p. 24 | The Founding of Norwich and Religious Freedom

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 22, 1909

The Founding of Norwich and Religious Freedom

THE two hundred fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Norwich, Conn., was celebrated July 5. President William H. Taft was the leading speaker of the occasion. Referring to the early settlement of New England, and to the motives prompting the Pilgrim fathers to emigrate to the American wilds, the President said, as reported in the Washington Post of July 6:—

We speak with great satisfaction of the fact that our ancestors — and I claim New England ancestry — came to this country in order to establish freedom of religion. Well, if you are going to be exact, they came to this country to establish freedom of their religion, and not the freedom of anybody else's religion.

The truth is, in those days such a thing as freedom of religion was not understood. Erasmus, the great Dutch professor, one of the most eloquent scholars of his day, did understand it and did advocate it, but among the denominations it was not certainly fairly understood. We look with considerable horror and with a great deal of condemnation upon those particular denominations that punished our ancestors because our ancestors wished to have a different kind of religion, but when our ancestors got here in this country and ruled, they intended to have their own religion and no other.

The Rev. James Fitch could not look upon any other religion in this community with any degree of patience, but his descendants, firm in the faith as he was, now see that the best way to promote Christianity and the worship of God and religion is to let every man worship God as he chooses.

We sincerely wish that all might see that "the best way to promote Christianity and the worship of God and religion is to let every man worship God as he chooses." We commend these words of President Taft to the Constitution tinkers, to those who are seeking so earnestly to enforce upon others their own religious views and practises.