Religious Intolerance Against Lutheran Pastors in Hesse
A CASE of religious intolerance is reported from Germany. The facts, as stated in the Christian Union, are that a number of Lutheran ministers in Hesse Darmstadt, who had resisted the introduction of a new ecclesiastical constitution, were deposed in consequence from their livings and emoluments. Thinking that when thrust out of the church they were free from its discipline, and relying on the protection which the law gives to all religious bodies, some of them undertook to hold services in their own houses. For this experiment several pastors of high character have been brought before the civil courts and heavily fined, with the alternative of imprisonment. In the case of several their furniture has been seized, and they and their families have been reduced to the direst poverty. This reads not unlike a story from the days of Charles I. or James II.—Religious Intelligencer.