With today's abundance of churches and places of worship in the City of Hamilton, and all over the Island, it is easy to think of Bermuda as a beacon of religious tolerance.

It was not always thus.

George Tucker's original 1796 blueprint for Hamilton reserved ample space for a church and yard, with a parsonage nearby. Nearer still was to have stood the city jail. Much of Tucker's detailed plan for the City bore fruit, and continues to do so, but no church was ever built where he had intended.

A jail was erected in the city less than 20 years later, but it would be nearly seven decades before the hamlet of Hamilton could boast its own church.

The early City years were not the best of times to be a minister of religion outside the approved channels.

In May of 1800, it was made illegal for any clergy or schoolmaster to preach, or even teach, religion in Bermuda, excepting only those of the Church of England or Scotland. The proscription was directed more at those who might receive the teachings than the message they conveyed.

In 1801, the Reverend Joseph Stephenson, the Island's first Methodist Minister, was imprisoned in St. George's for six months for "preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to African blacks and captive Negroes.'' To avoid further trouble, when the Methodists opened a meeting place in 1810, they called it a chapel, rather than a church. The Zion Church met in second-storey buildings, which were more often used for storage or sleeping quarters.

As the city lacked a church, the majority of Hamiltonians paid their Sunday respects at St. John's in Pembroke.

Membership in the approved church was worth shouting about. The first review of a theatrical entertainment published in Bermuda closed with the words "...the transported spectator caused his thoughts to spring forth with raptures of gratitude to the Great Planter of the Universe.'' In 1828, an alarmed Captain Mackie, commanding the HMS Thetis , then stationed in Bermuda, noted the condition of the Island's religious workers.

"There are only three clergymen,'' he wrote, "and one of them is a very bad character.

"Another is an old invalid who has done no duty for some considerable time, and the other is only a moral preacher; so that Mr. Matson, who is a Presbyterian, stands alone.'' (Quoted in History of Emmanuel Methodist Church 1869-1979 by Bertram C. Sibley.) Despite the condition of the clergy, the need for religion grew among the citizens of Hamilton. As attendance increased at meetings of the unsanctioned denominations, by 1844 the need for an approved church in Hamilton was finally acted upon, with the foundation stone for the First Trinity Church being laid.

Within three years, building had also started on St. Andrew's. At around this time, the Presbyterians, who had been meeting in the old Town Hall, moved to a more permanent location on the corner of Burnaby Hill and Front Street.

Although the nave of the Trinity Church was consecrated in 1872, it was not until 1883 that the church was completed. On Sunday January 27, 1884, just a few months after Hamilton finally became a city with a real church, First Trinity was completely destroyed by fire.

What God has started, let no man undo. Just a year after Trinity was burned down, the African Methodist Episcopal Church came to Bermuda in the merging of that denomination with the British Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada. The proliferation of churches in the City of Hamilton and the Island was well under way.

Today, Hamilton acknowledges ten formally accredited churches, with as many more representing minor denominations. Religion is a dominant feature of Hamilton's daily life 200 years after George Tucker laid out his cautious plan for the town. Politicians and entertainers make known their faith at every opportunity, as does almost anyone else with a reason to believe.

Church attendance remains higher in Bermuda than almost anywhere else in the world, and no wonder: on a per capita or square mileage basis, Bermuda and Hamilton have more churches than any other country in the world.

GUTTED -- The James B. Heyl photograph above shows the Trinity Church after it was destroyed by fire in 1884 (Bermuda Archives) while the photograph below depicts the Anglican Cathedral as it appears today after being rebuilt.