MAY 8TH, 1925

MAY 8TH, 1925

MY DEAR BROTHER, — ... I can sympathise with your exercise as to the question of paying rates for meeting rooms, as some years back the same exercise arose in my mind, and I was much inclined to think that it would be well to pay them and avoid any appearance of being favoured in a religious way by the government of the country.

But I must say that further consideration of this matter, and more information as to how it really stands in the law of the country, lead me to doubt whether anything in the way of divine principle is really involved. It has seemed good to the powers that be to decide that buildings used for religious purposes shall not be liable to payment of rates. This is their ordinance, with the making of which we had nothing to do. We did not seek it, but if they say that a building used for what they call religious service shall be exempt from rates it is clearly not according to the law of the land that rates should be paid for such a building. That this is a certain benefit to us is clear, but so is also the liberty to meet at all. We value the latter privilege, and gladly use it as granted to us in the mercy of God through His ordering by way of the laws which secure to us this liberty. We own with thankfulness that government takes a course in this respect which is very favourable to us, and it is different from what obtains in some countries.

^[p. 123] If the non-payment of rates necessitated that we should take the place of a religious denomination we might well have serious misgivings about it. But the law distinctly recognises those who decline to be known by any particular name, and extends to them the exemption from rates. This exemption does not put those to whom it applies under any obligation to the State. It does not confer upon them any claim to State-aid, nor are they even required to have the voting lists affixed to their doors. I am aware that this is often done, and it gives the impression that the building is in some way part of the machinery of the State. But I am informed that the law which requires this only applies to chapels of the Established Church, and that the authorities have no right to affix them to the doors of other buildings.

The State does not interfere with us religiously, but grants us full freedom. It requires nothing but that we shall be law abiding, which of course we are most ready to be. And if the State decides that it will not rate buildings which are used for such purposes as our rooms are used for, this is their ordinance, and I do not see any good reason why we should not accept it. It is simply the order and rule of the country in which we live, and I think it is matter for thankfulness that that order is in so many ways favourable to us as seeking to follow the Lord.

I do not know that I need add more, save my much love in the Lord.

Yours affectionately in Him,

May 8th, 1925.