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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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I must admit it was a queer religion - the ancient Anabaptist heresy related to the Albigensians and all those. It has many weird ideas in it, among them that every man is his own priest and every man is his own interpreter of the scriptures. That's a queer idea. It's always been a heresy, but the Baptists held it strongly. That was why they were so hot to have nobody interfere with their form of worship - not anybody, not even a Congregationalist. So when they went to Rhode Island, they had suffered from this imposition of an established church upon their life - their social life, their political life and their religious life. So they made it a tenet of their whole community - I think they put it into their first constitution, agreement or covenant - that there should be complete freedom of worship. They let all kinds in. They even let Quakers worship there before they did anywhere else.

I am sincerely, devotedly and forever of the opinion that we hold and organize our political life under God and that men owe obedience to God, owe worship to God and owe subservience to God, and that it's only as they follow the word of God that they can have a nation, or a state, or a community, or a town. The political action of people is an essential part of man's nature. Even St.





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