Sunbury American and Shamokin journal. [volume] (Sunbury, Northumberland Co., Pa.) 1840-1848, 1842-10-15
From The Baptist Record.
tosc Of the Commonwealth. aginst ARM
strong.
OrISIoS OF lrpeE brwis.

VflNION JCDGk LEWIS.
Whether considered in regard 10 law, morality
raiginn, this is truely cxtrso din,ry opinion
u is unsound in ell. The case aiose out of an
application Of minister Of the GOSPEL to hold the
defendant to surety of the pearcthe said defendant
having threatened the complainant with prrsnn'l
whence for having baptized his, the defendants
daughter, a girl of seventeen years Of age, without
the coneen, Of her father. The judge binds over
the efhdan,, to keep the peace in the sum IF five
hundred dollars, and, wonderful to relate, directs
the complainant to Ray the costs of the proceeding
1t is to the course of reasoning, upon which h,
anomalous judgmen, is founded, that our attention
is TO be directed. "If" says the learned Judge "Ihe
pros cutor was acting within the line OF his duty
he ought not TO pay costs if he has neriered with
the father's authority his Child, he ought to
psy them." He then determines that baptism
volnntarly sough, Ivy the child, was such an in.
terereucc with the rights of the father, the de-
ci-ion follows accordingly, and the complainant
is sentenced TO pay the costs.
agree that the act of Assembly, of 2Sth March
ISL, authorizes the court, in cases Of surety Of the
pcarc, to direc, the defendant, the prosecutor,
the county 10 p1y the costs bu, presume lhi-
is the ,st case in which that authority was ever
exercised in this way. If,he charge had teen
frivolous, or unsupported, the costs might, with
peri G, propriey, have been imposed upon the pro-
secu'or. 1t ii had been brought through error or
misconccpon, the county should have borne them;
ru, | cannot conceive upon what possible principle
of tbo Act Of th,
prpty ofhe charge can be sustained by the Judge
and at the same time the complainant snhjc,tcd To
costs for having venturcd TO make it.
Without denying the power of the judge TO do so,
the Justice ofits exercise seems to me to he very
questionable Some little light is shed upon this
subject by analogy The Act of Assembly, rcgu.
ating the verdict Of jurcs, in of mi,dem amor,
provides that in the even, ofa acguuol, the jury
may determine whether the county, the prosecutor,
~ the defendant shnll pay the c 'sts But in Gaze
s1f conviction, the costs fall on The defendant Of
course. II matters not what may have been the
provocation. The provoculion may furnish some
season why The verdict Of guilty should not pass
but il furnishes no reason why the costs should not
follow it, having passed. So, if the preservation
of The peace required the binding of the party
the law vindcates the charge, aud certainly it does
not iniiict penalty upon the individual who pre-
sers il.
This however, is but a matter oflittle concern
in comparison with the adoption of those princi-
pies upon which the judge ventures TO assert, that
the rights of the father violated by the bap-
sism of tbe child agree that the parent has the
control over the child, and may dnect It's education
or employment, and derive the product of both
during minority but deny that he has any right
to interfere in any matter of conscience religion
The laws Of God can neither be annulled i'm
paied by the mere artificial technical ruI,s of
civil society. No human law is obligatory, that is
opposed 10 the laws of God No father has the
power to compel his child TO worship in opposition
10 that childs conscientious conviction. There is
10 minority in religion, that imparls TO the father
any such right. "Sufler little chsdren to come un.
TO me. and fodid them not" is an injunction Of
the Saviour neither to be resisted nor disreGarded
and if m-re worldly authority were required, the
Constitution of the United States, the supreme law
Of the land, to every one tho free exercise
of religion and the Constitution of the State of
Pennsylvania, adopting the same tolerant doctrine,
rmphaticaliy declares, that all men have natural
aud indefeasahle right to worship Almighty God,
according TO the dictates of their own consciences,
and that no human authority, in any whatever,
shli control or inteIf,Te with the rights of con.
science.
The right of the father to suPcrintenj and di.
rect the educavicn of his child, comprehenls a
proper attention to the literary, moral, and religious
instruction of his child lie may require his child
to attend the mns'rllon of any particular rcl gun
but the power of God is above and beyond the pow.
of ,he parent, and therefore lhc father hIs no
privilege to inteIiere with, altemp, to conuo
the operation Of divine grace upon The heart lie
may train up the child in the way i; should GO, hu
he cannot compel 1t to abandon the dictates OF 1t,
own conscience and utterly deny the doc,rin,
of the judge, that after the child his been iuii tcI
with lis own free will into religious sect 10 which
its pa:ents belong the father may lawfully restrsr
it from placing Itself under the gjous coutrH Cd
minister, " hose opinions do not meet his appro
baton.
But there is another strange feature OF this dncu
ment which deserves notice. The Judge Ie,rneIl
quotes from the Scriptures, and from several Wi
tcrs on moral philosophy for the purpose o. proyln
that children ougdt to be uledinut To thcir parrnu
and that parents have night to control, odd d
rect the educ ton of their children. 1t woul
have been just as opposite 10 thr case in hand,
IN rInN 4 4 l',t Is r1I \, am