LAMST week we said: Let not the people of these States, or of the United States, laugh at the absurd conception from which springs the “infallibility” of the pope of Rome until they are sure that they themselves are entirely clear of all such conception in their own practice, or in their consent even.AMS October 4, 1894, page 305.1

THIS word of advice is strictly appropriate, for the simple reason that in nearly all the States, and in the United States, there is established in its very essence the papal principle of infallibility: namely, that authority to act for the public in matters of religion and religious observances, is derived from the seat that is occupied by the officious official at the time of his officious action.AMS October 4, 1894, page 305.2

IN all the States of this Union, and in the Government of the United States there are officials—especially legislative and judiciary—who exercise prerogatives that are either usurped wholly, or else derived solely from the official seat which they occupy, and from nothing else under the sun. And the vast majority of the people consent to it without a word, while perhaps a majority of these justify it in their actions and in the practice of the officious officials.AMS October 4, 1894, page 305.3

IT is a fact too notorious to require any proof, that in the legislative and judicial proceedings of the government of the States and of the United States, laws are made, construed, and confirmed, and executed which establish religious dogmas and institutions and enforce them upon the people. For instance, the Supreme Court of the United States has decided for the people of the United States that “this is a religious people,” and accordingly that “this is a Christian nation.” And the Congress of the United States has decided for the people that the fourth commandment “means” that “the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday,” is the Sabbath, and have fixed that interpretation in the legislation of the nation to be enforced upon all the people. The same things, and other like things, have been done by the legislators and judges of all the States, except one or perhaps two. And not only do the vast majority of the people consent to it, but thousands upon thousands of the people justify it, while nearly the whole religious element of the nation—professed Protestants too—actually require it, and, indeed, so far as lies in their power, force it.AMS October 4, 1894, page 305.4

NOW where did these men who happen for the time to be legislators or judges, get their right to do these things? How did they become possessed of the prerogative to interpret the Scriptures and decide religious questions for the people? No one will allow that any one of these persons merely as a man, simply as a private citizen, ever had, or ever could have had, any shadow of right to interpret the Bible or decide any religious question for any other man or citizen in any way, much less to decide it and fix it in an authoritative rule to be enforced upon all, or upon any man, in the State or nation. So certainly is this true that if any one of these men, when he was merely a man and a private citizen, had undertaken to do such a thing his action would have been swiftly resented as a piece of unbearable impertinence. Yet, lo! when he is an official he not only does this very thing, but it is expected by multitudes of the people that his action in this shall be accepted by all as valid, and be received as authoritative, and be respected and obeyed accordingly. Yesterday any such action would have been resented by everybody, while to-day it must needs be accepted and respected by everybody! But what wrought this so important a change in the condition and prerogatives of the man?AMS October 4, 1894, page 305.5

OH, yesterday he was but a man like all the rest of us, while to-day he is in official position. But what caused this change? How did he get into that official position?—It was all done simply by the votes of man like himself—his fellow-citizens. Yesterday he was as destitute as all the others of every shadow of such prerogative, while to-day he is amply clothed with it: and all this because, as with the other pope, enough men as destitute of it as himself, voted for him to elect him to that office; or because he was appointed to the office by a man who was so elected. Yet even this is not the full statement of the case; because even when he is elected he does not possess it until he has been “sworn in” to the office, and even then he does not possess it in available form until he takes his seat in the legislative hall or on the judicial bench and acts officially from that seat. As a mere man or private citizen no one will allow that he has any shadow of right or authority to act for another in any question of religion or religious observance; when he is elected he does not have it till he is sworn in; and even when he is sworn in he does not have it until he acts from his official seat.AMS October 4, 1894, page 305.6

