natives. There are still, unhappily, vast populations that are demonridden, and live under the blight of dominant superstitions, childish as well as terrifying.1 Superstition a social calamity. Almost everywhere upon the face of the earth a gross darkness of ignorance seems to rest upon the hearts of men. A heavy burden of erroneous belief, both distressing and degrading, has become fixed upon their consciences, and there it remains, except as the light of Christian education and Gospel instruction breaks in upon their night and introduces them into the freedom of the truth. The blighting power of these superstitions on social life is beyond question. It is mental and spiritual slavery to the unreal and the untrue which is blinding, misleading, and sure to result in injustice, cruelty, and the abuse of power. It prohibits the entrance of true light so far as it has power to do so, and maintains entirely false standards of social obligation. It scatters and dissipates the religious sentiment among a mass of puerile and erroneous vagaries, barring out the truth and fixing the dominance of the false. The banishment of superstition will go far toward securing a brighter and more cheerful social life and a higher and more beneficial social order. The genesis of persecution. 4. RELIGIOUS TYRANNY AND PERSECUTION.-The sacred gift of religious freedom is an endowment from the Creator, and, except where it is claimed as a cover for immorality and crime, is a universal prerogative of man.2 Humanity cannot be deprived of this precious liberty without the infliction of a great and cruel wrong; yet this heinous usurpation has been characteristic of both the political and religious life of mankind in all ages. "Christianos ad leones" represents a spirit of persecution which has prevailed more or less through 1 Michelsen, "Cannibals Won for Christ," chap. xv., on "Native Superstitions"; Chalmers, "Pioneering in New Guinea," chap. viii., on "The Habits, Customs, and Beliefs of Motu and Motumotu." 2 "Liberty is the greatest gift of God to man. It is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable right of every man created in the image of God. The most precious of all liberties is religious liberty. It is rooted in the sacredness of conscience, which is the voice of God in man, and above the reach and control of human authority. It is a law above all human laws that 'we ought to obey God rather than man.' Liberty of conscience requires liberty of worship. Despots allow the one because they cannot help it, but deny the other. Religion in its nature is voluntary, and ceases to be religion in proportion as it is forced. God desires free worshippers and hates hypocrites."-Schaff, "Theological Propedeutic," p. 470. out history. The fact that religion in its primitive form was to such an extent a social function, pertaining to family, tribal, and even national life, has led to the assumption on the part of the State, in its various stages of development, of a large measure of control over the religious life of its subjects. In the Roman Empire the supervision of the religion of the people was made a matter of State policy on political grounds. Bishop Creighton calls attention to the following language of Plato upon this subject, which, he remarks, did not materially differ from that of the Inquisitor: "Let this, then, be the law: No one shall possess shrines of the gods in private houses, and he who is found to possess them, and perform any sacred rites not publicly authorised, shall be informed against to the guardians of the law; and let them issue orders that he shall carry his private rites to the public temples, and if he do not obey, let them inflict a penalty until he comply. And if a person be proven guilty of impiety, not merely from childish levity, but such as grownup men may be guilty of, let him be punished with death."1 These sentiments were representative in Roman history. Christianity rightly interpreted not persecuting in its spirit. The theocracy of the Old Testament dispensation has been misinterpreted by some as sanctioning, and even enforcing, the exercise of civil authority in the sphere of religion. Even the New Testament dispensation has been marked by most frightful and iniquitous misuse, not only of civil, but ecclesiastical, power to subdue the consciences of men and annihilate all religious freedom. That this has been the result of a distorted conception of Christianity and a gross abuse of authority has been shown by Bishop Creighton, in opposition to the view advocated by Mr. Lecky, that Christianity sanctions and is in large measure responsible for this spirit.2 A new era of religious liberty has come, 1 Quoted in "Persecution and Tolerance," p. 7. Dr. Merivale, in his "Boyle Lectures," expresses a similar opinion: "Undoubtedly various feelings entered into the demand for the persecution of the Christians. The magistrate regarded them as transgressors of a principle in public law, as evil-doers, as fosterers of treason and sedition, and was disposed to punish them accordingly. But the people generally, and sometimes the rulers themselves, yielded to a superstitious impulse in ascribing to their rejection of sacrifice and of idol-worship every public calamity, which testified, as they supposed, to the wrath of the offended deities. The execution of the Christians was thus popularly regarded as a means of propitiation."