PENN. March 4 is recognized as Holy Experiment Day and is a day meant to encourage communities to be more open-minded and unpredicted — especially concerning religion. “Holy Experiment” is a term originally coined by William Penn Jr. meant to describe his idea of an ideal government which he went on to establish within the territory of modern-day Pennsylvania.

The British monarchy was indebted to Penn’s father, English Admiral Sir William Penn. To pay off those debts King Charles II granted Penn Jr. 29 million acres of land, which is modern Pennsylvania today.

Penn Jr. envisioned a colony full of people who embraced faith and were tolerant to all religions of others. He was influenced by his early life experiences in England where members of the Quakers were chastised for their beliefs. Penn was also imprisoned himself for his religious beliefs, as a Quaker. Through his religious beliefs, Penn believed that his congregation’s knowledge of and communion with God’s divine authority meant their principles — which included religious and political freedom — would be successfully established in his new colony. In fact, Penn’s religious beliefs became the colony’s very first law, which guaranteed freedom and tolerance for all religions.

The founders of New England, in the early 1600s, were Puritans who focused on social and religious homogeneity, excluding every person who didn’t share their beliefs. Penn’s colony was revolutionary as it was the only non-religious society in the region during that time in history. Unfortunately, due to Penn’s personal political, economic and religious conflicts, the experiment failed after the first few years.

In 1962, Edwin B. Bronner published a book titled, “William Penn’s Holy Experiment: The Founding of Pennsylvania, 1681-1701” which was the first published work to chronicle the event.

Even though Penn’s experiment failed, his message of tolerance was the precedent for the establishment of Pennsylvania and ultimately the United States.