Give them the same privilege you enjoy of making a God after their own fashion. And let them describe him as they will. Would you be willing to have them remain, if one of their race, thousands of years ago, had pretended to have seen God, and had written of him as follows:
"There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it, * * * and he rode upon a cherub and did fly."
Why should you object to these people on account of their religion? Your objection has in it the spirit of hate and intolerance. Of that spirit the Inquisition was born. That spirit lighted the fagot, made the thumbscrew, put chains upon the limbs, and lashes upon the backs of men. The same spirit bought and sold, captured and kidnapped human beings; sold babes, and justified all the horrors of slavery.
Congress has nothing to do with the religion of the people. Its members are not responsible to God for the opinions of their constituents, and it may tend to the happiness of the constituents for me to state that they are in no way responsible for the religion of the members. Religion is an individual, not a national, matter. And where the nation interferes with the right of conscience, the liberties of the people are devoured by the monster superstition.
If you wish to drive out the Chinese, do not make a pretext of religion. Do not pretend that you are trying to do God a favor. Injustice in his name is doubly detestable. The assassin can not sanctify his dagger by falling on his knees, and it does not help a falsehood if it be uttered as a prayer. Religion, used to intensify the hatred of men toward men under the pretence of pleasing God, has cursed this world.
A portion of this most remarkable report is intensely religious. There is in it almost the odor of sanctity; and when reading it, one is impressed with the living piety of its authors. But on the twenty-fifth page there are a few passages that must pain the hearts of true believers.
Leaving their religious views, the members immediately betake themselves to philosophy and prediction. Listen:
"The Chinese race and the American citizen, whether native-born or one who is eligible to our naturalization laws and becomes a citizen, are in a state of antagonism. They cannot, or will not, ever meet upon common ground, and occupy together the same social level. This is impossible. The pagan and the Christian travel different paths. This one believes in a living God; and that one in a type of monsters and the worship of wood and stone. Thus in the religion of the two races of men they are as wide apart as the poles of the two hemispheres. They cannot now and never will approach the same religious altar. The Christian will not recede to barbarism, nor will the Chinese advance to the enlightened belt (whatever it is) of civilization. * * * He cannot be converted to those modern ideas of religious worship which have been accepted by Europe and which crown the American system."