The Daily Nashville true Whig. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1851-1855, 1855-07-14
From the Louisville Journal.

"WHAT HAS PRoTEsTANTIsM DONE FOR THE
WoRLD?"-The organ of the Anti.Amcrcan party
IN Tennessee, in an article prasing the Roman
Catholic hierarchy and violently denOuncing the
whole Protestant church, sneeringly asks" What
has Professionalism done for the corid What has
she done to GlLeUide and eLeUdte the do,oR trOddn?-
Is tie race any better of for having accepted her
taiH?"
We have no desire to convert q political canvass
into a religious controversy. Most earnestly and
sincerely do we deprecate such result. We hope
it will not happen. We have avoided aud shall
continue to avoid any expression of opinion upon
the relative merits of religious creeds and sectarian
divisions. We have nothing to do, editor,
with matters purely ecclesiastical The American
party deals only with the political temperatures which
insidiously combined with and made subservient to
religious belief, may become immnently dangerous
to public peace and to civil and religious liberty
There is, however political history belonging %
both Professionalism and Roman Catholicism, which,
when examined will doubtless show that prot
estantism has done for the world" even more than
the Papa Hierarchy of thirteen centuries existence
History tells that Portestantism in its inception
was not merely a religious matter. 1t was the dawn
Of civil as well as Of religious freedom It's first act
in 1929 was to throw off the insuiferabe political
tyranny then exercised throughout the Christian
world by the Pope of Rome. From that time till
the present, where Protesantism has predomnated,
there have civilization and enlightenment most
rapidly advanced In the Old World, we need but
look at the comparative condition of England and
Germany on the one hand and Spain and Italy on
the other; and in this hemisphere contrast own
'land of the free and home Of the brave with poor
degraded Mexico and the Catholic governments of
South America for evidences Of what Professionalism
has done for humanity. The progress and pros
perily on the one hand and the almost primitive
ingorance and semi-barbarism on the other the
-. 4 4. -.
systems.
The one system has fostered civil and religious
liberty, has produced individual and national in
dependence, and almost perfected constitutional
freedom. The oeher has made the people subject
TO despotism which can continue 20 exist only
while its victims remain igorantand unenlghtened
The one has taught to people and to nations that
every man has a right to worship God according 20
the dictates of his own conscience, and that man is
capable of seligovernment. The other has an
nounced to the world that is sinful for any person
10 be guided by his own conscience that it is the
obligation Of every baptized to submit himself
TO the direction of another in whatever concerns his
own SOUL" that "Aberty Of conscience Is most pes.
Hcatial error that the State is subordinate to the
Church, and that the Church OF Rome possesses
''among her religious rights" even in fereign coun-
tries exclusive domination, and not merely exclusive
domination but the suppression of every form Of
religion except her own.
! It~as against this eommixture Of political ty-
ranny with religious intolerance, this political
principle of the Romish Church, that the followers
Of Luther and ksisaethon and Calvin and Breng-
US protested In the sixteenth century, and it is TO
prevent the exercise OF political influence in this
country by this by any other Church and to pre-
serve the institutions OF our Union from the machi-
nations Of any foreign political power under the
claim of ecclesiastical sovereignty, that the Ameri-
can party now protest against the political feature
IN the Roman Catholic doctrines.