IT is therefore perfectly plain that all our legislators and judges get all the authority and prerogative that they exercise in matters of religion, precisely where and precisely as the pope of Rome gets his, namely, from the seat which they occupy when they speak by the whole people. For as no one of them as a man or a private citizen had any shadow of such authority, it is impossible that any one of them could have derived this prerogative from anything that made him an official, except upon the principle from which the other pope derives his, namely, that like produces totally unlike, and out of nothing something comes. And as even when he has become an official by the votes of those who had no shadow of any such right or authority, this prerogative is not available until he occupies the official seat, it follows inevitably that it is the seat alone from which the legislator or the judge obtains all his right, all his authority, and all his prerogative, to speak or act in questions of religion or religious observances for all the people.AMS October 4, 1894, page 305.7

CONSEQUENTLY no legislator or judge who ever did, or who ever shall, act in the making or enforcing of a Sunday law, or any other law touching religion or religious observances or religious obligation of any kind, can ever consistently object to the claim of the infallibility of the pope of Rome, or laugh at the absurd conception of the source from which that infallibility comes to him, laughable as it undoubtedly is; because every such legislator and every such judge has in such action made the precise claim and has acted upon the very principle that the pope of Rome makes and acts upon in his “infallibility.”AMS October 4, 1894, page 305.8

THE absurdity, and much more than this—the danger—of this evil principle was clearly seen by the men who made the Government of the United States, and was specially guarded against by them in the total separation of religion and the State and the absolute prohibition of any State official from touching in his official capacity any question of religion in any way. This is why they observed, and so pointedly, that “it is impossible for the magistrate to adjudge the right of preference among the various sects which profess the Christian faith without erecting a claim to infallibility which would lead us back to the church of Rome.” And this—AMS October 4, 1894, page 306.1

1. Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth “that religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.” The religion, then, of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated in their own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men. It is unalienable, also, because what is here a right towards men is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage, and such only, as he believes acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of civil society. Before any man can be considered a member of civil society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the universe; and if a member of civil society who enters into any subordinate association must always do it with a reservation of his duty to the general authority, much more must every man who becomes a member of any particular civil society do it with a saving of his allegiance to the universal Sovereign. We maintain, therefore, that in matters of religion no man’s right is abridged by the institution of civil society, and that religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance.AMS October 4, 1894, page 306.2

2. Because, if religion be exempt from the authority of society at large still less can it be subject to that of the legislative body. The latter are but the creatures and vicegerents of the former. Their jurisdiction is both derivative and limited. It is limited with regard to the co-ordinate departments; more necessarily is it limited with regard to the constituents. The preservation of a free government requires not merely that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained, but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great barrier which defends the rights of the people. The rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are tyrants. The people who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by any authority derived from then, and are slaves.AMS October 4, 1894, page 306.3

And because they were “well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy Author of our religion, who, being Lord of both body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time;” and “that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty.”AMS October 4, 1894, page 306.4

SUCH are the noble and weighty words of Madison and Jefferson as they conducted the campaigns that established the principle of the total separation of Church and State in this country, and for the enlightenment of all countries. And these words clearly show that they well understood both the fallacy and the danger of the prerogative of “infallibility.” They saw readily enough that all the authority that any man ever could have over another in matters of religion could only be by sheer usurpation, and contained in itself all the elements of the papacy, even to the extreme element of infallibility. And knowing both the fallacy and the tyranny of the principle, they exposed it as it deserved, and repudiated it, and, as they hoped, delivered the people of this nation from it forever, by fixing in the supreme law the absolute prohibition of the governmental power from ever touching any question of religion in any way. This they did that the people of this splendid nation—the last, the greatest, and the best—might be forever free from anybody here ever “erecting a claim to infallibility which would lead us back to the church of Rome.”AMS October 4, 1894, page 306.5

