citizens be loyal to their government. As the people approached their first centennial anniversary celebration in 1707 they looked forward with a confidence born of past experience to the new century upon which they were to enter.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
In addition to the titles in the following brief list the reader will find many references to official papers, and other important and useful works, in the author's Virginia's Mother Church, volumes one and two. A great many of the statements herein made are based upon these two volumes.
Anderson, James S. M. A History of the Colonial Church. London: 1843. 3 vols.
Andrews, Matthew Page. The Soul of a Nation, The Founding of Virginia and the Projection of New England. New York: Doubleday, 1943.
Brydon, George MacLaren. Virginia's Mother Church and the Political Conditions Under Which It Grew. Richmond, Virginia: Virginia Historical Society, 1947. Vol. I, 1607-1727; Vol. II, 1725-1814.