Clerical Defiance of the Civil Law

New York, 1895

It happens now and then that presumptuous people have to he punished for the benefit of mankind. The Rev. Mr. Wightman, a Baptist preacher at Oyster Bay, is an instance. He was last week fined $50 for a violation of the health laws of the town, and it is a good sign that the town officers had the moral courage to inflict the penalty. So many people stand in awe of a clergyman that they of the cloth are wont to presume upon this diffidence and go a length that is unreasonable. When a clergyman does wrong he merits just the treatment that would be measured out to a layman in the same circumstances. The glossing over and condoning of clerical misdeeds has worked great injury to the church and always will.

The Rev. Mr. Wightman deliberately defied the lawful authorities of his town, and broke the law with premeditation. That took him out of the ranks of holy minded, peace loving ministers, and set him down in the byway with transgressors. A man cannot be a pious clergyman and a bad citizen at the same time. There was an epidemic of scarlet fever in the town, and to confine it and save life, the health board, by legal right, ordered the schools closed, and forbade the opening of the Sunday schools and churches, and the clergymen of every denomination complied with the order except Mr. Wightman, who held both a prayer meeting and Sunday services. His great offense was in doing this after he had been twice cautioned not to do it by an officer of the law. He argues in justification of his defiance of the law of the state of New York, that the constitution of the United States guarantees him the right of freedom of worship. So it does, but always subject to reasonable restrictions which the law of the state may impose, and the health board was acting entirely with the scope of the constitution.

Mr. Wightman is incapable of interpreting the meaning of the term "freedom of worship." His only right is to worship God as his conscience may direct. That right was not interfered with in the least. He has no right to so worship as to spread contagion and imperil life. The four walls of a church are not inseparable from worship. All church goers are not given to worship. A prayer from the heart would avail as much on a mountain top as within the walls of a sanctuary. It is not the man who prays, but the man who prays right, that is cherished of God. Human laws are made for the well being of the people, and in the main they are founded on divine tradition. Closing a church to preserve life and health is as essentially Christian as legal, and we do not believe that the prayers of the Rev. Mr. Wightman, with the malice of defiance in his heart, were acceptable to his Master on this particular Sunday. We are taught that God is a just God, and therefore an unjust servant cannot be his delight. Mr. Wightman merited his punishment.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, Jan. 25, 1895, p. 4.