VOL. XVII

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MERICANISM" is a term much used these days, and withal not a little abused. It is employed as meaning many things not American at all, but which their promoters would impose upon the publie as being in harmony with American spirit and principles. For an example of a glaring misuse of the word "Americanism," we need only refer to the Christian Statesman for July, 1921. In that paper an attempt was made to show that certain measures of religious legislation demanded by the National Reformers are consonant with American principles, and therefore entitled to be described by the term "Americanism." But let us examine the subject a little with a view to ascertaining what the word really means. In a political sense, Americanism signifies the recognition and protection of natural, God-given rights, both civil and religious. It means the Declaration of Independence as against the doctrine of

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the divine right of kings. It means civil administration by right and not by might.

It stands for " government of the people, by the people, and for the people" in all secular affairs, and the policy of "hands off" in all matters pertaining to real or supposed duty owed by men to God. This is Americanism. But strange as it may seem, that which is now properly called Americanism was first enunciated, not in the New World, but in the Old; not upon the Western Continent, but the Eastern; not in America, but in Asia; not in a free commonwealth, but in a Roman province; not in the United States, but in Palestine. It was not born of human wisdom, but of divine prescience; and was voiced, not by man, but by God, even by the Lord Jesus Christ, our divine Teacher and Saviour. Says George Bancroft:

"No one thought of vindicating liberty of religion for the conscience of the individual, till a voice in Judea, breaking day for the

The freemen of America a wait till usurped power had str ened itself by exercise. . saw all the consequences in the ciple, and they avoided the quences by denying the pri -Madison.

And it is this doctrine of civil and religious liberty, especially freedom in the sphere of religion, that is today properly known as "Americanism;" and that for the sufficient reason that though originally voiced in Judea, it was first accepted and adopted in a practical way as a sound political principle by the founders of the American government, who wrote it into the Declaration of Independence, and then after independence had been acknowledged by Britain, embodied it in the national Constitution, in the immortal words: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

greatest epoch in the life of humanity by establishing for all mankind a pure, spiritual, and universal religion, enjoined to render to Cæsar only that which is Cæsar's."-" History of the United States," Vol. VI, book 5, chap. 1. In the same volume, Dr. Bancroft writes:

"Vindicating the right of individuality even in religion, and in religion above all, the new nation dared to set the example of accepting in its relations to God the principle first divinely ordained in Judea. It left the management of temporal things to the temporal power; but the American Constitution, in harmony with the people of the several States, withheld from the Federal Government the power to invade the home of reason, the citadel of conscience, the sanctuary of the soul; and not from indifference, but that the infinite spirit of eternal truth might move in its freedom and purity nd power."

The prohibition of "an establishment of religion" might have been construed to mean that there should be no state or national church, as was the case in every European country. But the words, "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," give the First Amendment a very broad and unmistakable meaning. The domain of religion, "the home of reason, the citadel of conscience, the sanctuary of the soul," is not to be invaded in any way by the civil power. This was Americanism in the infancy of the American Republic, and it is Americanism today. Dr. Bancroft well says that this Con stitutional provision was adopted. "not

Vindicating the right of indiality even in religion,

e nation dared to set the exof accepting in its relations od the principle first divinely ined in Judea."

from indifference, but that the infinite spirit of eternal truth might move in its freedom and purity and power."

This statement by America's greatest historian, has been challenged by some who would have us believe that our Constitution is godless, made so by the atheistic philosophy of French infidelity; but the charge is false. Americanism is not in its nature anti-Christian, but essentially Christian, the fruit of genuine respect for, and admiration of, the principles of government taught by Jesus Christ Himself.

James Madison, the

Father of the Constitution, was not only a theoretical believer in Christianity, but a man of known personal piety.

Paine lost the friendship of Washington by the publication of his "Age of Reason." Indeed, a large majority of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, as also of the framers of the Constitution, were Christian men, at least by profession, and who has any right to judge them and to say that they were not sincere? Certainly not the men who are trying today to turn us back to medievalism in both church and state.

It is time that Americans ceased to hark back to Puritan days for the origin of Americanism. If the Plymouth

colony had not been swallowed up by the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, and if the mere handful of Pilgrims coming to these shores in 1620 from England by way of Holland, had not been lost in the thousands of Puritans that followed them ten years later, coming direct from England, the history of New England might have been very different from what it is, and Massachusetts might indeed have been the home of Americanism, for the Pilgrims were not persecutors, as were the Puritans. But such was not to be.

To Roger Williams in Rhode Island and to the Presbyterians and Baptists of Virginia must be awarded the honor (Continued on page 18)

in sympathy with the aims and endeavors of the international arms conference at Washington to bring about a limitation of armaments among the leading nations of the world, in the hope that the dangers of war and its attendant horrors and evils may be minimized. We have learned the lesson that preparedness for war is no longer a seeurity against war, but rather an incentive to it. While the limitation of arms may not prevent war, yet we are convinced that it is a safer and saner experiment than the old rival method of arming to the limit of endurance. Certainly the taxpayers will breathe a sigh of relief. The mothers will feel that they are rearing their sons for something better than cannon fodder. Armed peace means that the menace of war is always imminent. It means that the difficult problems will be submitted, without deliberation, to the cruel arbitrament of brute force, accompanied

by all the horrors that demons of war can devise. It means that something worse even than the war of 1914-18 awaits the fairest civilizations. Unless there is some kind of legal restraint placed upon the modern war lords, our civilization, with all its rich heritage of human rights, will vanish into oblivion after a few more rounds at the war game.

President Harding saw this ominous war cloud looming above the horizon, and as he saw it, "there grew on me," said he, "the sense of the failure of civilization." In his magnificent address at the services at Arlington Cemetery in memory of the unknown American dead in the Great War, the President expressed the hope that the nations assembled at the International Conference of Arms Limitation, might come to some happy agreement and understanding so as not to "leave its problems to such cruel arbitrament. Surely no one in authority, with human attri(Continued on page 16)