Religious Liberty in Peru by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 2, 1914

Religious Liberty in Peru

By Editor

THE Christian Advocate of January 15 contains a lengthy article by Bishop Homer C. Stuntz, D. D., in reference to the prospect for religious liberty in the republic of Peru. The Christian Observer of March 11 also publishes an article on the same topic, basing its remarks on the article above referred to. Both these articles make mention of the part played by a certain Protestant medical missionary in the good work of bringing about religious tolerance in that republic; but neither article mentions the name or the denomination of that medical missionary. We are glad to make known that this was our good brother F. A. Stahl, superintendent of the Seventh-day Adventist mission in the Lake Titicaca district. The article by Bishop Stuntz gives an interesting résumé of the matter, and we give below a considerable portion of his account:—

Peru is the Rome of the two Americas. . . . Here Pizarro founded the first university in the Western Hemisphere. Here flourished the bloody and merciless agent of Roman Catholic intolerance—the Inquisition. Scores of "heretics" were publicly burned at the stake within a ten minutes' walk of the Maury Hotel, in which I am now writing. Thousands were tortured and their goods declared forfeited for the crime of thinking!

Protestantism Versus Medievalism

Then came the end! Spain lost Peru. Her tyranny bore fruit in revolt after revolt, and in 1821 Peru became a republic. General San Martin, to whose valor and sagacity Peru owed her victory against Spain, wanted a monarchy rather than a republic, believing that the citizens were not yet ready for self-government. But what interests a Protestant more than his opinion in this matter is the fact that he did his utmost to have liberty of conscience and worship guaranteed by the new constitution, and to put Protestants in places of influence in the educational and religious life of the young state. As the first president, he invited the Rev. James Thompson from Scotland to begin a school in which the teachers needed in a public-school system could be trained under Protestant auspices. Thompson came in 1822, and President San Martin took a large public building from one of the Catholic orders and gave it to him for use as a school. But he was soon dispossessed and driven from the country, though not until he had prepared two classes of teachers and had organized a Bible society among the leaders of the young Peruvian nation. If Protestantism had been ready to come in and occupy the field in force at that time, it is very probable that Peru would now be predominantly Protestant, instead of being under the leadership of the most bigoted and intolerant ecclesiasts known in all the Americas.