The Rise and Fall of Religious Liberty in America
By C. M. S.
Religious Persecution Revived in This Country
It has always been true that as the church has gained in political influence and power, she has lost in true spiritual growth and in a true appreciation of the sacred rights of conscience. The early church was a power for good when earthly rulers were against her, and the wild beasts of the arena were slaying her adherents to “make a Roman holiday.” Under such circumstances she battered down the strongest walls of heathenism, and made conquests in the very households of pagan emperors. But when she yielded to the temptation of political influence and power, she lost her sense of the sacredness of her mission and the sanctity of the right of individual choice in religious things, and turned the great machinery of her organization against as true-hearted Christians as ever lived—to scourge and to rack, to brand and to burn, to wear out by every conceivable means every man and woman within the grasp of her long arms, who would not permit that power-loving church to take the place of God in the sanctuary of the soul. And that work went on until that period of the church’s history became synonymous with everything that is cruel and oppressive. The church of the Reformation illustrated the same tendency when it had obtained commanding influence; and men and women went to their death for no other crime than exercising the rights of conscience in the realm of religion. The church of colonial days was no whit behind the church of Luther, Calvin, and Henry VIII in forcing the consciences of men into the mold of an established creed; and she kept it up as long as she was permitted to hold and to wield the sword of temporal power. The church of our day has shown itself a close follower of its predecessors in this particular wherever the civil power has pandered to its demands and put the power of law behind an ordinance of the church. In every epoch of the church’s history since her love of power led her into that first great apostasy, there has been a company of people who have stood stoutly against that prostitution of the church’s high function. That company, in each epoch, has been in the minority, and for taking the stand it did, has suffered fines, imprisonment, and death. Savonarola was but a prototype of the millions who went to the gibbet or the stake in the Dark Ages for independence in matters of belief. Michael Servetus will stand as a type of those whose lives were snuffed out in Reformation times for following their own conscience in matters of faith, when the church of that day had eaten the forbidden fruit of political influence and temporal power. The church of colonial days is not without its martyrs, of whom Mary Dyer and William Leddra are types of those who paid the death penalty for conscience’ sake, even as Anne Coleman and Roger Williams are types of those who suffered scourging and exile for the same cause. As every fruit comes true to the seed planted, we need not expect that the history of our own day contains no records of religious intolerance and the fruits thereof. In all ages of the world God has had his witnesses; and no matter how intolerant the times, they have borne faithful witness, stood stoutly for the truth, and paid whatever penalty the oppressive power demanded. The forerunner of our Lord was not exempt from the penalty that so often follows the giving of a straight testimony for the truth. The blood that flowed from the thorn wounds in our Saviour’s head, from the nail wounds and the spear thrust, bears its testimony also to the iniquity of religious intolerance. That divine sacrifice on Calvary ought to have taught the whole world—and certainly the whole Christian world—the lesson of religious liberty. How slowly we learn! While the Christian world to-day is celebrating the birth of our Saviour, laws are being made or executed designed to bind and oppress the consciences of those for whom that same sacrifice was made. While celebrating his resurrection from the dead, they strike hands with those who slew him, by bringing oppression upon those who follow him. There is to-day, in this country, no law against those beliefs and practises for which Lutherans, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and Quakers have suffered in the past. All that they stood for is now permitted in all parts of Christendom, without let or hindrance; and even the union of church and state, which made their oppressions possible, has been theoretically dissolved in this country. Along what line, then, can a power-blinded church practise her intolerance to-day? There is one road still open to the goal of religious persecution, and upon that she has entered. All along the history of the true followers of Christ, we find them suffering for some practise plainly taught in the Word, but not yet incorporated into the creed of the dominant church organization. So it is to-day. The greater church organizations of the present time are unitedly importuning the state to put its6force behind an ordinance of the church, unrecognized in the Bible, that that ordinance, or practise, may be enforced upon all the people, and that, too, in spite of the fact that many conscientious Christians can not yield to it without violating conscience. That ordinance which the larger church organizations desire to have enforced upon all by legislative enactment and courts of law is the Sunday sabbath. Instituted by no divine authority, energized by no divine command, the ecclesiastical combination finds that institution a difficult one to enforce, even upon the congregations which the combination represents. A sabbath denuded of divine sanction, and of divine command for its sacred observance, turns to the state for that sanction and support which Heaven has denied it. Its adherents feel that they must do this or see the institution perish. To clothe the institution with a semblance of sacredness, the fourth command of the decalogue is misinterpreted to teach merely