Union of Church and State
By C. M. Snow
For generation after generation, men and women quick of conscience became victims of the union of church and state. It is impossible that such a work of selecting out and destroying the most conscientious of the inhabitants, should not have a blasting effect upon all future generations. The conditions of Southern Europe to-day bear eloquent witness of this. To such a policy must we charge the cruel wars waged against the Waldenses, Paulicians, Albigenses, Huguenots, and Anabaptists. That policy is responsible for the Thirty Years' War, for the campaigns against the Netherlands, for the voyage of the Spanish Armada, and for all other cruel and blood-thirsty crusades in which the right of the individual to choose his own religion has been the object of attack. It is responsible, too, for the cruelties practised by the early colonial governments upon men and women who differed from the majority in matters of conscience. C. M. Snow.