-New York ed., 1865, p. 251, note. 2 Dr. Creighton sums up his conclusions on this subject as follows: “(1) Persecution, or the infliction of punishment for erroneous opinions, was contrary to the express teaching of Christ, and was alien to the spirit of Christianity; (2) was adopted by the Church from the system of the world when the Church all too slowly, as the centuries have passed, and not without painful and desperate struggles. The close of our present century finds only a portion of mankind enjoying the rights, privileges, and consolations of liberty of conscience. "This principle of religious freedom and separation of Church and State," writes Dr. Schaff, "is slowly, but irresistibly, making progress in Europe, and is becoming more and more an essential part of modern civilization. It develops the power of selfgovernment, which is inherent in the Christian Church. It favors, indeed, the multiplication of sects, but honest division is preferable to an enforced uniformity which breeds hypocrisy and infidelity. The principle of liberty secures also the possibility of a reunion of Christendom on the solid basis of freedom and voluntary consent."1 In the old Oriental empires, except as Western ideas have been introduced and gained some ascendancy, the theory of State control over the religious life of men still holds its place. the prevailing temper of the Orient. It is even supplemented and extended in practice Religious absolutism by the supposed right of the family, the clan, the tribe, the sect, the village, or even the neighborhood, to maintain an authoritative oversight of the religious life of every member, and inflict exemplary penalties upon any one who deaccepted the responsibility of maintaining order in the community; (3) was really exercised for political rather than religious ends; (4) was always condemned by the Christian conscience; (5) was felt by those who used it to land them in contradictions; (6) neither originated in any misunderstanding of the Scriptures, nor was removed by the progress of intellectual enlightenment; but (7) disappeared because the State became conscious that there was an adequate basis for the maintenance of political society in those principles of right and wrong which were universally recognised by its citizens, apart from their position or beliefs as members of any religious organisation. "Such opinions differ materially from those which are generally current on this subject. The origin of persecution is commonly found in the overwhelming claim which Christianity makes on its adherents. Christianity, it is said, regards man's life on earth as but the beginning of an eternal destiny, and asserts that eternity can only bring happiness to those who are within the fold of the Church. Consequently the maintenance of right opinion about religious matters is a point of primary importance for human happiness, rightly understood, and ought in the interests of mankind to be enforced even at the cost of immediate suffering to obdurate and misguided individuals. This is doubtless a logical position and is warranted by the language of the advocates of persecution. But a line of distinction must be drawn between the motives which prompted to persecution and the arguments by which it was defended when once it was undertaken. It is obvious that this reasoning was the only one by which persecution could be defended, and it is equally obvious that persecution needed a defence."-" Persecution and Tolerance," pp. 2-4. Cf. Schaff, Christ and Christianity," p. 283, for similar views. 