Note 750 — Chapter XIII · ECCLESIASTICAL RITES AND THE RISE OF CIVIL MARRIAGE IN THE SOUTHERN COLONIES
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Lodge, Short History, 105. Elsewhere this writer says the Episcopal church in Maryland was as "contemptible an ecclesiastical organization as history can show." "It is not easy to conceive the utter degradation of the mass of the Maryland clergy. Secure in their houses and glebes, with a tax settled by law, and collected by the sheriffs for their benefit, they set decency and public opinion at defiance. They hunted, raced horses, drank, gambled, and were the parasites and boon companions of the wealthy planters. A common jest was the question:
'Who is a monster of the first renown? 'A lettered sot, a drunkard in a gown.'
"They extorted marriage fees from the poor by breaking off in the middle of the service, and refusing to continue until they were paid."—Ibid., 123, 120-24; cf. Browne, Maryland, 184 ff.