HUMAN GOVERNMENT AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
By W. N. Glenn
WHEN Adam disobeyed God, he sold himself and his posterity into bondage. Like Esau, he "sold his birthright for a mess of pottage." The race, from being servants of Satan, in time became servants of one another. As individuals or classes acquired the power of might or cunning, the weaker or less aggressive became subservient to the more ambitious and unscrupulous. As a consequence of this condition, there has been throughout the history of the race a struggle for liberty. Government after government, great and small, has been set up and overthrown as the great contest has been carried on. Every species of human government of which the human mind can conceive has been tried, each of which has laid great claims to superiority, and made great promises of happiness to its subjects. But not one has been able to fully carry out its promises. The leading inducement of what we might term modern civilized governments has been the guarantee of religious liberty. But religious liberty for those who embrace the popular religion—in other words, liberty for the religion whose votaries have control of government—is the extent of permanent achievement. Many fierce battles have been fought for the enjoyment of religious liberty, while not one of the contestants even dreamed of such liberty for any others than the victors. Whenever more than this has been granted, it has been deemed merely toleration. All will admit the correctness of this position until we come down to the United States Government. Here, however, the "starry ban-725ner" floats to the breeze, the great eagle spreads her wings, and the Fourth of July orator shouts himself hoarse in praise of the religious liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. Our Declaration of Independence, the cost of whose establishment and maintenance to this time is beyond computation, proclaims "these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." This government has held out to all the world that here is the great boon which so many have sought in vain—religious liberty. But the human race has had sufficient experience, with all the kinds of government which it has been able to invent, to learn that when any human government guarantees liberty to all religions, it gives a guarantee which it cannot fully sustain. So long as most religions are essentially antagonistic and practically hostile to each other, the maintenance of even an outward peace between the various adherents depends rather upon a restriction of the principles of the opposing religions than upon their liberty. There is but one unselfish religion in the world, and that is the Christian religion—the Christian religion in its purity, and not in its clashing sectarian pretense. The Christian religion, enforced solely by persuasion and appeal to the word of God, as enunciated by the Lord himself and his immediate successors, and exemplified in their practice, is the only religion that does not seek the aid of civil law. No religion that does seek the support of civil government, thereby appealing to the carnal weapons upon which civil government must reply as a final arbiter, has any legitimate claim to being classed as Christianity. All other religions, necessarily including the Roman Catholic and all the so-called Protestantism that seeks advancement by political methods, are ambitious of legislative control; and they all manifest this ambition the moment they see a probability of success. In all such religions an essential feature is the uprooting of all opposing forces, civil or religious. Hence the unrestrained liberty of any one politically ambitious religion would logically and certainly restrict the exercise of all others. So it is clear that the seeming equality of all religions in our government, that which has been called religious liberty, has been maintained by the restriction of prominent religious principles and not by granting them full liberty. To the Mohammedan, religious liberty would be liberty to kill off the "Christian dogs," and anything short of that would be a curtailment of his religious liberty. To the Roman Catholic, religious liberty would mean the liberty to "correct heretics" in order to save their souls; it would mean the liberty to draw the means from the public treasury to support her institutions, and the liberty to place her supporters in all places of public trust. To the apostate Protestant, the "National Reformer," for instance, religious liberty means about the same as it does to the Roman Catholic. It is patent beyond dispute that, from the standpoint of the highest aims of these religions, and of others that might be named, their adherents have not enjoyed full religious liberty under this government. And to this fact is due, under Providence, whatever measure of liberty true Christianity has been permitted to enjoy. Just as soon as either of these religions, or any two or more of them combined, becomes strong enough politically to control legislation, it will soon be made manifest to all dissenters, as it has been already to some, that, squarely put to the test, our government’s guarantee of religious liberty to all classes is not worth the paper upon which it is written. Moreover, its fundamental law provides for its change, or the abrogation of its guarantees at any time when a sufficient number of the people so desire. And nothing would so forcibly urge such a desire as religious prejudice, a fanatical zeal to restrict or prohibit the exercise of religion repugnant to those in power. But from the very beginning our constitutional guarantee as to religious liberty has been subject to abridgment. While Congress has been forbidden to pass any "law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," the States may pass such laws, and some of the States came into the Union with quite stringent laws, establishing religious institutions. And we have had at least one test case wherein the United States squarely refused to protect a citizen against the penalty of a State religious law. In the State of Tennessee a man whose religious conviction led him to observe the seventh day as the Sabbath was convicted of violation of the State law forbidding secular labor on the first day of the week. His case was appealed to the Supreme Court of the State and thence to a United States Court. The latter appeal was made on the plea of the religious liberty guarantee of the Constitution. But the court declined to recognize the plea or to interfere with the edict of the State. The decision of this Federal judge was in part as follows:— Sectarian religious belief is guaranteed by the Constitution, not in the sense argued that King, as a Seventh-day Adventist, or some other as a Jew, or yet another as a Seventh-day Baptist, might set at defiance the prejudice, if you please, of other sects having control of legislation. Thus the government, after guaranteeing religious liberty to all classes, tells us through one of its courts that the guarantee is good only to those "sects having control of legislation" in the States. But if they have control of legislation in the States over matters in which Congress is forbidden to act, they are independent of the general government, and may exercise their own religious liberty without its guarantee. Thus it is demonstrated that such guarantee is of no practical benefit to anybody. It operates only in favor of those classes who have the power to enforce it through another source, namely, through control of State legislation. So much for the religious liberty guaranteed by the most liberal government that human ingenuity ever devised. If such a government cannot give us religious liberty, what human government can give it to us? Verily there is none that can do so. Such a consummation in a selfish, sinful world is an impossibility. Such a condition can only exist in a world where there is but one faith—a "faith that works by love"—and where every citizen is thoroughly imbued with that faith. Where, then, shall Christians look for religious liberty? "Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith." Says this Author and Finisher: "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:31, 32. And again, "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." Verse 36. The apostle Peter, after giving an assurance that the present sin-cursed earth will shortly be renovated by fire, gives this comforting promise: "Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 2 Peter 3:13. Righteousness can only be administered by the Lord himself, and "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 2 Cor. 3:17. "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Gal. 5:1.