HOLDING UP CHURCH AND STATE EXAMPLES.
By W. N. Glenn
The combination comprising the Bureau of Reforms at Washington, which includes most of the evangelical reform associations of the country, who are just now pressing the matter of a religious amendment to the Constitution, insists that the design does not comprehend a union of church and state. It will be remembered, however, that the leading forces now laboring in behalf of the proposed amendment are the same that urged the Blair Educational Amendment resolution a few years ago. That resolution provided that the states should teach the principles of Christianity in the public schools, and that Congress should enforce the resolution by legislation. Therefore, under its provisions Congress would have had to decide what were the principles of Christianity, and that would have been a practical union of church and state. The present proposed amendment does not call for quite as much as that in express terms, but that is not because such design is abandoned. The National Reformers are noted for their willingness to temporarily accept the “half loaf” as an “entering wedge.” It could not be expected that such a government as ours would suddenly jump to the extreme of the evil of church and state union; such a transition would of necessity be a gradual process. This government is fittingly represented by the two-horned beast of Revelation 13, which is described as having “two horns like a lamb,” but “spake as a dragon.” We would not expect such a contrast in character to take place at once. The leading advocates of this so-called “reform” have long been wont to theoretically oppose a union of church and state, while zealously advocating conditions that could not exist without such union—conditions that could be established only as a result of such a union. Sunday laws originated in the church and state government of Rome. They have been perpetuated in the professed Protestant church and state governments of Europe. Thence they were transmitted to North America and implanted in the colonial governments. Thence they crept into the ship of state of the American Union as “stow-a-ways” among the baggage of the original thirteen states. From these they were imitated by other states, but were comparatively harmless, for want of a sentiment to enforce them, until the dragon voice should be gradually awakened here and there. Years ago the advocates of the religious amendment theory voiced their sentiments by referring approvingly to features of the Old World governments which are the natural outgrowth of church and state union. In an address before a “National Convention to Secure a Religious Amendment to the Constitution of the United States,” held in New York, Feb. 26 and 27, 1873, Rev. H. H. George quoted approvingly from a report of Dr. Stowe to the Ohio Legislature concerning Old World policy, as follows:— “In Germany the school system embraces a course of eight years, making four divisions of two years each.” And after summing up the branches taught in these respective divisions, he adds: “In the first is given religious instruction and the singing of hymns; in the second is religious instruction in select Bible narratives; in the third is religious instruction in the connected Bible history; in the fourth division, including children from ten to sixteen years old, is given religious instruction on the religious observation of nature, the life and discourses of Jesus Christ, the history of the Christian religion in connection with the contemporary civil history, the doctrines of Christianity.” Barnard, in treating of the subjects and methods of instruction in Prussia, says “that every complete elementary school in that country gives instruction in religion and morality, established on the positive truths of Christianity.” “In the public schools of Berlin instruction is given in the Bible, the catechism, the positive truths of Christianity.” “In Switzerland a teacher must have a certificate from the clergyman of his own church that he is fitted, both by character and education, to conduct the religious instruction in the school for which he is designed.” “In Russia it is assumed that religious teaching constitutes the only solid foundation of all useful instruction.” But he goes even further for illustration to prove the righteousness of the National-Reform-Religious-Amendment cause. It is right because it is a Mormon principle; yes, because it is Mohammedan, and because it is pagan. Hear these words from the same address:— But let me here remind the advocates for an education divorced from all morals and religion, that their demands are not only absurd but an absolute impossibility. . . . If it be a Mormon country, the government and all its institutions are founded on the basis, and administered according to the standard, of a Mormon morality. Even its trade, its manufactories, its improvements, its trials before courts of justice, its pains and penalties, all, all are in accordance with Mormon right. If it teaches its children at all, it must teach them according to the standard of Mormon morals. . . . It is precisely so in Mohammedan countries, and in all pagan countries, and can it be less so in a Christian land?—Verily not. To attempt a system of education in any country, wholly divorced from the morality and religion of that country, is not only unphilosophical, but it is irrational. Will they still claim that they do not aim for a union of church and state? Of course they will, as long as there is a public prejudice against that particular expression. But can they reasonably deny that such a union is the logical outcome of the principles they are urging upon the people? Surely they can not. The examples they cite are positive proofs that their claim in this regard is groundless.