LET no one jump to the conclusion that the foregoing argument applies with equal force against civil authority “because no legislator, or judge, or other civil official can exercise even civil authority until he has been duly installed in office and occupies his official place.” For although it is true that no man can exercise the authority of legislator, or judge, or other civil office, even after he has been elected, until he has been duly installed in the office, and only then when he acts from the official seat or place; yet it is equally true that when he does so act, he exercises only the authority and prerogative that from the beginning were in himself as a man and a citizen, and that were also in all his fellow-men and fellow-citizens. All the legitimate authority that he exercises in office, except in the degree of it, was inherent in himself, and in all concerned, simply as men and citizens. Every person, merely as a man in the world, has within himself full right, authority, and prerogative to act, even to the use of force, to protect from violence the life, person, or property of himself or any of his fellow-men. For instance, any man who sees another setting fire to his property or the property of his neighbor, has full and inherent right, even to the application of force, to prevent that man from accomplishing his purpose. It is equally so in the event of any other threatened danger to the life, property, or person of himself or any other man.AMS October 4, 1894, page 306.6

WITHOUT organization, however, that is, without government, it would devolve upon each individual, of himself and for himself, to exercise this authority, and would lead to every man’s hand being against his neighbor. Therefore, in order that this inherent right and authority of every man may be the better exercised in behalf of all, men enter into organization and establish an order of government for this very purpose, and such an order of government as to them seems best calculated to accomplish this purpose. This is the origin and object of civil government.AMS October 4, 1894, page 306.7

THIS organization having been formed, each man is now a citizen as well as a man; and all this right, authority, and prerogative, that inhered in him as a man, still are inherent in him as a citizen—the only change that is undergone is in the manner of the exercise of these inherent qualities. That is to say: As the object of the organization that has been created is to relieve the individual from the personal exercise of this authority, the more fully to secure all in the unmolested enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, each one now by vote delegates to one of their number the exercise of his authority in this matter to be exercised by the chosen one as the representative of all. And he who is thus chosen acts with the duly delegated authority of all. And in all this he acts with no authority, neither does he exercise any prerogative, that he did not in himself possess before—except in degree. Whereas before the organization he must of necessity act for himself and from himself alone, now he acts for himself and for hundreds or thousands of others who, equally with himself, possessed this authority in himself; now he acts from the delegated authority of all these, who by vote have duly clothed him with the right and power to exercise for them the authority which inhered in them as individual men.AMS October 4, 1894, page 306.8

AND although when elected he cannot exercise this delegated authority until he has been duly installed in office, this is not because he derives any additional authority, prerogative, or characteristic, from the seat or official position itself; but because that, as his fellow-citizens have signified their confidence in him for the exercise of the authority which they have delegated to him, it is necessary and but proper that he should respond by submitting to the forms that have been established, and pledge himself to his fellow-citizens for the faithful exercise of the authority which they have delegated to him. The oath or affirmation of office, and whatever other ceremonies or pledges required in the installation in office of the elected one, are but the response of mutual obligation on his part to the delegation of authority on the part of the electors; and are not in any sense used with any idea that from these ceremonies or from the office itself he derives any additional dignity, authority, or prerogative whatever. So in no instance does any legislator, or judge, or other civil officer, acting in civil things, ever act with any authority or exercise any prerogative which he in himself did not possess, or that those who voted for him did not in themselves possess before he was elected; or which they did not have full right and power to delegate to him to be exercised in their behalf and for the better service of all concerned.AMS October 4, 1894, page 306.9

NOT so however is it in matters of religion. That pertains to man’s duty or relationship to God. These come not from himself. They are laid upon him by the Lord; and are therefore incapable of being delegated, incapable of being exercised by any one in behalf of another. And as the exercise of these powers, the performance of these duties, and the fulfillment of these relationships are incapable of being delegated, and so incapable of being exercised by any one in behalf of another; it absolutely follows that no legislator, or judge, or other official of any kind can ever have any authority in matters pertaining to religion in any way. Consequently any attempt to exercise any authority over, or for, another in matters of religion, springs from sheer usurpation. And if it be denied that it is sheer usurpation then the only conceivable source from which such authority or prerogative could be derived is the seat which said official occupies when he acts officially. And thus we are brought again to the absurd conception of the source from which “the infallibility of the pope” is derived.AMS October 4, 1894, page 306.10

