Radio Script #1271

Little Talks on Common Things
April 12, 1981

In his prolific writings Thomas Jefferson explained his firm position on the necessity of separating church and state. Much attention, he said, had been paid to the evils of a church-dominated state in Massachusetts.

It was too easy for southerners to forget that a similar situation once prevailed also in Virginia. Jefferson pointed out that the first settlers in Virginia had been Englishmen who came to the New World at a time when most Englishmen were solidly loyal both to the King and to the established British church, the Church of England, that had not long before separated from the Roman Catholic Church. The Virginia colony had immediately been divided into parishes, governed under domination of the Church of England. In each parish was a minister of that church, paid a fixed salary in tobacco taken as a tax from the parishoners, given a ministerial residence with arable land, and other fringe benefits.

Every inhabitant was expected to be a communicant of the state church. Dissension was severely punished. Toward Quakers the government was especially cruel, but they along with other dissenters liKe Presbyterians and Baptists continued to gain strength. By the time of the Revolution a majority of Virginia’s population was non-Episcopalian, but everyone still had to pay taxes to support the Episcopal clergy. As time went on, more and more people came to resent being taxed to support religious teaching in which they did not believe. But not until the first public convention in Virginia in 1776 was there a serious attempt to abolish the tyranny.

Jefferson reminds us that in Virginia reform came just as slowly as it came in Massachusetts. The best first step the more liberal Virginians could get was repeal of a law that made it a criminal offense to maintain unorthodox, anti-Episcopal services. But soon they did get more substantial relief: passage of a law exempting members of other faiths from taxes to support the Anglican church. But even then they could not change the law that authorized government to regulate all religious services, just as the King did in England.

In a letter to John Adams in 1816 Jefferson noted that not until 1785 were church tax assessments abolished, and even then such prominent citizens as Patrick Henry and John Harshall strongly contended for continuance of a state religious tax, but wanted it to benefit all denominations. Finally in Virginia, after the Revolution was over, and the new U.S. of America were about to become a united nation, there was true separation of church and state.

Jefferson made it clear that his determination to separate church and state had firm support from his successor in the White House, James Madison. When the Virginia House of Delegates considered a bill to reinstitute Patrick Henry’s idea of taxing for the benefit of all denominations, Madison stoutly opposed it, and published a pamphlet “Revolution against Religious Assessments.”

If the government had authority to establish the Christian religion in general and support it by taxes, said Madison, the same government had equal authority to establish any particular sect to the exclusion of all others. Hence the government must not establish religion at all. It was Madison who wrote: “When we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, profess, and observe a religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny to others an equal freedom even when they have not yielded to the evidence that has convinced us. ”

Madison called to witness the experience of history. He pointed out that religious establishments had frequently erected a spiritual tyranny over civil authority, as occurred with the Holy Roman Empire, which in operation was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. Never had established churches guarded the liberties of the people. Rulers who sought to deny those liberties had received their strongest support from religious leaders. A good government, said Madison, must protect every citizen in the enjoyment of his own preferred religion, just as it must protect his right to life and property. Government must not invade the rights of any sect nor allow any sect to invade the rights of another.

Neither Jefferson nor Madison approved the attitude of certain northern states about the connection of church and state. Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire long insisted on retaining established churches even after they permitted non-believers to be exempted from the church tax. That was indeed one of the reasons why the New England Federalists became unrelenting opponents of Jefferson. They considered him not only an enemy of government by the well-born, the well to do, and the well educated, but also an enemy of religion.

Jefferson, though a member of no church, had like a later president Abraham Lincoln, deep religious convictions. He wrote Adams that he continued to give financial support to various denominations, and that he had recently spent some time studying the ethical teachings of Jesus portrayed in the four gospels.

Jefferson stoutly upheld the rights of conscience for every religious faith. He argued that every church must be free. While President, he proclaimed days of Christian fasting and thanksgiving, but not for anyone sect.

