In a land of democracy, even these last remnants of the scourge of medievalism are wiped out. We look with indignation and disgust at the priest-ridden countries where a slavish population submits to the lash of bigoted despots, and rejoice that our lot is cast under a freeer heaven. Such religious persecution as may still be found among us finds no warrant in law. It consists of the abuse by individuals of their economic power over others. In any community where human beings are found vile enough to wish to destroy what they can of the happiness of all who do not pronounce their shibboleth, they can only resort to private activity in the way of ostracism, boycott, blacklisting and other weapons of cowardly malignance; and the state gives them no countenance in their criminal enterprises. It is our proud boast that in this land of freedom the state protects every person in the full exercise of his right to choose his own religion, and to abstain from recognition of any other.
What a pity that words are not always equivalent to deeds! So curiously compounded is the human mind that few are capable of carrying a principle to its logical conclusion. In some matters, a middle ground is possible; but there can be no compromise in cases where the slightest concession vitiates the entire contention of one side or the other. In matters of policy or of tactics, it is often feasible and just that each of the contending parties should recede somewhat from its extreme demands, in order to break a deadlock, or to promote good feeling; and refusal to yield a non-essential point may be justly condemned as obstinacy. Even in matters of principle, there is no sacrifice of one's own sacred convictions in manifesting respect for the convictions of others. But between manifesting respect for the views of an opponent and surrendering one's own conscience to him, there is a great gulf fixed. We may agree that truth needs no artificial props, and that nothing can be safer than to allow even the most flagrant error full liberty of expression. This, however, is something very different from ourselves furnishing the medium of expression for that which we believe to be false and pernicious, and giving it the unmerited advantage of our moral sanction. When we realize that exemption from taxation is as palpable a subsidy as direct appropriation of funds for the propagation of the doctrines of the exempted institution, and that every taxpayer must not only bear a heavier burden in consequence of such exemption, but must also, with or against his will, be counted as part of the organic social whole which officially pronounces in favor of the merits of such doctrines, we immediately perceive that the wrong done to the citizens is not to be measured in dollars and cents. Standing at the parting of the ways, the state deliberately chooses to follow the path which leads in the direction of ecclesiastical domination of the protesting individual. It denies the sacred and blood-bought principle of full religious liberty. It asserts that the private conscience of the individual is the property of the community. This is the theory of the Spanish Inquisition, and is diametrically hostile to democracy. If the state has the right to decree that its citizens, regardless of their desires and convictions, shall be forced to contribute to the support of the church, it has an equal right to declare that they shall give their time as well as their money to its upbuilding; that they shall attend its services and give it the benefit of their membership; that they shall refrain from any word or deed, public or private, which may tend to weaken its influence; that they shall submit all their affairs to its guidance, and shall obey its ministers in all things. There is no logical stopping-point short of this consistent application of the doctrine that religion is a matter of public concern. If this doctrine be true, every step away from the Middle Ages has been a ghastly mistake; and we should return in all reverence and humility to the ideas and efforts of Torquemada and Simon de Montfort. No person has a logical right to condemn medievalism, who does not fully and consistently accept the democratic principle that religion is a strictly private affair and that it is in no way the business of the state to concern itself with the question whether the church is to live or to die.