From: Bill Lucy 

In article , jcuccia{at}bigfoot.com says...
> Jeff,
>
> Archaic or not, the language of a law is all there is.  Or do you mean that
we shouldn't take laws at face value?

FWIW, many of the original 13 states contained strange and interesting
wording regarding establishment of religion. In the 1777 Constitution of
New York, the establishment clause was written thusly -- "That all
such parts of the said common law, and all such of the said statutes and
acts foresaid, or parts thereof, as may be construed to establish or
maintain any particular denomination of Christians or their
ministers..."

In Virginia, if you were Anglican you were okay. If you were a Baptist
preacher you might be jailed. This wasn't considered Constitutional, but
Baptist preachers wouldn't use the Anglican book of Common Prayer, and
there was a holdover law from the colony that required that it be used.

The 1780 Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts required weekly
church attendance. It didn't name the church, but it was almost always
Congregational. And it was Sunday worship, too.

The original Constitution of the State of Connecticut didn't provide for
establishment, but Connecticut law did -- and it was Congregational.

The 1776 Constitution of Maryland had a clause which was pretty direct --
"yet the Legislature may , in their discretion, lay a general and
equal tax, for the support of the Christian religion..."

[from "The Establishment Clause: Religion and the First
Amendment" by Leonard W. Levy, ISBN0-02-897245-7]

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