Reason for the First Amendment by K. C. R.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 12, 1910

Reason for the First Amendment

By K. C. R.

THE Ralston (Pa.) Herald of April 28, contains the following editorial:— “We wonder how many of our readers have read the history of New England’s colonial times? of the persecutions, the whipping of the Baptists and Quakers, and the banishing of Roger Williams, by the Puritans? The Puritans were not worse than other people; in fact, they were honest, hard-working people. You ask, Then how could they persecute inoffensive people?—Simply because they were following wrong principles in government. They failed to make any separation between the church and the state. They thought that the stability of the state depended on the people’s observing certain religious forms, and as the Baptists and Quakers would not conform to the religio-political order of government, they were punished, or rather persecuted. It was to prevent a repetition of such persecutions that the First Amendment to the Constitution was added. Did our forefathers make a mistake in separating the church from the state? If not, let us keep them separate. Liberty — both religious and civil — is safe only so long as the people understand the principles on which it is based.”

It is refreshing in these times when men are departing from the true principles of religious liberty to know there are newspapers that dare to defend freedom of conscience. K. C. R.