1 Ibid., p. 276-291. serts the common faith. The attitude of Islam towards apostasy is well known. The penalty, even at the present hour, is death wherever Mohammedan authorities have their own way, free from external restrictions. Other religions may be less bold and relentless, but the spirit which prevails is not dissimilar, and logically carried out would lead to the same result. It is only within the present generation that the death-penalty has been lifted in Japan. The violent aggressiveness of the persecuting spirit throughout the heathen world is hardly understood in Christendom. That it exists with little theoretical abatement, and is still marked by extreme cruelty in practice, is an undeniable fact, although the spirit of Christian civilization exercises a certain constraint, and the presence of the representatives of foreign governments is some check to its otherwise unrestrained fierceness. In Turkey, Persia, North Africa, except Egypt and Algiers, and generally throughout the Moslem world, except where the civil authority is in the hands of Christian rulers, the old Islamic fanaticism is in the ascendancy. No Moslem, unless under very exceptional circumstances, dares to profess Christianity; he knows that his doom. would be sealed. The story of Mirza Ibrahim, a recent martyr in Persia, is typical of the hopelessness of escape where a Mohammedan ventures to change his faith. The terrible persecution of the Armenians, although perpetrated under the cover of political provocation, has only illustrated the genuine historic temper of Islamic fanaticism. The "noble army of martyrs" has received many accessions within the past year or two at the hands of Mohammedan fiends, who, while honoring their religion, as they suppose, have disgraced their humanity. Unhappily, the spirit of persecution is by no means confined to the Moslem, in contrast with the Christian, element in the Orient. The annals of Protestantism, in its heroic struggles with the old hierarchies of Eastern Christianity, reveal the possibilities of iniquitous persecution which lurk in the misguided minds of the ecclesiastical authorities, and even the laity, of the Oriental Christian sects. The sceptre of caste in India. In India a strong tendency to persecution is found among Hindus, but it is revealed more in connection with the breaking of caste regulations than in diversity of view in matters of dogmatic belief. There is a disposition to tolerate liberty of thought among Hindus in the realm of purely religious or philosophical conviction, while any infraction of caste regulations is visited with the severest ostracism. The English Government guarantees and is disposed to enforce reli1 Wilson, "Persian Life and Customs," p. 300. gious freedom, but it is difficult to reach other than notorious and overt cases of persecution. Many complications, also, are apt to arise, which increase the embarrassment of the civil power in taking cognizance of religious matters among the people. The perils of Chinese In China the spirit of persecution is not awakened by distinctively religious motives so much as through the influence of political and anti-foreign sentiment.1 It is true, however, that converts to Christianity are often exposed to great perils and severe trials, because the anti-foreign hostility is frequently turned in their direction, since they are supposed to be the dupes and tools of foreigners. The persecution is no less real than if it were prompted by exclusively religious zeal, and it is the fact of their being Christians which calls down upon them these hostile and cruel attacks. "There is scarcely a man, woman, or child," writes Dr. Henry, "among the forty-four hundred Christians in Canton, who has not been exposed to reproach, calumny, injustice, or physical violence because of his religion."2 The antiforeign propaganda in China breaks out with renewed virulence from time to time, and in such seasons of mob violence the missionaries themselves are exposed to dire peril,3 as has been so shockingly illustrated by the recent massacres. Native Chinese Christians at such times are called upon to face the most desperate possibilities, but have given remarkable evidence of their stability and fortitude. There is the best possible reason for the insertion of the guarantee of religious liberty in the treaties between China and all foreign powers, and although China has conceded such liberty, it is not as yet guarded and enforced as it should be. The history of missions in Formosa contains many thrilling chapters of bloodthirsty persecution. The entrance of papal Christianity into Japan in the sixteenth century was attended by the most frightful assaults and tortures in the effort to exterminate its professors. In 1637 a terrible onslaught upon 1 "The spirit of the national life tends in the main to tolerance, persecution usually arising from social or political causes. That which is new is opposed because it is novel or subversive of ancient ideas and practices, and leads to singularity, not because it is regarded as false. The persecution which Christianity has met with has been mainly due to fear of foreign domination, and has had its origin with the literati and official class, who think that they see in it a danger to their own power. It could be easily kept in check if the Government desired to do so.”—Rev. Jonathan Lees (L. M. S.), Tientsin, North China. 2 "The Cross and the Dragon," p. 357. Work and Workers in the Mission Field, February, 1896, p. 68. 4 MacKay, "From Far Formosa," pp. 111, 167, 191, 337. |