REVIEWS.
The Rise of Religious Liberty in America. By SANFORD H. COBB New York : The Macmillan Co. $4.
THE task which the author undertakes is a new one. Others have confined their attention to the development of religious liberty in some definite locality Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia, for example. Mr. Cobb surveys the entire field, so far as our own country is concerned, and makes good his claim that the principle of liberty on which the religious institutions and life in the United States are founded today " is peculiarly an American production."
This new principle he states as follows : "Neither should the church dictate to the state, as having peremptory spiritual jurisdiction over things civil ; nor should the state interfere with the church in its free- dom of creed or of worship, in its exercise of ordination and spiritual discipline; nor yet again should the individual be subjected to any influence from the civil government toward the formation or refusal of religious opinions, or as regards his conduct thereunder, unless such conduct should endanger the moral order or safety of society."
But, before entering on his main purpose, and in order to bring into clearer view the rightfulness of his claim that this principle " is peculiarly an American production," Mr. Cobb gives a glance back- ward to the state of things under the old-world idea as to the relation of church and state during the Christian centuries down to the earlier period of the Reformation, when Protestant and Romanist alike would as soon think of assailing any other principle of government as that of the right of the civil magistrate to propagate religion by the sword. Of course, here and there voices were raised in opposition to this avowed right, asserting the right of religious liberty, and in his refer- ence to these the author very justly gives the place of honor to the once generally despised Anabaptists of the Reformation period. "Their doctrine," he says, "is one of the most remarkable things which appeared in that wonderful age;" and he adds : "There can be but one mind as to the grandeur of the doctrine thus propounded by the Anabaptists, nor as to the immense blessings which it finally con- ferred upon the world."
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