New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-07-30
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE.

dividuals, a superficial glance at the
blood-stained pages of history and the
bigotry-blotted pages Of the modern Sec
tartan press will suffice to show. The
theory that there is but one true doctrine,
and those in power have it, has caused
more bloodshed and misery than any other
delusion which has ever misled mankind.
In the very earliest days of that boosted
primitive Christianity which we are so
frequently urged to initiate, the role OF
martyr was exchanged for that Of perse-
cutor as soon as the possession of power
made that change possible; the insertion
or omission of the letter 'i'' in the formula
of faith giving rise to the fercest luminosity
and the most deadly strife. For years
the Christian world was divided into two
| hostile sects, the Homo-ousians and the
| Homoi-ousians, the former maintaining
| the sameness of nature or essence between
Jesus and His Father, and the latter their
similarity of nature or essence: and upon
this difference of doctrine, each sect, in
turn laid claim to orthodoxy, and when it
got the power condemned the followers of
the opposite dogma to a violent death in
this world and eternal perdition in
the next When, as sometimes happened,
the sects were nearly evenly divided, Skin
mishes were not uncommon, compared to
which the fights CT the rival chieftains in
the feudal times were mere trifles. On
andria and other Eastern cities ran with
Christian blood, shed by Christians, in
famed to homicidal heat in this irrational
controversy. When finally the Homo-ou-
slams triumphed, and settled the
vexed question at the Council Of
Nice, they claimed that theirs had
always been the doctrine of the
Church, and branded the defeated
sect with the stigma of heresy. From
that time until the breaking out of the
Protestant Reformation the boosted unity
of the Church was maintained by such
exercises of arbitrary power as secured
the suppression of the Lollards and the
determination of the Albigenses. Nor
did the Wanted Reformation itself,
although comforting an inestimable boon
upon the human race, suffice to free them
from the dominion of religious tyranny,
as appears manifestly from the history of
England, the first nation in the world ex-
cept our own. In that favored land, not
only under Henry VIII. and Bloody
Mary, but under Elizabeth, men were
burned, hanged, drawn and quar-
tered on account of their religion, and
even as late as the beginning of the sew
enteenth century, in the earlier part of
the reign of James the First, two men
were burned for entertaining and express
ing heretical opinions. Passing over the
horrors of the Inquisition and the cruel
ties, wrongs and disabilities inflicted
upon the Jews by all Christian nations,
until comparatively recent times, we
come to our own country and the Pilgrim
Fathers. These men, it is claimed, left
home with all its comforts, to settle in a
stony wilderness, counting themselves
more than repaid for all their sacrifice by
the great boon of freedom to worship
God according to the dictates of their
own conscience. Yet such was their
inconsistency-or rather the blindness of
the age in which they lived-that they
were unwilling to grant to others that
which they priced so highly for them
selves; and if they did not burn those
who differed with them in religious mat
tiers, they at least banished them, which
was the best they could do. The time for
banishing as well as for burning people
for religious reasons, is now happily gone
by. The constitution of our country
favors no special form of religion, but |
leaves all free; and the constitutions of
each separate State provides for perfect |
religious freedom. We are above tolera-
ton, for that implies a superior which |
tolerates; but are we on that ac- |
count the more tolerant in spirit :? |
Do the various religious denominations |
which flourish in our midst regard each
other as spiritual equals? Hardly. The |
Catholics, regarding themselves as the |
d" true Church, look upon all Protestants
as heretics, cut off from all means of |
" grace" in this world, and all hope of |
heaven in the other. The Protestauts, |
as body, regard the Catholics as ignor-
ant and superstitious, almost idolatrous
and not possessing the most essential
requisites of the religion of Jesus. The
Professionals again are numerously sub
divided - Episcopalians, Presbyterians,
Methodists, Baptists, ETC., each subdivision
secretly considering itself, if it does not
openly arrogate the title, the true form
of Christianity as established by Christ
and his disciples. Besides these sub
divisions, Professionalism is divided into
two grand divisions, namely, the self
styled orthodox, and the liberal, the
former regarding the latter as religious
pariahs, hardly deserving the name of
Christians, and the latter, in their turn,
the orthodox as narrow
minded and bigoted. The liberals them
selves are subdivided into conservatives
and radicals; so that Professionalism touches
on one side and infdelity on
the other And even when we reach this
extreme point, we do not yet arrive at
the borders of religious intoler-