Long after leaving the presidency Jefferson wrote a letter to the Baptists of Connecticut in which he said: “Believing with you that religion is a matter that lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, I hold that the legislative power of government extends only to actions, not to opinions. I acclaim with high praise the recent act of the American people (the First Amendment) which declared that their legislators should make no-law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. That act builds a wall of separation between church and state. Madison also put the case for separation strongly in an address at the College of William and Mary in 1802. “If the public homage of a people can ever be worthy of favorable regard by the Holy and omniscient Being to whom it is addressed, it must be because those who engage in it do so by their free choice, by the dictates of their own conscience. Religion, which I consider to be a gift from Heaven given for the good of mankind, must forever be free from coercion by government or any other group of men. The powers of this world must not be allowed to corrupt religion into an instrument of the state. ”

We do not need to be reminded that many factors in American life have undergone great change since the days of Jefferson and Madison. But it does not follow that their convictions are of no use to us today. When any group attempts to be a dictatorial force, not what it rightfully can be, a powerful influence in our national life, we face the dangers against which Jefferson and Madison so strongly warned. But that does not keep us from insisting that it is going too far to deny a period of voluntary prayer and contemplation in the public schools. That is quite different from authorizing any particular service or prayer.

Now we turn to another subject. A few weeks ago I referred to Dr. Leonard Mayo’s grandfather, John Dooly, founder of the famous Bowery Mission in New York City. I told much about his work and the letters he received from allover the world, but I said little about the man himself. I want to correct that omission today.

John Dooly’s grandfather had been a soldier of the American Revolution. Like many other Revolutionary soldiers, he was not born in this country, but had come from Ireland to the American colony in Georgia in 1752. He sent his son back to England for education. On his return to Georgia, that son, having come of age, received a grant of land in Ohio. There his son, the third John Dooly, was born. His father’s land was in a wilderness area inhabited largely by Indians. Young John was brought up among Indian playmates. His early schooling was obtained almost entirely at home.

When John was ten years old, his mother moved the family to New York City. Friendly Indians accompanied them on the full day’s journey to a town where they could take a stage for the further 20 miles to the nearest railroad station, whence they went by rail to New York. There John attended his first school.

Within a few months disaster struck again. The mother came down with the dreaded yellow fever. One day, delirious, she wandered out into the city streets and was never seen again. Like so many who died in the fever epidemics, she was probably picked up dead and buried in a pauper’s grave, unknown and unmarked. Evidently she had on her person no identification.

Instead of getting young John into charitable hands, the landlady of their boarding house put the boy out into the street. A friendly policeman took the lad to his own home for the night, and the next day placed him in the Leach and Watts asylum, where, instead of feeling confined and abused, as were many boys in such institutions, John was happy and grateful. That explains why, after he took charge of the Bowery Mission, he gave so much attention to the orphanage. Soon after John entered the orphanage, he asked the director to get the trunk of belongings that his mother had left at the boarding house. But the landlady had moved and the trunk was never found. So John Dooly entered his teens utterly devoid of any family possessions.

It was the custom of the orphanage, when one of its boys reached the age of 18, to bind him out to a foster parent until the age of 21. John was so bound to a physician, Dr. Benjamin Bernier of Napanock, N.Y. to whose home he made the journey by rail and buggy. Unlike most Irish families in America, the Doolys were Protestant Presbyterians. Dr. Bernier was a member of the Dutch Reformed church, and that became John Dooly’s faith during his apprentice years.

Dr. Bernier allowed John to continue school, and encouraged his ambition to attend college. So with the help of the doctor and the local pastor, John was able to attend Poughkeepsie Academy, and had just entered Rutgers College when the Civil War broke out. All the boys in John’s class enlisted in Kearney’s renowned New Jersey brigade. Dooly arose to the rank of sergeant. On one occasion, when carrying mail to General Grant’s tent, he saw the general talking with a tall, gaunt, bearded civilian. He was President Abraham Lincoln.

After going through the bloody battle of Gettysburg, Dooly was taken prisoner and spent a year in the notorious Andersonville Prison. When the war ended, Dooly returned to Rutgers, and on graduation sought a job in New York City. He got it at his old orphan asylum which had changed its name to the House of Industry. The chairman of the asylum’s governing board was President of the Penn Mining Co., and he persuaded Dooly to become a kind of chaplain for that company. So for three years John did religious work among the miners’ families and started a Sunday School in 1867.

Meanwhile Dooly married and eventually became the father of seven children. Dooly was called to the attention of the wealthy New York merchant, Morris Jessup, who arranged for John to come to New York and be the first superintendent of the Bowery Mission.

And with that we say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1981