AND the professed Protestant churches of the United States and of the world, in appealing to the government, or allowing officials, without protest, to act in matters of religion; and the legislators and judges of the States, and of the United States, and of the world in acting in matters of religion, as they have done and as they continue to do, are in very principle and in actual practice committed to the identical conception of infallibility to which the papacy is committed in the dogma of the “infallibility of the pope.” And this, too, without as much as the seeming justification that the papacy claims: for the papacy does claim that “blessed Peter” did occupy the official seat which the pope occupies when he speaks “ex cathedra,” and therefore “infallibly;” but no one can ever even claim that Peter ever occupied any seat that ever was or ever shall be occupied by any legislator or judge in any of the States or the United States—not even when they decided ex cathedra that “this is a Christian nation,” or that “the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday,” is the Sabbath according to the “meaning” of the fourth commandment.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.1

SO the professed Protestants of the United States and of the world, and the legislators and judges of the States, the United States, and of the world, who presume to act officially and governmentally in matters of religion, will have to clear their skirts of the smirch of “infallibility” before they can ever consistently indulge any smiles at the absurdity of the claim of “the infallibility of the Roman pontiff.” All these will have to abdicate the exercise of the prerogative of infallibility themselves, before any of them shall ever be able consistently to criticise or reject the exercise of it by another, even though that other be the pope of Rome. In short, all these will have to cease to be popes themselves before they can consistently object against the pope of Rome.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.2

THE basis of the papal claim as derived from “blessed Peter” will be examined next week.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.3

“A Persecuting Baptist” American Sentinel 9, 39, pp. 307, 308.

ATJ

THE Alabama Baptist, of August 9, attempts to justify the persecution of W. B. Capps, who is now serving a sentence of nine months in the county jail at Dresden, Weakely County, Tenn., for plowing in his field on Sunday, by the following argument:—AMS October 4, 1894, page 307.1

The law does not compel him to violate his convictions by working on Saturday, neither should he violate the law and the convictions of the people by working on their holy day. If Mr. Capps cannot have the law changed to suit his religious views, he ought to go where there is no such law.AMS October 4, 1894, page 307.2

The Baptist Examiner, of September 13th, says, in replying to like “arguments” which appeared in the Baptist and Reflector, of Nashville, Tenn: “It would have been easy, by similar arguments, for those who persecuted Baptists in the past, to have justified their conduct and policy.” How true! and why can’t the Alabama Baptist see it? Its arguments are similar to the arguments of John Cotton, in his justification of the persecution of Elder Holmes. And to show the similarity we will put the words of the Alabama Baptist editor, with slight changes into the mouth of the persecutor of Baptists.AMS October 4, 1894, page 307.3

The law does not compel him (Obadiah Holmes) to violate his convictions by being sprinkled himself, neither should he violate the law and the convictions of the people by baptizing by immersion. If Mr. Holmes cannot get the law changed to suit his religious views, he ought to go where there is no such law.AMS October 4, 1894, page 307.4

John Cotton and his associates, in the persecution of Baptists, thought Baptists “ought to go where there is no such law,” and the Baptists refusing to go were whipped, imprisoned, and banished, and now the editor of the Alabama Baptist thinks the same of Seventh-day Adventists: and since he thinks they “ought to go,” and they think like Baptists of Massachusetts that they ought to stay, it follows that the John Cotton, of the Alabama Baptist, is in favor of banishing Seventh-day Adventists in 1894 as the John Cotton, of Massachusetts was in favor of banishing Baptists in 1651.AMS October 4, 1894, page 307.5

Although the Baptist Examiner says it is easy to show that the cases of the persecutors are similar, the editor of the Alabama Baptist thinks it is easy to show that the case is different. And now hear him try it:—AMS October 4, 1894, page 307.6

This case is different from those in which patriots and Christians, especially Baptists, have felt called upon to resist laws that were evidently unjust, and which were intended to be restrictive and proscriptive of one party or creed and in favor of another. This Tennessee statute, like those of other States, restrains those who indorse it as well as those who do not.AMS October 4, 1894, page 307.7