that one day in seven is sacred time. Then Sunday is arbitrarily declared to be the Lord’s day, and that one-day-in-seven indefinite sacredness is made to apply only to the definite day, Sunday. Behind such a cheval-de-frise do the promoters of Sunday enforcement entrench themselves when called in question for overriding the consciences of fellow Christians who prefer to observe the Sabbath of Jehovah, in accordance with the divine command and the divine example. Behind that entrenchment the mightiest combination of religious forces the world has ever witnessed is now being marshaled. The one point of agreement is the necessity of enforcing the Sunday institution upon the people. For that object the National Reform Association and its allies, the American Sabbath Union, the Lord’s Day Alliance of Canada, the Lord’s Day Alliance of the United States, the Federal Council of Churches, numerous State organizations, the great American Federation of Catholic Societies, and the American Federation of Labor are now directing their great energies. Will there be no persecution when this combination has achieved its object? Is America too liberal to-day, and too enlightened, and too Christian to fine and imprison and otherwise persecute men and women for conscience’ sake? Let us see what has been done in this line already, even before these great organizations had bent their energies to a common focus. Between the years 1885 and 1896 more than one hundred observers of the seventh day of the week in this country were arrested, and either fined or imprisoned, for the performance of the most common and unobtrusive labor of the farm and home. These God-fearing, Christian men, and most of them poor men, were mulcted of $2,269.69 for fines, and compelled to serve 1,438 days in prison. Of this time 445 days were spent in the chain-gang. Since that time there have been other arrests, but definite information as to the exact number is not at hand. The States in which these arrests occurred are Alabama, California, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas. That the prosecution of these Christian men was not in the nature of the ordinary enforcement of law was abundantly shown at the trials. In many cases the men who brought the indictment had labored on the same day upon which they accused the defendant of having labored, in fact, were themselves working at the time they saw him at work. That they were Christian men, law-abiding, and exemplary in all their relations with their fellow men, even their accusers could not deny. For instance, an observer of the seventh day, a minister of the gospel, J. W. Scoles, was arrested in the town of Springdale, Ark., in 1885, tried, and convicted, for painting on a meeting-house,—Sunday work that could in no possible way have disturbed any one in the observance of Sunday. His case was appealed to the supreme court of the State, and went against him. His indictment, as well as the indictments of five others, was obtained in this manner: J. A. Armstrong, of Springdale, was called before the grand jury and asked if he knew of any violations of the Sunday law. He testified that he did. Grand Jury.—“Who are they?”
Armstrong.—“The Frisco Railroad is running trains every Sunday.”
G. J.—“Do you know of any others?”
A.—“Yes; the hotels of this place are open, and do a full run of business on Sunday, as on other days.”
G. J.—“Do you know of any others?”
A.—“Yes, sir; the drug-stores and barber shops all keep open, and do business every Sunday.”
G. J.—“Do you know of any others?”
A.—“Yes; the livery stables do more business on Sunday than on any other day of the week.” So the record goes on, the grand jury asking for others, and Mr. Armstrong giving similar information; but the grand jury was not satisfied. It knew all this before, and did not consider the “peace and dignity of the State” threatened thereby; but there was one class of people whose violation of the State Sunday law it could not brook, a class of the most inoffensive and conscientious citizens of the State, a religious people, whose offense consisted not so much in working on Sunday, along with their neighbors, as in refraining from work and attending divine worship on the seventh day of the week. This was shown by the following question of the grand jury, and by the indictments following the answer, the indictments being issued against seventh-day observers only:— Grand Jury.—“Do you know of any Seventh-day Adventists who ever work on Sunday?”
Armstrong.—“Yes, sir.” Mr. Armstrong was then compelled to give the names of five of his brethren whom he knew to have worked on Sunday, and all five, with himself, were at once indicted, and none of the other violators of the Sunday law were molested by the grand jury. Some of these Christian men paid their fines and trial costs, others went to prison. Some who were not able to pay had their meager possessions levied on and sold at sheriff’s sale. The same experience has been met by these people in other States, notably in Tennessee, Maryland, and Georgia, and the vast combination above referred to is seeking by every possible means to duplicate those conditions in every State of the Union, and put under general indictment that class of Christians whose only offense is the religious basis on which their conduct rests. Again and again has it been demonstrated that men who had worked on Sunday without let or hindrance while professing no religion, or while belonging to some Sunday-keeping church, were quickly arrested when it became known that their Saturday rest and Sunday work were a matter of religious conviction. The great principle of religious liberty, lauded to the skies by Americans, is being trodden in the dust to-day by an organized movement, in order that a man-made sabbath may be exalted above the Sabbath of Jehovah in the hearts of the people. The next article will show how the great Catholic organization is relating itself toward this movement against the Constitution of the country and the religious liberties of the people.