Still it was
of no use. The colonists would not have it. So at length, having
altered their unalterable rules five times, they gave them up
altogether and took to something more simple.
But among much that was foolish and unsuitable in the Grand Model
there was one good thing. That was that every one was free to
worship God in the way he thought right. If only seven men agreed
together, said the Grand Model, they were enough to form a church.
All it insisted upon was that people must acknowledge a God, and
that they must worship Him openly. Nevertheless, in spite of this
they made no provision for worship. No clergymen went with the
settlers, and indeed for many years no clergymen settled among
them.
But because there was religious freedom people of all religions came
to Carolina. Quakers and dissenters of every description sought a
refuge there. They came not only from England, but from the other
colonies and from foreign countries.
You remember that the Protestants of France were called Huguenots,
and that they had had to suffer many things at the hands of Catholic
rulers until the good King Henry of Navarre protected them by the
Edict of Nantes. Now Louis XIV, who was at this time on the throne
of France, revoked that edict. He forbade the Huguenots to worship
God in their own way, and he also forbade them to leave the country
on pain of death.
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