This attempted defense of the Tennessee persecutions is the old threadbare excuse of the persecutor. “When we were persecuted we were ‘patriots and Christians,’ but you ‘violate the law’ and are therefore lawless and unchristian.” This was the way the Puritans of colonial days talked about the Baptists. Thomas Shepard, of Charlestown, in a sermon entitled “Eye Salve,” told the governor and magistrates of Massachusetts that “Anabaptists [a nickname for Baptists] have ever been looked at by the godly leaders of this people as a scab,” and the president of Harvard College said, “such a rough thing as a New England Anabaptist is not to be handled over tenderly.”AMS October 4, 1894, page 307.8

But, now, all this is changed. Baptists no longer suffer imprisonment, whipping, and banishment. From a small minority they have grown powerful, until in some localities, they have a controlling influence. And, now, forgetting their own sufferings, once and again the persecuted becomes the persecutors, and thereby furnish another proof of the correctness of the statement of the report of the committee on Sunday mails, communicated to the House of Representatives, March 4th and 5th, 1830, that “every religious sect, however meek in its origin, commenced the work of persecution as soon as it acquired political power.”AMS October 4, 1894, page 307.9

If the Tennessee Sunday law is not both “restrictive and proscriptive of one party or creed and in favor of another,” then the Massachusetts law requiring all Baptists to attend the established church was neither. It restricts Seventh-day Adventists to five days’ work instead of six, and therefore attempts to make them pay a tax of 16 2/5 per cent. more than is assessed on other citizens. It is proscriptive, since in the language of the Alabama Baptist, the State of Tennessee, “by statute law,” “recognized the Christian Sabbath [Sunday the first day] as God’s holy day,” as against the commandment of God which requires the observance of the seventh day, and which Seventh-day Adventists choose to obey rather than the commandment of the State. The State has come out in favor of the “party or creed,” which teaches the first day is the Sabbath, and thereby proscribes the party which teaches that the seventh day is the Sabbath. The statement that “this Tennessee statute, like those of other States, restrains those who indorse it as well as those who do not,” is a childish excuse. When the Baptist ministers—John Clark, Obadiah Holmes and John Crandall—were forcibly taken to church in compliance with the law compelling all to attend the State church, it was not persecution, according to the Alabama Baptist, since it restrained those who indorsed it as well as those who did not. According to this modern expounded of Baptist principles of religious liberty, all John Cotton needed to say to these Baptist ministers when they protested, was, “Oh, this law restrains me from remaining away from church the same as it does you. It restrains those who indorse it as well as those who do not.”AMS October 4, 1894, page 307.10

Now, we expect that the Baptist Examiner, of this city, and other consistent Baptists, will write to the Alabama Baptist, as did the brethren of the Puritans in England, and protest against the prosecuted turning persecutor, and it is probable that the Alabama Baptist will want to reply, We therefore print a part of the letter written by John Cotton, which the Alabama Baptist can use in full with a few changes in names:—AMS October 4, 1894, page 307.11

One of them, Obadiah Holmes, being an excommunicate person himself, out of a church in Plymouth patent, came into this jurisdiction, and took upon him to baptize, which I think himself will not say he was compelled here to perform. And he was not ignorant that the rebaptizing of an elder person, and that by a private person out of office and under excommunication, are all of them manifest contestations against the order and government of our churches, established, we know, by God’s law, and he knoweth by the laws of the country. And we conceive we may safely appeal to the ingenuity of your own judgment, whether it would be tolerated in any civil state, for a stranger to come and practise contrary to the known principles of the church estate? As for his whipping, it was more voluntarily chosen by him that inflicted on him. His censure by the court was to have paid, as I know, thirty pounds, or else to be whipt; his fine was offered to be paid by friends for him freely; but he chose rather to be whipt; in which case, if his sufferings of stripes was any worship of God at all, surely it could be accounted no better than will worship. The other, Mr. Clarke, was wiser in that point, and his offense was less, so was his fine less, and himself, as I hear, was contended to have it paid for him, whereupon he was released. The imprisonment of either of them was no detriment. I believe they fared neither of them better at home; and I am sure Holmes had not been so well clad for years before.AMS October 4, 1894, page 307.12

