America's Fight for Religious Freedom
We have enjoyed religious freedom so long in this country that comparatively few people realize the struggle that it cost. Previous to the founding of this nation, with but one exception every country on the earth, and during all past time, had been cursed by a State religion. And at the time of the formation of this Government, the world was everywhere impregnated with the idea that it was fatal for the State not to have an established form of religion. Men must be compelled not only to pay a tax to support the State Church, but they must be compelled also to attend its services. It may seem strange to some of us that such sentiments could ever have prevailed. But they have prevailed, not only in the past, but they are gaining ground so rapidly in the present as to constitute a great menace for the immediate future. Madison was one of the greatest champions of religious freedom at the time of the founding of this republic. Some of his most striking utterances when discussing the subject are the following: "The original colonial polity of Virginia had been founded in that mistaken connection of Church and State which was then the universal practise of all nations and of all religious parties."—Page 41. "In Virginia the colonists were enjoined by the mother country to administer its functions of religion so as to provide that the service of God and the Christian faith be preached, planted, and used according to the doctrine and rites of the Church of England."—Page 42. "Union of religious sentiment begets a surprising confidence, and ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects."—Page 43. "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect."—Page 54. The foregoing quotations are taken from "Life and Times of Madison," by Rives. Madison's memorial against establishing the Episcopal as the State Church of Virginia contained the following: "Religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction and not by force or violence." "Who does not see that this same authority which can establish Christianity to the exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians in exclusion of all other sects?" "Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation." "In no instances have religious establishments been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people." These statements were sound in that time, and they are just as sound to-day. Careful thought should be given them, for the religious combines being formed show that history is seeking to repeat itself by giving the church power to dominate the State. The open avowal is made by many leaders in church federation movements, that all the religious people should combine in such a way as to compel lawmakers to respect the wishes of the church. The menace of church domination is just as real and fully as great to-day as at any time in the history of the world.