RELIGIOUS LIBERTY (Pasche)

"O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good; because His mercy endureth forever."  Psalms. 118:1.

Luther stood for freedom of conscience and thereby also' widened the area of liberty in general. That his principles are the fundamental principles of our American Republic there can be no question. He asserted the equality of all men before God, in Christ, and out of that at length came our Declaration of In­ dependence, which affirms the equality of all men before human law. Our Constitution still reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Religious liberty, this blessed fruit of the Lutheran Reforma­ tion, is the greatest spiritual blessing of our land. Our Govern­ ment does not take upon itself to prescribe what religion its citizens must adopt, nor does it in any other way transgress the bounds of the Church. We have here, indeed, such a relation between the two as God desires it. We may worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.

Let us guard the priceless heritage that has been bequeathed to us. Let us guard our freedom of conscience, our religious liberty. The wise and pious framers of our Constitution, knowing both from reason and from unpleasant experience that religious liberty can exist only in the case of strict separation of Church