The Rise and Fall of Religious Liberty in America
By C. M. S.
Shaping the Backward Course
It may not be amiss, in considering the trend of the retrogression in this country toward the principles of colonial days and of papal domination, to set forth some of the principles enunciated by those chiefly responsible for that movement. The purpose declared in the portion of the National Reform constitution quoted last week is the sufficient inspiration of all the un-American and anti-christian sentiments expressed in the extracts given below. Prof. C. A. Blanchard, an earnest advocate of those principles of retrogression mistakenly named by their exponents “National Reform principles,” puts the aspirations of that organization into the following terse language:— Constitutional laws punish for false money, weights, and measure. So Congress must establish a standard of religion, or admit anything called religion. Now, according to the basic principles of this government, Congress has nothing to do with religion. That is left to the churches and to the individual; and that is where it should be left, as our divine Master himself teaches in his wonderful answer to those who sought to embroil him with the authorities of the church or the state: “Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Against the very thing which Professor Blanchard proposes, the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States guards the people. To set up a standard of religion for the nation is to establish a national religion. Says the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It would have to do both in order to do what Professor Blanchard and the National Reformers propose. But against their declared program stand the declaration of our Lord and the first amendment to the national Constitution. To accomplish such a design in the face of such prohibitions as these is not only a stupendous undertaking, but is a manifestation of disloyalty toward both the Lord and the government. In a convention held in New York City, in 1873, in the interests of the National Reform propaganda, Jonathan Edwards said:— We want state and religion, and we are going to have it. It shall be that so far as the affairs of state require religion, it shall be religion—the religion of Jesus Christ. The Christian oath and Christian morality shall have in this land “an undeniable legal basis.” We use the word religion in its proper sense, as meaning a man’s personal relation of faith and obedience to God. Now we are warned that to engraft this doctrine upon the Constitution will be oppressive; that it will infringe the rights of conscience; and we are told that there are atheists, deists, Jews, and Seventh-day Baptists who would be sufferers under it. These all are, for the occasion, and so far as our amendment is concerned, one class. They use the same arguments and the same tactics against us. They must be counted together, which we very much regret, but which we can not help. The first-named is the leader in the discontent and in the outcry—the atheist. . . . It is his class. Its labors are almost wholly in his interest; its success would be almost wholly his triumph. The rest are adjuncts to him in this contest. They must be named from him; they must be treated as, for this question, one party. What are the rights of the atheist [by which he means, What are the rights of the several classes above named]? I would tolerate him as I would tolerate a poor lunatic; for in my view his mind is scarcely sound. So long as he does not rave, so long as he is not dangerous, I would tolerate him. I would tolerate him as I would a conspirator. Atheism and Christianity are contradictory terms. They are incompatible systems. They can not dwell together on the same continent. In reading the preceding let it be borne in mind that this representative opposer of religious freedom in this country is speaking not of atheism alone, but by his own declaration he is speaking of all the classes who oppose the propaganda of retrogression which he represents. It matters not how sincere a Christian a man may be, if he opposes a union of church and state, if he opposes religious legislation, the forcing of men’s consciences, the intrusion of the state into men’s religious concernments, he is to be tolerated only as a lunatic or a conspirator is tolerated, or denied the right to exist on the same continent with these reformers when they have gained the power they seek. It does not need a second reading to discover that the doctrine promulgated by Mr. Edwards at that time (and which was published as a campaign document by the National Reform Association) is completely subversive of the fundamental principles of our government,—“equal and exact justice to all,”—that it refuses to recognize any rights whatever as belonging to any man outside their religious organization. He admits that the plan will be oppressive to all who are out of harmony with it; but this does not deter him from carrying it out, for the “lunatic” and the “conspirator” can be imprisoned, and the rest can be exiled. That remedy is actually proposed by another zealous advocate of those principles, Rev. E. B. Graham, one of the vice-presidents of the National Reform Association, in a speech delivered at York, Neb., and published in the Christian Statesman of May 21, 1885. In that speech he said:— We might add in all justice, If the opponents of the Bible do not like our government and its Christian features, let them go to some wild, desolate land, and in the name of the devil, and for the sake of the devil, subdue it, and set up a government of their own on infidel and atheistic ideas; and then if they can stand it, stay there till they die. This remarkable diatribe had as its general theme such a reformation of this government as would make of it a practical theocracy, making the law of God the basis of its legislation, and regulating the religious affairs of men by civil statute. Those who oppose this program are denominated “opponents of the Bible,” and recommended to exile. That the program of that association and its friends and supporters does contemplate the establishment of a national religion, is further shown in the utterance of Rev. M. A. Gault, a district secretary of the organization. He says:— Our remedy for all these malefic influences is to have the government simply set up the moral law, and recognize God’s authority behind it, and lay its hand on any religion that does not conform to it. While it is one of the fundamental principles of this nation that all men have the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, Rev. David Gregg, a vice-president of the National Reform Association, in an article in the Christian Statesman of June 5, 1884, declares that the civil power “has the right to command the consciences of men.” If it has that right, then, all the persecutions of the Dark Ages were right; all that Rome ever did in commanding the consciences of men and “correcting heretics” by flame, dungeon, and rack, was right; all the persecutions of early colonial days were right; and all that has been done in this country to free the soul from the oppression of spiritual tyranny is wrong. Are we to believe that our whole national program is a pernicious, wicked blunder, which can be rectified only by a readoption of the papal principle of soul-slavery to an ecclesiastical tyranny? that the best results for man’s spiritual welfare can be attained by the interference of the magistrate between man and his5God? that the crushing of human consciences in the mill of a state-enforced religion will enhance the happiness of the race, or make of civil government the divinely appointed instrument of heaven?—Verily, no. Such a program is out of harmony with justice, true religion, or divine purpose. That program did not cease when the utterances quoted above were made. The earnest advocacy of those principles goes steadily on, increasing in extent, and bearing actual fruit. Practically the whole force and energy of the movement are now directed toward the securing of Sunday laws in the national government, and the enforcement of them by State and nation. Said the Rev. S. V. Leech, D. D., in an address at Denver, Colo.:— Give us good Sunday laws, well enforced by men in local authority, and our churches will be full of worshipers, and our young men and women will be attracted to the divine service. A mighty combination of the churches of the United States could win from Congress, the State legislatures, and municipal councils all legislation essential to this splendid result. That is the power upon which they propose to rely to bring men and women to Christ. But our Lord repudiates such a program in these words: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” Thus the failure rightly to represent and present Christ is made an excuse for Sunday laws to bring men to him by a method he neither instituted nor approved, and those laws are made the entering wedge for the whole system of soul-slavery, licensed hypocrisy, and religion by legal enactment. The next article will deal with the steps already taken in this country to transform the government into harmony with the purpose of these self-styled reformers.