textfiles/magazines/STB/stb-1926-08.txt

SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.IV    August, 1926     No.8

FREEDOM OF FAITH

by: Unknown

In America we are proud of the fact that the Church is separate from 
the State, and justly so!  Our freedom of faith is our most precious 
heritage, a thing of priceless worth.  Too often we take it for 
granted, forgetting what it cost and to whom we are indebted for it.
The right of each man to worship God in the way his heart loves best 
is so in keeping with the idea and spirit of Masonry, so much a part 
of its genius, that we need to celebrate it anew in the 150th year of 
our National Life.  If for no other reason, because both directly and 
indirectly, our Craft had much to do with it becoming a part of our 
Constitution.

Our fathers founded our Republic upon a new basis, reversing the 
whole history of mankind.  Before that time a country without its 
National Church with its Official Creed, was quite unknown.  But 
America broke new ground, made a new adventure which must be 
recognized, by far, the most important since the Reformation, and 
even more far-reaching.  Such a thing was not done without 
difficulty.

Even in Colonial Times, Church and State were one.  In New England 
the ideal was theocracy, a Church which included the State.  In the 
South, if the State included the Church, they were none the less 
united. Religious liberty was almost unknown, except by those who 
defied the law and endured the persecution to enjoy it.

Few realize that prior to the Revolution it was against the law not 
to go to Church.  It was a crime not to Baptize a child in the 
established Church.  It was a crime to bring a Quaker into the 
colony, and there was a law on the statute books - though, happily 
not enforce - that permitted the burning of heretics.  Witches had 
been burned in New England; Quakers had been hung.  Everybody was 
required to pay tithes to maintain the Church, and that regardless of 
their religious affiliations.  Those who failed to do so were thrown 
into prison.

Smarting under these infringements on religious liberty, Jefferson 
led, and Madison followed, in the fierce struggle to separate Church 
and State.  To Jefferson, more than to any other man, we owe our 
liberty of faith today.  The famous law which first forbade any 
religious tests for public office was written by Jefferson, and its 
principles were embodied in the first amendment to the National 
Constitution.  The heart of that stature, couched in noble language, 
is as follows:

"We, the General Assembly of Virginia, do enact that no man shall be 
compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or 
ministry whatsoever, nor shall he be enforced, restrained, molested, 
or burdened in his body or goods, or shall he otherwise suffer on 
account of his religious opinions or beliefs; but that all men shall 
be free to profess, and by arguments, to maintain their opinions in 
matters of religion; and that the same shall in no wise diminish, 
enlarge, or effect their civic capacities."

What seems a natural and inalienable right of man to us today, was a 
daring demand in those days.  It is a curious fact that while 
Jefferson did not differ widely in his religious views from Franklin, 
Adams and even Washington; he was singled out for the most savage 
attacks for his part in writing the above law, and pressing for its 
passage in Virginia - and later, in the Nation.  Throughout his life 
he was a target of bitter abuse, nor did it cease after his death.
Even the casual reader of the newspapers and pamphlets of that day 
knows how Jefferson was lampooned for his fight for liberty of faith.  
He was called a "Skeptic," an "Infidel," an "Atheist" - names which 
had terrifying meanings in those days - all because he demanded that 
each man have the right to hold such religious faith as seemed to him 
right and true and good.  So much our liberty of faith cost; against 
such odds the spirit of tolerance had to make its way.

The writings of Jefferson abound in allusions to his religious views, 
which he made no effort to conceal.  They also show his familiarity 
with the Bible, in which he surpassed any leading man of his time, 
not excepting Franklin who was a student of it.  The ethics of Jesus 
fascinated him.  During his first term in the White house he found 
time to make a syllabus of the teachings of Jesus compared with the 
moral codes of other religions, in which he made  a strong case for 
the superiority of the ethics of Jesus.  In 1816 he wrote to his 
friend Thompson of what he had been doing:

"I have mad a wee little book, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus.  
It is paradigm of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the 
book and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain 
order of time and subject.  A more beautiful; and precious morsel of 
ethics I have never seen.  It is a document in proof that I am a real 
Christian, that is, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus."

Yet this was the man denounced as an "Atheist," and held up to scorn 
as enemy of God and man, because he held that others had a right to 
disagree with him and yet enjoy the honors of citizenship.  No wonder 
he wrote his confession of faith in the word: "I have sworn upon the 
Altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over 
the mind of man."  Ignorance and intolerance were the two enemies 
which he fought all his days, without truce.

From Paris he wrote to George Wythe in 1786: "Preach, my dear sir, a 
crusade against ignorance, establish and improve the law for 
educating the people."  To that end he himself had founded the 
University of Virginia, in which there were no religious tests for 
professors or pupils.  Students of theology were invited to attend 
and enjoy the lectures and the library.  As he said: "By bringing the 
sects together and mixing them with the mass of other students we 
shall soften their aspirates. liberalize and neutralize their 
prejudices and make the general religion a religion of peace, reason 
and sanity."

In his own life Jefferson was brought up in a Church, and was a 
fairly regular attendant on its services.  As an Architect he planned 
at least one church, and gave freely to the erection of others and to 
the support of public worship.  A lover of the Bible, he gave freely 
to Bible Societies.  No one ever heard him use an oath, and his 
magnanimity was such that he placed a marble bust of his political 
antagonist.  Hamilton, in the hall of Monticello.  Such was the man 
who, dying murmured with his last breath, as he sank into sleep the 
old, beautiful Bible Prayer: "Now Lettest Thy Servant Depart In 
Peace."

While it has not been shown that Jefferson was a Mason, as was at one 
time thought, all Masons will honor in the Lodge, and in their 
hearts, the man to whom, more than to any other of the men who laid 
the foundation of our Republic, we are indebted for the religious 
freedom - that is, for the glory of a free Church in a free country.  
For it was as much an emancipation for the Church as for the State, 
and it has been an unmixed blessing to both.

To have written the Declaration of Political Independence was a great 
honor, but not a few will think it an even greater honor to have led 
in the achievement of religious independence.  It closed a long and 
bloody chapter of history; it marked a new era, second only to that 
of the advent of Christ among men.

As has been said, Masonry had much to do with it, directly and 
indirectly.  Directly in that the leaders with whom Jefferson worked 
and without whom he would have failed were, most of them, Masons.  
And indirectly by virtue of the fact that Masonry does its greatest 
work, not by laws and edicts, but by its teachings and influence.
If any one will read the Virginia Statue on religious liberty, and 
the first amendment of the Constitution, along side the article on 
God and Religion in the Constitution of the Grand Lodge of England in 
1732, he will discover that the spirit and purpose of all three 
documents are the same.  The Masonic Constitution, written more than 
fifty years earlier, was one of the ancestors of the other 
statements.

Thus by our history, no less than by our Constitution and genius, 
Masons are pledged to keep Church and State separated, and to watch 
vigilantly every insidious effort to unite the two.  Such efforts are 
always afoot, disguised in all sorts of ways, but we ought to be able 
to detect the wolf even when it wears the white rode of a lamb.  It 
asks for clear thinking and tireless vigil, but Masons will not fall 
asleep and let the work of our fathers be undone.

Just now the whole set of the old world is against the spirit and 
ideals of our Republic.  Dictators strut to and for, declaring 
themselves supermen born to rule their fellows.  Heretofore the loss 
of political liberty has always been followed by a loss of religious 
freedom.  The two go together, as our fathers joined them; and what 
God hath joined man must not put asunder.