Toleration Versus Liberty
By W. F. Martin
HERE is a wide difference between toleration and liberty. Toleration is a concession. We find it granted where there is more or less of a union of the church and the state. It also implies more or less of a censure or disapproval. We tolerate what we dislike or disapprove but can not well prevent. Toleration implies the right of the state to interfere in matters of religion and to control public worship. Russia tolerates Romanists and Protestants. Turkey tolerates Christians. Again toleration is simply a matter of expediency. It is a gift of man. Persecution always results from a union of church and state. Toleration comes as a relaxation of that union. It is an intermediate state between religious liberty and religious persecution. Full religious liberty requires a peaceful separation of the spiritual and secular powers. No one in a free country wants to be tolerated for his religious opinions or convictions. The theory of the Middle Ages was intolerance and persecution. The theory of enlightened Europe to-day is toleration. That of the United States is religious freedom, and equality of all sects before the law. By religious liberty or soul freedom is meant the natural and inalienable right of every soul to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. That religion is and must be a voluntary service. No earthly power has any right to compel conformity to any creed or kind of worship. If any one sect is given a preference by law over other sects, that destroys perfect religious liberty. Religious liberty is not a gift9of man. It is a gift of God. It is not a matter of expediency. It is a principle. It is a natural, inalienable right of every man. It is inherent and fundamental. It is true that liberty may be abused, but no amount of abuse can destroy its right use. The only proper attitude of the state toward the religion of its subjects is to see that each one is protected in the right to worship God as his own conscience may dictate. A government best consults its own interests when it protects all and persecutes none. “Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings—give us that precious jewel, and you may take everything else.”