But be pleased to consider this point a little further: You think to compel men in matter of worship is to make them sin, according to Romans 14:23. If the worship be lawful in itself, the magistrate compelling to come to it, compelleth him not to sin, but the sin is in his will that needs to be compelled to a Christian duty. Josiah compelled all Israel, or, which is all one, made to serve the Lord their God. 2 Chronicles 34:33. Yet his act herein was not blamed, but recorded among his virtuous actions. For a governor to suffer any within his gates to profane the Sabbath, is a sin against the fourth commandment, both in the private householder and in the magistrate, and if he requires them to present themselves before the Lord, the magistrate sinneth not, nor doth the subject sin so great a sin as if he did refrain to come. But you say it doth but make men hypocrites, to compel men to conform the outward man for fear of punishment. If it did so, yet better be hypocrites than profane persons. Hypocrites gives God part of his due, the outward man; but the profane person giveth God neither outward nor inward man.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.1

And now we wish that the editor of the Alabama Baptist would not use this letter at all, or any of his own similar arguments, but that he would see the error of his way, repent and do works meet for repentance.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.2

“The Catholic Church and Religious Liberty” American Sentinel 9, 39, p. 308.

ATJ

THE Roman Catholic Church professes to be, and always to have been, the champion of civil and religious liberty. But this profession is as disingenuous as is the advice of Satolli to the people of this country, to “go forward bearing in one hand the book of Christian truth—the Bible—and in the other hand the Constitution of the United States.” It has recently been shown in these columns, that, shorn of its verbiage, this means only, Go forward bearing in one hand the Catholic Bible, as interpreted by “the church,” and in the other, the Constitution of the United States, likewise interpreted by “the church.”AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.1

It is the same when Rome talks of religious liberty. Cardinal Gibbons says: “A man enjoys religious liberty when he enjoys the free right of worshiping God according to the dictates of a right conscience, and of practicing a form of religion most in accordance with his duties to God. Every act infringing on his freedom of conscience is justly styled religious intolerance. This religious liberty is the true right of every man, because it corresponds with a most certain duty which God has put upon him.”—Faith of Our Fathers, page 264.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.2

It will be observed that the cardinal says: “This religious liberty is the true right of every man.” What religious liberty?—Why, “the free right of worshiping God according to the dictates of a right conscience,” to be sure. And who is to determine what is a “right conscience”?—The Roman Catholic Church, of course. And it is “this religious liberty” which “is the true right of every man,” according to Cardinal Gibbons.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.3

That this is the real meaning of the cardinal’s words is evident from the following, on page 268 of his book previously quoted:—AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.4

The church is indeed intolerant in this sense, that she can never confound truth with error; now can she admit that any man is conscientiously free to reject the truth when its claims are convincingly brought home to the mind.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.5

On page 85 of the same work the cardinal says:—AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.6

The church has authority from God to teach regarding faith and morals; and in her teaching she is preserved from error by the special guidance of the Holy Ghost.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.7

And again, on page 88, we read:—AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.8

Not only does our Lord empower his apostles to preach the gospel, but he commands, and under the most severe penalties, those to whom they preach to listen and obey.... We see on the one hand that the apostles and their successors have received full powers to announce the gospel; and on the other, that their hearers are obliged to listen with docility, and to obey nor merely by an external compliance, but also by internal assent of the intellect.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.9

All this must be taken into consideration in weighing the cardinal’s definition of religious liberty. Here are the legitimate and ever necessary deductions from the quotations made from his book:—AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.10

1. The Catholic Church has full authority to teach faith and morals.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.11

2. That which she teaches must be received.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.12

3. No man is conscientiously free to reject that which the Roman Catholic Church teaches.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.13

