THE FRUIT OF THE PRINCIPLE.
By S.
The Jesuits of France, having refused to comply with the French Law of Associations, have become expatriated, choosing rather to go into exile than to declare the full object of their associations and take themselves out of the politics of the country. Some of the Catholic orders of France have complied with the law, and will be permitted to continue their organizations. In an address recently published by the Jesuit leaders of France, they declare that acceptance of the new law would be impossible, as it would imply the recognition of a power higher than the Church. It has been their persistent policy to bring the State under the control of the Church; and as this could not be done openly, every possible means has been employed to accomplish that object secretly—to rule the State by putting in power those whom they could control. As the military wielded a powerful influence, they sought to control the army. They did this by securing positions of prominence in the army for those who had passed through Jesuit colleges and gave promise of a willingness to be led by that order. It was this influence which was responsible for the imprisonment of Dreyfus, and worked against him throughout his trial. To announce its full object and purpose, would be to reveal to the world all the intrigues of the order; and to confine themselves simply to works of charity and humanity, would be to abandon the very object of their existence—the control of the State. This they would not do, and thus the exile. This is what has caused their expulsion from every country of Europe. It is what caused the expulsion of 1765, and brought them into disfavor with Napoleon and Charles X., and with the revolutionists of 1848, and all friends of progressive civil government. The claim that to obey the law of associations would be to recognize a power higher than the Church, is a claim that can be made only by those who believe in the union of Church and State—and that not a union in which the two are equal, but in which the State is completely under the control of the Church. Any law based on the independence of the State, is to them a law which makes the State a higher power than the Church, a law which makes the State a usurper of the Church's prerogatives. To them it is the right of the Church to control in all the affairs of men, civil and religious. Civil liberty is to them rebellion, the separation of Church and State, treason; and religious liberty, a heresy not to be tolerated in any place or in any degree. Stern, unyielding, dictatorial, and illiberal as this is, it is all perfectly logical if we admit that it is the business of the Church to control in the civil affairs of men. And that is what we do admit when we admit the principle of religious legislation. If it is proper to legislate on one religious question, it is proper to legislate on all religious questions; and legislation on religious questions is legislation in the interests of some set of religious persons, some church. In just so far as it is done, it is the Church controlling in the affairs of the State. It is a union of Church and State, with the Church dominant and the State subordinate. It is true that those who are working for religious legislation do not admit that the logic of their demands is seen in the history of Jesuitism. It is a fact, nevertheless. At first they demand religious legislation only in a few matters; but in yielding that, the State allows the principle, and opens the gate to any and every matter that the Church may fancy is for the good of the people or for its own interests. In so far as the State permits itself to legislate at the behest of the Church, it is permitting itself to be controlled by the Church, to be made a tool of the Church in carrying out its purposes. In that is seen the injustice of the assertion that the State, and not the Church, was responsible for the persecutions during the Dark Ages. The Church controlled the State during that epoch of affliction, and those who suffered martyrdom suffered it because that fallen Church adjudged them guilty of heresy. That condition was possible only because the State had admitted the principle of religious legislation, and had allowed the Church to carry it through to its logical result. The present exile of the Jesuits is the result of a feeble protest of the people against clerical domination in the State. It is a feeble protest, because it does not go to the root of the matter, and the Protestants do not see the real cause of the difficulty. They will never do so until they see that the business of the Church is teaching, preaching, and practising the Gospel of Christ, and that with the civil affairs of men it has no divine authority for interference. The declaration of Christ that His kingdom was not of this world should be enough to settle that matter with every true Christian. His separation of civil and religious duties, as recorded in Matt. 22:19-21, is another expression of the same truth. Notwithstanding Christ's own declaration in this matter; and notwithstanding all the persecution which the earth has been called to witness through the failure of men to believe and follow Christ's teaching; and notwithstanding the further fact that the liberty, enlightenment, and prosperity of this great country are due to its acknowledgment of the true principles of religious liberty,—we are drifting, rapidly drifting, back to those unchristian practises from which the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States were the expression of a righteous revolt. The Supreme Court has declared us a Christian nation, and thereby paved the way for endless legislation in behalf of the Christian religion, and that legislation began almost immediately in behalf of the Sunday-sabbath. The epoch of decline in real religious liberty began formally when the Supreme Court threw open the door of religious legislation, and permitted Congress to do what the Constitution declared it never should do. The nation has started on that road at whose terminus stands the Jesuit and ruin. And when that stage is reached, the country that was founded on the principles of liberty and equality will “speak as a dragon,” and will seek to “cause that ‘as many as would not worship the image of the ‘beast should be killed.” Rev. 13:15. It must come to that before the nation could cause its subjects to worship. It has started down the way, and the end is not far to seek. The Jesuits have been driven from France; but the principles that made the Jesuits possible, are being forced upon our own fair land by the advocates and supporters of religious legislation. The Jesuits are the ripened fruit of that un-American principle; but that un-American principle has been planted in this country, and will soon bear its own ripened fruit.