Religious Liberty Notes

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 28, 1910

Religious Liberty Notes

THE editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch makes the following sensible observation concerning the order of the War Department to the colonel commanding at Fort Banks, near Boston, to drive sabbath-breakers off the reservation; that is, to permit no more Sunday baseball there: “The sabbath-breakers are driven off the reservation. They can be driven off as far as official authority can reach them. When they are driven as far as they can be forced to go, they are farther than ever from the ideal of goodness held by those who do the driving. After having its own way for centuries, the driving process has nothing to show now except failures which are supposed to call for more driving. Why not try something else—education and moral suasion, for instance?” And the War Department is urged on in this work of driving by the professed representatives of Him who abjured compulsion, and always said, “Come.”

WE find in the last number of Colorado’s Echoes From the Field an excellent suggestion from Elder J. S. Wightman, religious liberty secretary for the Central Union Conference, relative to the circulation of religious liberty literature in the territory of that union. He is urging each member of the conference to circulate at least one hundred copies of the tract “Do You Wish Congress to Prescribe Your Religion?” and each church to circulate at least a thousand copies. The suggestion is just as good for all the conferences, and we pass it on. We shall look for good results wherever it is followed.

IN the department of “The Teacher” in the last Homiletic Review we find the following very excellent teaching: “Christ taught; he did not compel. He laid down laws, but he did not use force. Christ wants willing followers. A forced Christianity is no Christianity. “The sweet persuasion of his voice Respects thy sanctity of will. He giveth day; thou hast the choice To walk in darkness still.” This is in a weekly Scripture lesson, the one from which quotation is made being on the subject, “Christianity and Democracy.” We are glad to increase the breadth of its reading.

AT a clerical conference held under the auspices of the Federated Churches in the Metropolitan Building, Manhattan, New York City, a few days ago, the actor-pastor of Ascension Episcopal church, Greenpoint, N. Y., made this declaration: “We all feel that Protestantism is on its last legs. There is a coming Catholicism, and perhaps this federation is aiding it. Let us find some way we can stand by each other in a Catholic plan—or the old apostolic plan, which was all to be together in one place and of one accord. . . . Could we not give up some of our poorly attended evening services, combine forces, and hold meetings in theaters or some other places not used, and thus get away from our frozen piety?” The suggestion of the speaker that federation may be aiding Catholicism is truer than perhaps he thought. The kind of Protestantism the Federal Council of Churches stands for is paving the way for the culminating campaigns of Catholicism.

“THE government is not to go into the business of religious propagation,” says Dr. Robert E. Speer in Men and Missions, organ of the Laymen’s Missionary Movement. This is indeed Scriptural. How disappointing, then, to find him saying, in the very next sentence: “But this country is a Christian country. We have the judgment of the United States Supreme Court, written by the late lamented Justice Brewer, the highest possible authority, there could be in this land, for declaring that the United States is not a non-religious nation, that the United States is a Christian nation.” Dr. Speer is discussing the necessity for a larger display of Christianity by people of this country in its “impact” on Eastern peoples, if we would do our duty by them, and nearly all he says is excellent; yet how strangely contradictory of his announced principle, as at first quoted, to find him not only declaring this a Christian nation, but demanding that this government should send into those Eastern lands as diplomatic representatives only men who properly represent us; that is, are Christians. Does he not see that that would be of the very essence of religious propagandism, of which he has announced this government must not be guilty?

FOR the first time in four hundred eighteen years a Jew holds a public office depending on the franchise of the Spanish people. In the recent election the district of Coruna chose the Jewish banker, Gustave Bauer, to represent her in the national parliament. In the very year that Columbus discovered America occurred the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and until now they have been too thoroughly banned to have any hope of political preferment. The Spanish constitution of 1869, to be sure, proclaimed full religious liberty, but in 1876 it was so modified that no church but the Catholic could display insignia of public services. The present upheaval in the direction of religious liberty seems to extend even to the Jews.

DR. F. Y. PIERCE, pastor Second Avenue Baptist church, New York City, in conference with ministers of all denominations, recently explained the method of preaching the gospel by the federation plan, as practised by himself. During the heated summer term he goes out upon the steps of his church, and preaches to an assemblage of from a thousand to twenty-five hundred. If he sees Jews in his audience, he gives them to understand that he does not wish to convert them, but to have them go to their homes better Jews, and to the Catholics he gives the same “brotherly” talk. To such a man, the saying frequently on the lips of certain religionists, that “one religion is as good as another,” is the expression of a profound truth. Paul did not seem to have for the Athenians that sort of “brotherliness;” nor for Agrippa.

ENGLAND is making a determined effort at the settlement of the question of religion in the common schools. The recent failure of the educational bill in Parliament seems not to have discouraged everybody; and since then an educational settlement committee of a thousand members has been appointed, and its executive committee of fifty-five representative men has formulated the following aim: “To promote and maintain religious teaching as an integral part of the national system of education, and to work on non-party lines for an educational settlement which will respect all forms of conscientious belief.” There were no bishops of the Church of England and no Catholics on the committee; so all its labors are hindered by both Catholics and Anglican high-churchists. Stormy times are ahead of these earnest men, and we shall watch their progress with no small interest.

By a vote of 7,413 to 1,036 the canton of Basel decided upon a complete separation of church and state. Only about half of the voters went to the polls. The churches retain the possession of their property, and are authorized to tax their members for support of the services. The state withdraws all support for church purposes except the payment of clergymen for state hospitals and prisons. Pensions now in force in the case of retired pastors will be continued by the state. The only churches not entirely satisfied with this innovation are the Roman Catholic, but these constitute a small minority in the canton.—The Independent.

As an illustration of the Catholic Church’s readiness to interfere in the domestic affairs of nations, we cite the following: A journal published in Portugal, bearing the name of the Franciscan Review, was recently suppressed by Archbishop Braga upon orders from Cardinal Merry del Val, the papal secretary of state in Rome. This was done because the hierarchy in Rome thought the journal was not necessary to the support of the national Catholic party in Portugal. The Portuguese government became incensed at this unwarranted interference of the Vatican in Portuguese affairs, and a royal decree was issued at Lisbon on July 12, nullifying the action of the archbishop. The decree declares that the archbishop has no right to execute such instructions without the previous consent of the government, and warns him that the repetition of such action would not be tolerated.