4. A man enjoys religious liberty when he enjoys the free right to worship God according to the dictates of a right conscience.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.14

5. No man who does reject the teaching of the Catholic Church can have a right conscience.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.15

Which is only saying that a man enjoys religious liberty when he enjoys the free right to meekly accept the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, and does so accept them; but not otherwise.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.16

The attitude of the Roman Catholic Church toward religious liberty is further defined by the cardinal on pages 268 and 269, thus:—AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.17

Many Protestants seem to be very much disturbed by some such argument as this: Catholics are very ready now to proclaim freedom of conscience, because they are in the minority. When they once succeed in getting the upper hand in numbers and power, they will destroy this freedom, because their faith teaches them to tolerate no doctrine other than the Catholic. It is, then, a matter of absolute necessity for us that they should never be allowed to get this advantage.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.18

Now, in all this, there is a great mistake, which comes from not knowing the Catholic doctrine in its fullness. I shall not lay it down myself, lest it seem to have been gotten up for the occasion. I shall quote the great theologian Becanus, who taught the doctrine of the schools of Catholic theology at the time when the struggle was hottest between Catholicity and Protestantism. He says that religious liberty may be tolerated by a ruler when it would do more harm to the State or to the community to repress it. The ruler may even enter into a compact in order to secure to his subjects this freedom in religious matters; and when once a compact is made, it must absolutely be observed in every point, just as every other lawful and honest contract. This is the true Catholic teaching on this point, according to Becanus and all Catholic theologians. So that if Catholics should gain the majority in a community where freedom of conscience is already secured to all by law, their very religion obliges them to respect the rights thus acquired by their fellow-citizens. What danger can there be, then, for Protestants, if Catholics should be in the majority here? Their apprehensions are the result of vain fears, which no honest mind ought any longer to harbor.AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.19

This is not a disavowal of the right of the Catholic Church to coerce people to matters of faith and morals, but is rather an assertion of the right. “Religious liberty may be tolerated by a ruler when it would do more harm to the State or to the community to repress it.” Exactly! and who is to judge when it will do more harm to repress “religious liberty”? Who, indeed, but “the church!” And hence it follows that the much-vaunted Roman Catholic “religious liberty” is only a limited degree of religious toleration, depending entirely on that policy by which the prophet declared of that power of which the papacy is the legitimate successor: “Through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand.” Surely Rome is well called “the mystery of iniquity.”AMS October 4, 1894, page 308.20

“Back Page” American Sentinel 9, 39, p. 312.

ATJ

IF anything had been lacking to show the power of Rome in this State it would be supplied by the action of the late Constitutional Convention. This convention, which had a Republican majority, started in with a flourish of trumpets to so amend the constitution of the State as to forever prohibit appropriations to sectarian schools. To this end the educational article was adopted as follows:—AMS October 4, 1894, page 312.1

ARTICLE 2. Section 1. The legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free common schools, wherein all the children of this State may be educated.AMS October 4, 1894, page 312.2

Section 2. The corporation created in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, under the name of the regents of the University of the State of New York, is hereby continued under the name of the University of the State of New York. It shall be governed and its corporate powers, which may be increased, modified or diminished by the legislature, shall be exercised by not less than nine regents.AMS October 4, 1894, page 312.3

Section. 3. The capital of the common school fund, the capital of the literature fund, and the capital of the United States deposit fund, shall be respectively preserved inviolate. The revenue of the said common school fund shall be applied to the support of common schools; the revenue of the sold literature fund shall be applied to the support of academies, and the sum of $25,000 of the revenues of the United States deposit fund shall each year be appropriated to and made part of the capital of the said common school fund.AMS October 4, 1894, page 312.4

Section 4. Neither the State nor any subdivision thereof shall use its property or credit or any public money, or authorize or permit either to be used, directly or indirectly or permit either to be used, directly or indirectly, in aid or maintenance, other than for examination or inspection of any school or institution of learning, wholly or in part under the control or direction of any religious denomination, or in which any denominational tenet or doctrine is taught.AMS October 4, 1894, page 312.5

