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Teaching American Principles in Rome

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

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 87, No. 19.

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Teaching American Principles in Rome

By William A. Colcord

In an editorial explaining “what Methodists are doing in Rome,” the New York Christian Advocate of April 14 says: “The Methodists in Rome are in the vanguard of that section of the Italian people which demands perfect liberty of conscience for every man and woman in Italy; that the public schools shall be absolutely free from clerical interference and from ecclesiastical control; that no taxes shall be levied upon the people for the support of any church, of any bishop or priest, or of any ecclesiastical institution. . . . In short, the Methodists stand firmly with those who demand the separation of church and state in Italy.”
As every one will readily recognize, these are strictly American principles of civil government (and Christian as well), quite at variance with ancient, medieval, and Old-World ideas. It is to be hoped that our good Methodist friends in this country will be as true to these principles as this showing represents them as being in Rome. If they are, they will not be demanding of either city, State, or national government laws compelling people to keep Sunday as the Sabbath; for such laws are an interference with “perfect liberty of conscience,” and are not in accord with the principles of “the separation of church and state.”
Civil government has no more right to tax the people one seventh of their time to support or show respect to some religion or ecclesiastical institution than it has to tax them one seventh of their means for the same purpose. Let all who desire to keep a day do so; but let there be no compulsion.
At a hearing on a Sunday bill before the House District committee, Feb. 15, 1909, Representative McMillan, of New York, spoke wisely when he said, “I would rather have a love and a respect for the Sabbath day implanted in a man’s heart than all the laws you could put on the statute-books.” This is the true American and Christian idea of religion and religious observances—love, not law; faith, not force; conviction, not coercion. W. A. C.