Nashville Union And American

SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 15, 1855.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM,

Philosophical Histories, in every age, have agreed to designate the promoters of Religious Liberty as the friends, and the abettors of Religious Intolerance as the enemies, of mankind. The reason is obvious. The peace and prosperity of every nation has depended more upon the freedom of religious opinion than upon any single cause. The peaceful pursuit of Agriculture, the mother of the Manufacturing Interest, because the producer of its material, has always been more ardently and successfully protected by a tolerant than by an intolerant policy. The Orthodox and the Heretic can plow and weave, if they do not stop to wrangle and fight. The discoveries in Science and Art have ever advanced or been retarded according as this policy has been preserved or hindered. Education and human elevation resulting therefrom have owed their origin and their triumphs to the freedom of the religious mind. For all minds can think and develop the useful and beautiful results of thought when not enslaved by an unnatural authority or when not diverted to the construction of societies and the adoption of measures that exult over the misfortunes of the servile and depressed. And so also the most pure and ennobling forms of religion have ever been the most liberal. The days of Roman grandeur were the days of Religious Toleration. The days of her decline and fall were the days of discord and persecution—sect warred against sect and the strife developed and nursed the most foul and brutal passions. That dreadful period was characteristically denominated the dark ages or leaden eras of the world. The darkness of that midnight of human prospects was not penetrated until men, suffering under injury and wrong, arose in the majesty of their God-like strength and hurled the usurpers from the Throne of Thought, and broke the chains that for ages had fettered the free mind of man. It was to be expected that such men, like prisoners freed, would at least for a time, madly use their natural powers, and by force expect to propagate a peaceful Religion. But every such effort on the part of Protestant governments has reacted upon themselves, and just so far retarded the freedom and progress of the world. We need not review the feuds of the Sixteenth Century for examples. They are familiar to every student of modern history. But that an example for profitable reflection may be before the reader, we will present a specimen of the "Acts of Religious Toleration" from the statute books of Protestant England. It will be easy to see the working of such legislation ever since, and perhaps it may serve as a warning; as the inevitable tendency of every such effort to proscribe a class of men for their religious faiths however inimical that class may be to the prejudices of the dominant power,

William III has been justly regarded as a tolerant Prince. The brightest part of his character was manifested in his efforts in the great cause of Religious Freedom. He procured the "Acts of Toleration." and for his efforts in this behalf, was charged with the current objection to all efforts of this character. We mean—an indifference to religion. All intolerant men regard the more tolerant as indifferent, because not possessed of fanatical zeal and inhuman prejudice against those from whom they differ. And not unfrequently is it the case that honest men and true patriots have a base fear of such accusations, forgetting that they have been used by tyrants and fanatics of all ages and are the last agencies of their power. To stigmatize with terms of reproach is the last resort of those who fail with the sword and the stake.

The Toleration Act which William procured was passed by the English Parliament, but it should never be forgotten that it could not have been passed without an addition of penalties against Papists Arians and Socinians—the first being stigmatized as enemies to the State, and the latter as enemies to God; as if God needed their protection against the views some of his creatures had chosen to take of what all admitted to be an inexplicable Trinity.

The act ran as follows:

"If any Papist, Bishop or Priest, whatsoever, shall say mass or exercise any other part of the office or function of a Popish Bishop or Priest within these realms; or if any Papist shall keep school or take upon themselves the education or government or boarding of youth, in any place within this realm, every such person shall on conviction, be adjudged to perpetual imprisonment.' -See third clause 11th and 12th William, chapter 4th,

By the sixth clause of the same act, we see that if any person should be convicted of sending his child abroad to be educated in the Romish Religion, he was to forfeit one hundred pounds. By the fourth clause, if a Papist took not the oath of Supremacy—which a Papist could not take and be a Papist—he was "disabled and made incapable to inherit" and prevented from purchasing lands, &c. In the latter case the lands were to go to the next of kin who was a Protestant. It was under this act that Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher were beheaded because they could not take the oath. So much for Papists,

Let us turn to the Arians, Socinians, &c. The Act of the 9th and 10th of William declares. "That if any person having been educated in the Christian Religion (which meant the Church Establishment) within this realm, shall, by writing, printing, teaching or advised speaking, deny any one of the persons in the Holy Trinity to be God, or shall deny the Christian Religion to be true, or the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be of divine authority," such person shall, for the first offence be disabled from enjoying any office, ecclesiastical, civil or military, and if a second time convicted, "shall from thenceforth be disabled to sue, prosecute, plead, or use any action or information in any Court of Law or Equity, or to be guardian of any child, or executor or administrator of any person, or capable of any legacy or deed of gift, forever within the realm.'

This is Protestant legislation to preserve the liberties of England and the purity of Religion.—Acts like these show that the spirit of intolerance is the same—whether in the Papal or Protestant Church! Give any church the power and it will make the same use of it. Americans, free Americans, and all true friends of humanity everywhere, loathe such proscription, let it come from whatever source. So long as the civil and religious liberties of mankind shall be as they have ever been, the greatest subjects of all worthy History, the principle of proscription will be execrated as fiendish and brutal. The intelligence, prosperity and happiness of every people depend upon that execration.

It would be a flippant monotony, such as pedants may delight to indulge, to recount the results of the spirit of intolerance in the ages past. We have selected, therefore, an act of Legislation, as an example of its tendencies even under Protestant Rulers, and leave it as by no means the most offensive that can be added. It illustrates—first That intolerance is the same enemy of mankind, no matter by what party it may be fostered. Second, That truth cannot be propagated by force.—Third, That it ought not to be, if it could, as the