RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 4967 



Huss, John Smith, Joseph 



Hutchinson, Anne Sunday, William A. 



Knox, John Swedenborg. Emanuel 

 Loyola, Saint Ignatius of Wesley, John 



Luther, Martin Williams, Roger 



Melanchthon. Philipp Young. Brigham 



Mohammed Zoroaster 

 Moody. Dwight Lyman 



RELIGIOUS, relij'us, LIBERTY, the right 

 of a person to adopt and profess opinions on 

 religious subjects and to worship or refrain 

 from worship, according to desire or to the 

 dictates of conscience, without any external 

 control. The idea of religious liberty was 

 wholly lacking among the nations of antiquity, 

 and the religion of the individual was always 

 subject to the will of the king. The Roman 

 Empire had its state religion, to which every 

 subject was supposed to conform, but little 

 official attention was paid to other beliefs as 

 long as they did not interfere with the state re- 

 ligion or with the established institutions of 

 government. Christianity, however, was put 

 under the ban because of its teachings in re- 

 gard to the brotherhood of man, the father- 

 hood of God and the kingship of Christ. 



During the early centuries of the Christian 

 era, there were only spasmodic attempts at per- 

 secutions, and not until the time of Diocletian 

 was there a systematic effort to stamp out the 

 Christian religion. By his order Christian as- 

 semblies were forbidden, churches were de- 

 stroyed, books were burned, and all who re- 

 fused to adopt the state religion were made to 

 suffer. Under Galerius, toleration was granted 

 to the Christians, with the proviso that the 

 religion of the state was to be respected. Em- 

 peror Constantine was later converted to Chris- 

 tianity, and he issued an edict in 313 which 

 granted full toleration of religious worship to 

 .ill persons. This was soon followed by an 

 order making Christianity the religion of the 

 state and prohibiting heathen worship. Dur- 

 um the Middle Ages the teachings of the Ro- 

 man Catholic Church came to be so fully ac- 

 cepted in all countries that the question of 

 n linious liberty did not arise. Later, when dis- 

 senters appeared, they were opposed. When 



re states revolted from th< all.mm, 

 tli- Pope, as England under Henry VIII, they 

 always set up state churches, to which all sub- 

 jects were compelled to conform. 



The Reformation with its new thought did 

 not in any way bring religious liberty, for each 

 sovereign insisted upon unity of religious faith 

 as necessary for th<- unity of thn state. Some- 

 times when one sovereign succeeded another 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 



of a different faith, the religion of the state 

 was changed to conform to that of the sov- 

 ereign and all dissenters were persecuted. 

 Henry VIII persecuted all who refused to rec- 

 ognize the state Church, whether they favored 

 the Roman Catholic Church or whether they 

 wanted to be even more Protestant than the 

 state Church. Then, when Mary came to the 

 throne, Catholicism was for a time reestab- 

 lished, and persecutions were carried on against 

 all who refused to acknowledge the Roman 

 faith. (See ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH ; PROTES- 

 TANT.) 



In the United States. The Pilgrims left Eng- 

 land in order to find a place where they might 

 worship as they chose, but even they carried 

 with them the prevailing ideas of religious in- 

 tolerance. In all of New England except 

 Rhode Island dissent from the established or- 

 der of Church worship and belief was looked 

 upon as sedition against the state and sin 

 against God. Baptists, Jesuits and Romish 

 priests were imprisoned or banished, and sev- 

 eral Quakers were publicly hanged on Boston 

 Common. In the Catholic colony of Mary- 

 land, religious toleration existed for a time to 

 all except Jews, Mohammedans and other non- 

 Christians; the Church of England was estab- 

 lished in Georgia just before the Revolution. 

 Only in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Rhode 

 Island were there no state churches. 



The United States Constitution declares that 

 "No religious test shall ever be required as a 

 qualification to any office or public trust under 

 the United States." There was considerable 

 objection to the Constitution in some of the 

 states because non-Christian sects were not ex- 

 cluded from holding office, and also because 

 Congress was not empowered to establish a na- 

 tional Church. Nevertheless, the first amend- 

 ment to the Constitution provided that "Con- 

 gress shall make no law respecting the es- 

 tablishment of religion, or prohibit the free 

 exercise thereof." The states, however, were 

 allowed to establish state churches or to 1 

 the matter alone, as they pleased. 



The colonial government churches were con- 

 tinunl m the states where they already existed, 

 but the idea of complete religious liberty grad- 

 ually developed. The entire separation of 

 Church and State was secured in Pennsylvania 

 and South Carolina by new Constitutions in 

 1790; in Vermont and New Hampshire by acts 

 of the Legislature in 1807 and 1819; in Dela- 

 ware and Connecticut by the adoption of new 

 constitutions in 1818 and 1831; in Mas&achu- 



