Church for the first fifty years, and after that round the old
College of Philadelphia. The Reverend William Smith, a pugnacious
and eloquent Scotchman, led them in many a gallant onset against
the "haughty tribe" of Quakers, and he even suffered imprisonment
in the cause. He had a country seat on the Schuylkill and was in
his way a fine character, devoted to the establishment of
ecclesiasticism and higher learning as a bulwark against the
menace of Quaker fanaticism; and but for the coming on of the
Revolution he might have become the first colonial bishop with
all the palaces, pomp, and glory appertaining thereunto.

In spite of this opposition, however, the Quakers continued their
control of the colony, serenely tolerating the anathemas of the
learned Churchmen and the fierce curses and brandished weapons of
the Presbyterians and Scotch-Irish. Curses and anathemas were no
check to the fertile soil. Grist continued to come to the mill;
and the agricultural products poured into Philadelphia to be
carried away in the ships. The contemplative Quaker took his
profits as they passed; enacted his liberalizing laws, his prison
reform, his charities, his peace with the savage Indians; allowed
science, research, and all the kindly arts of life to flourish;
and seemed perfectly contented with the damnation in the other
world to which those who flourished under his rule consigned him.

In discussing the remarkable success of the province, the
colonists always disputed whether the credit should be given to
the fertile soil or to the liberal laws and constitution. It was
no doubt due to both. But the obvious advantages of Penn's
charter over the mixed and troublesome governmental conditions in
the Jerseys, Penn's personal fame and the repute of the Quakers