THE LIBERTY INVOLVED by S.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 19, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 25.

THE LIBERTY INVOLVED.

By S.

THE French Government, exasperated over the power wielded by the Roman Church in governmental affairs, has recently passed laws designed to check that power and counteract that influence. The government found an empire within the republic, working for its own ends and working against the interests of the French nation. It therefore struck at the religious associations with a view to depriving them of the right to receive gifts of property. It was found that the wealth possessed by these associations amounted to $200,000,000; and thru the influence of this wealth much of their political prestige was secured. The government hoped, by thus curtailing this source of power, to remove the greatest menace to its own existence.

Commenting upon this action of the French Government, the Christian Work says, “This means less liberty to the individual, but also means more strength to the republic.” Now it is well known that the Roman Church has little friendship for the French republic; but the doctrine that a government gains strength by abridging the liberties of individuals is as wrong and as dangerous as that work against which France is now struggling. France attempted to follow the example set by the United States when it struck out for liberty; but the doctrines of that church, which has always hampered its progress in that direction, blinded the eyes of her statesmen to the true principles of liberty. Thus she has been struggling long and fruitlessly to rid herself of a clerical despotism that clings to her with the tenacity of a cuttle-fish. It was just because France did not learn the lesson of what constitutes national strength and national stability, that she is now battling against national disruption and disintegration. She acted upon the old doctrine that the individual exists for the State; that the interests of the State may be promoted by the sacrifice of individual liberty. The moment she did that, she doomed herself to all the troubles thru which she has passed. Instead of gaining strength by abridging liberty, she gained dissensions, discords, and threatened dissolution. The doctrines which she imbibed from the Catholic Church have so blinded her to what is true, and right, and expedient, that she is unable to find the true path out of the difficulty.

Had France boldly and definitely declared for a separation of Church and State, and then lived up to her declaration, she would have completely avoided the rocks which have threatened her destruction more than once. America started right; she started on that principle, and it made her great and substantial. Now her retrogression is beginning, because she is going back to those very principles which made France weak. America started out on the principle of the liberty of the individual and the protection of his rights. To carry out this principle, the separation of Church and State was absolutely essential; and upon this principle her national code was drawn. The result was a government that received the admiration of the liberty-loving in all quarters of the earth; and her influence compelled other nations to grant a greater degree of liberty to their subjects or see them melting away by emigration.

France still continued the connection between Church and State, and, while she claimed a voice in the appointment of church officials, could not—or should not—logically refuse to those officials an interference in the affairs of the State. At any rate, the interference followed as a natural consequence; and France is where she is to-day as a result of that course. Now she would attempt to remedy her own weakness, which came as a result of her own action, by a direct abridgment of the right of associations to hold property. Her instability came about as a result of failure to perceive and act upon the principles of true liberty; but her proposed remedy is still another step into the darkness.

All this came as a consequence of rejecting the Gospel of the Reformation, and acting upon that medieval doctrine that the stability of government is increased by abridging the liberties of the people. The principle of Church and State union can be carried out only where such a doctrine holds sway. America is swinging back to that doctrine, as is seen in recent important acts of legislation, such as the dictum of the Supreme Court that this is a Christian nation; congressional legislation in the matter of Sunday-keeping; and the late decision of the Supreme Court making America’s island possessions a plaything of the moneyed men, and compelling their inhabitants to pay a tax not exacted from the rest of the people, a discriminating duty.

That which makes all this possible is that Americans have lost the power to see what is involved in the principles upon which their government was originally founded, and are gradually being swept back to those principles which are responsible for the present dangerous condition of the French nation; and sad as it is, there are religious journals in the country, the above-named being one, that see nothing dangerous, nothing disastrous, nothing destructive to national integrity, in the policy of abridging the liberties of the people. Such are “blind leaders of the blind,” and the ditch toward which they are leading one another is not far distant. Nations do not gain strength by actions of this kind; neither is the church true to her Spouse while united to the powers of earth. There is a weighty principle involved in the abridgment of individual liberty. S.