This article alone would not have accomplished all that was to be desired, for it still leaves the door wide open for that colorless thing called “unsectarian religious instruction,” and which is unsatisfactory to man and displeasing to God; but it would have cut off all appropriations to distinctively sectarian institutions. This was not to be, however; the Roman Catholics rallied their forces and “influence,” and, invoking all the saints in the calendar and all the political “pull” in Tammany, succeeded in getting the following provision inserted in the section on charities:—AMS October 4, 1894, page 312.6

Nothing in this Constitution contained shall prevent the legislature from making such provision for the education and support of the blind, the deaf and dumb and juvenile delinquents as to it may seem proper, or prevent any county, city, town or village from providing for the care, support, maintenance and secular education of inmates of orphan asylums, homes for dependent children or correctional institutions, whether under public or private control. Payments by counties, cities, towns and villages to charitable, elecmosynary, correctional and reformatory institutions wholly or partly under private control for care, support and maintenance may be authorized, but shall not be required by the legislature. No such payments shall be made for any inmate of such institutions who is not received and detained therein pursuant to rules established by the State Board of Charities. Such rules shall be subject to the control of the legislature by general laws.AMS October 4, 1894, page 312.7

This leaves the sects an open door to the State treasury, and we may expect to see the usual shameless scramble of papists and “Protestants” for funds at each recurring session of the legislature. As usual, however, Rome will be in the van and will bear off the lion’s share; thanks to the weak-kneed “Protestantism” that truckles for votes and denies a principle for lucre.AMS October 4, 1894, page 312.8

BISHOP KEANE, Rector of the Catholic University at Washington, returned recently from Rome, and is, according to the World, of this city, authority for the statement that Mgr. Satolli is erelong to be clothed with supreme authority in Roman Catholic Church affairs in this country. Hitherto appeals have been made either to Mgr. Satolli or direct to the propaganda at Rome, at the option of the appellant; but when the contemplated change shall have been made, all cases must first go to the vice-pope at Washington, after which the pope in Rome can permit an appeal to himself, if he sees fit.AMS October 4, 1894, page 312.9

It is also stated that the pope will issue another important encyclical in November, which will deal with “the questions of political government,” and will contain a reiteration of the pope’s “views of democracy, not along in this country, but abroad.” The letter will be addressed specially “to the Catholics of the United States, and will recite anew the position of the church here.” Bishop Keane believes that “it will transcend in importance the encyclicals on the labor and parochial school questions.”AMS October 4, 1894, page 312.10

According to Bishop Keane, the pope finds in American political as well as religious affairs an unceasing source of interest. “The pope believes America is to be the bulwark of the Catholic Church of the future, and rejoices that the political evolutions of the Old World are on the lines of democracy followed in the United States.”AMS October 4, 1894, page 312.11

The pope is said to have asked all kinds of question relative to political matters in this country, and to have manifested a lively interest in all things American. He wished to know about the American Protective Association, and the use of troops in the recent labor troubles. He was much interested when told that the military took no sides but simply appeared as guardians of property.AMS October 4, 1894, page 312.12

Probably His Craftiness was weighing the chances of becoming arbitrator of the differences between labor and capital in this country.AMS October 4, 1894, page 312.13

Why does the pope believe “America is to be the bulwark of the Catholic Church of the future”? and why does he rejoice “that the political evolutions of the Old World are on the lines of democracy followed in the United States”? Simply because democracy is the people, and Leo believes that he can use the people better than he can the princes. That many of the people stand ready to be hoodwinked, seems evident; but while, as Lincoln said, it is possible to fool all the people part of the time and some of the people all the time, it is not possible to fool all the people all the time. The pope may, yea, will, largely realize his expectations in this country, but not all will be deceived by him, or by the system which he represents.AMS October 4, 1894, page 312.14

September 27, 1894

October 11, 1894