An Interesting Decision of a German Court

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 3, 1907

An Interesting Decision of a German Court

“THERE has recently been a rather remarkable decision in one of our German courts. Last fall one of our ministers baptized seven persons in a swimming-pool. He was arrested and fined for holding an ‘unannounced meeting.’ (You will remember that in most places here in the German empire, we must secure the permission of the police to hold meetings.) His fine was thirty marks. He protested against this, for he had not addressed the candidates for baptism, but had simply offered prayer at the beginning and end of the service; there had been no preaching service at all. The deputy was asked whether our brother had read the prayer from a book. As this was denied, the advocate stood up and made this plea: ‘As the minister had read no formal prayer, but prayed only from his heart, the paragraph in question can have no application in his case.’ After the judges had retired for a short time, they brought in a verdict of ‘not guilty.’ Of course this rejoiced our friends very much; and yet there is rather a queer question one can not help considering: In a union of church and state—such as we have all over Europe—do the lawmaking powers mean that prayer can only be considered as such when it comes, not from the heart, as in the case just referred to, but when it is read formally out of a prayer-book? But, after all, a man-made union of church and state can do nothing else than create formalists; for human laws can touch only the outward actions, and can not reach the heart.”