The Newtown bee., 1900-05-18

ures for himself. Let no man, or church, come between him and his Bible, He may stumble at many points, but God knew he would. Better that he should stumble and fall at 8 thousand points l than that another should attempt to im- pose manufactured creed upon his soul. Baptists fought and won almost alone the battle of humanity for Freedom of Conscience. Freedom of conscience, 5 wrote Bancroft, In his history of the | United States, "unlImited freedom of mind, was from the first trophy of the Baptists." Bancroft was not himself 8 1 Baptist, he was merely 8 recorder of facts. "Baptists were the first and only propouudera of absolute liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty, y,"-these are the words of John Locke in his Essay on Federation. For that defense of this principle they were hated and bounded by Luther, by Calvin, by Latimer, by Knox and Laud. Fines, confiscations, ,banishments, whips, thumb. screws, pincers and racks were the only arguments the reformers had to use against these advocates of Soul Liberty. l mention these facts, not to rekindle fires of indignation, nor feed the passion of revenge. The day of these things ia forever gone. Episcopalians, Presbyte. rians and Baptists meet now in 8 Chris. Int a1asr Nj Srn sza Jesus. But the world can never forget that Baptists purchased this freedom
 with the price of blood. Nor has
 Freedom of Conscience for a Bap
 tist ever meant merely free
 dom for his own conscience and slavery for his brothers. What he claimed for himaelf he claimed for every man, Jew or Gentle, Protestant or Catholic Christian or atheist-the right to thinl for himself, to believe or to deny, to wor
 ship or not to worship, according to hi
 own conscience.
 This is so great claim to advance il
 behalf of any church that it ought no
 to rest upon mere assertion. Religiou
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 this generation, and there ought not tt
 be any doubt ss to who bequeathed it tt
 humanity. Cross with ne from Europ,
 where the right to worship God or not ts
 worship at all, according to the dictat,
 of conscience, was denied, into this new
 world whither men had come to find free
 dom for their souls. Was that freedom which they demanded for themselves
 freely granted by the Puritan fathers tt all men9 Surely they had learned tn,
 great lesson of soul liberty as they passed through the fires Of persecution! Thcl were willing to brave the terrors of al
 unknown wilderness and expose thei wives and children to perils of starvation , of outrage and massacre by savage tribe that they might be tree to worship Got as they deemed best surely they, of al men on earth, would grant equal privi , leges to men who differed from them il , religious faithl What are the facts They had scarcely shaken the smell O
 fore they began to kindle the fires O martyrdom upon the soil of this nev } world for men who claimed for them selves the same rights of conscience { which they enjoyed! They denied thes men the privileges of citizenship, the, F thrust them into prisons, they banishes them into the wilderness. Where the, f found themselves powerful enough t' 7 identify the church with the state, ant ? be themselves both church and state, they , did so, and established religious tyranny 3 in every colony they controlled. Th' Puritans were not alone in this. II [ Maryland, the Catholic Church and tn, Church of England struggled with eacl other for supremacy. Almost the only !, sentiment which united them waa theil
 common hatred for Baptists. By ths charter of 1906 the Church iof England
 was established as the exclusive system
 in Virginia. In 16l1 law was passed requiring every person arriving in the colony to go to a minister of the estab
 lished church and give an account of his religious views. For the first refusal he was to be whipped; for the second
 whipped twice; for the third, whipped every day until he would go. In 1e95 there were some Baptist '.troublers oi Israel' in that colony. They furnished victims to the religious hate and intoler- ance of the times. They were arrested, imprisoned, fined and whipped for preach. ing. From the jail windows they pro- claimed the gospel of freedom and charity and grace to crowda who gathered tc hear their earnest message. Officers had to build fences against these windows
 and beat drums beneath to drown the voices of thege witneases unto Soul Lib erty. Thousands were converted and baptizsd. James Madison was often em-