The American Sentinel 15 (1900)

January 4, 1900

"Front Page" American Sentinel 15, 1 , p. 1.

THE conscience can acknowledge no master but God alone.

NO moral question can be settled by the ballot, or by vote of the legislature

ANY scheme which makes one man morally accountable to another man, or set of men, is popery; and no such scheme can be any better than the papacy.

THE scheme to have the Constitution "acknowledge God" is really a scheme to have that document acknowledge the theocrats it back of the scheme as the moral rulers of the nation.

THE agencies of the divine government are not human, but invisible spiritual agencies which proceed from the throne of God. With their appointment man can have nothing to do.

THE true acknowledgement of God is always made in the individual heart; and if God be not acknowledged in the hearts of the people, any outward acknowledgement of him is only hypocrisy and sin.

WE have been told that "this is a Christian nation;" but we have never been pointed to the time when it was baptized, or the occasion when it was "born again," or to any evidence that it is "crucified with Christ," or that it exists to serve rather than to be served.

"GOVERNMENT of the people, by the people," is responsible alone to the people; the creature is responsible alone to its creator. God is the Creator of the people, and they are responsible to him; but directly, as individuals, and not through some creature which they may bring forth.

"THE kingdom of God is within you," said Jesus Christ; hence the throne of God is in the Christian's heart, and the voice that speaks from it is the voice of God. And any attempt to set up a national conscience over the individual conscience is an attempt to drive God from his throne in the heart, and set him upon a man-made throne in the state.

"The New Interpreters of the Constitution" American Sentinel 15, 1 , pp. 1, 2.

WHEN the Constitution of the United States was established, its provisions fixing the total separation between religion and the state made it essentially distinct from all views held by the Catholic Church on the subject of religion in the state. This was essentially the Protestant and Christian principle established as a fundamental and supreme law of this nation. As such the papacy looked upon it, and therefore refused to acknowledge the Government as a true government. Accordingly in the Catholic World of September, 1871, the leading Catholic writer in United States at that time referred to the Constitution and Government of the United States as follows:–

"As it is interpreted. . . by the Protestant principle, so widely diffused among us. . . we do not accept it, or hold it to be any government at all, or as cap-

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able of performing any of the proper functions of government; and if it continues to be interpreted by the revolutionary principles of Protestantism, it is sure to fail. . . . Hence it is, we so often say that if the American Republic is to be sustained and preserved at all it must be by the rejection of the principle of the Reformation, and the acceptance of the Catholic principle by the American people."

In February 1892–February 29–the Supreme Court by liberal quotations of Catholic documents, and other documents embodying Catholic principles, proved to its own satisfaction and accordingly unanimously announced that the established of the Christian religion is within the meaning of the Constitution, and that therefore this is a Christian nation. This was distinctly the interpretation of the Constitution according to the Catholic principle.

As soon as this had become known to the Catholic students of the Constitution at Rome, there was published in the United States the purpose of Pope Leo XIII. that what the church has done for other nations in the past she would not do for the United States. In order to accomplish this purpose he sent in that same year his personal representative to this country and set up at the capital of the nation his Apostolic Delegation. And by that personal representative of his, Pope Leo XIII. in the next year, 1893, publicly called "upon all the Catholics of America to go forward, in one hand bearing the book of Christian truth, and in the other the Constitution of United States" to "bring your countrymen, bring your country into immediate contact with that great secret of blessedness–Christ and his church."

As the Catholic Bible is the only Bible any Catholic would ever be expected by the pope to carry in one hand, so it is only the Catholic Constitution–the Constitution interpreted according to the Catholic principle–that any Catholic would ever be expected by Leo XIII. to carry in the other hand.

Accordingly in 1895 Apostolic Delegate Satolli began to practise the interpretation of the Constitution of United States for Catholic interests, and of course only according to the Catholic principle; and, after the example set by the Supreme Court of the United States, declared that in the Constitution there "was inserted the article of separation of the state from any religious sect."

This bit of history is essential in order to a good understanding of the very latest move of Rome in this connection, which is as follows: In 1894 there came from Rome to Washington city a certain Monsignor Sharetti as auditor of the Apostolic Delegation then lately established there. About a month ago this Monsignor Sharetti was appointed Bishop of Havana in Cuba. And now it is announced that this man, who, so far as information goes, has been in the United States only about five years, was appointed to that bishopric not only "on account of this knowledge of canon law," but also on account of his knowledge of "the Constitution of the United States, and the method of processing our courts"!!

And the special knowledge of his of "the Constitution of the United States, and the method of process in our courts" was especially in his favor in his receiving this appointment to the bishopric of Havana because of "the prominence in Havana of questions concerning the property of the Roman Catholic Church."

As Bishop of Havana, of course, Sharetti will be a principal in all questions concerning church property in all Cuba. Accordingly to him will fall most largely, not entirely the interpretation of the Constitution in all cases in which church property is involved. And thus the interpretation of the Constitution according to the Catholic principle is given a new and mighty impetus and one of the largest of fields for the exercise therein. And since it is held that the sustainment and preservation of "the American Republic" depends upon the interpretation of the Constitution according to the Catholic principle, what a wide field is opened to Bishop Sharetti in which to show his zeal for the salvation of this nation in interpreting according to the Catholic principle the Constitution of which he is said to have such special knowledge!

And how far is this situation of Bishop Sharetti removed from a union of the Catholic Church and the nation of which the Constitution that he is to interpret is the supreme law?

And now if only there can be secured a bishop of Manila, and a bishop of Puerto Rico, each of whom Bishop Sharetti is especially gifted in the knowledge of the Constitution of the United States so that he can readily interpret it according to the Catholic principle and can have the widest possible field for the exercise of his talent, then Rome will have her campaign so well in hand that she could very easily begin the interpretation of the Constitution in the United States itself. And since Archbishop Chapelle who is Apostate Delegate to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, has made this beginning with Sharetti, would it not rather be expected that he would follow it up in Puerto Rico and the Philippines? Indeed only a few days ago we saw the announcement in print that "the papal agents want Father McKinnon to be bishop of Manila if the consent of the pope and President McKinley can be obtained." And McKinnon is already coadjutor to the archbishop of Manila, his accession to the bishopric of Manila must not be very far off. And even if he should not become bishop, this could not make a great deal of difference since he is coadjutor to the archbishop and will be the principal one to deal with the American authorities. Great things are going on.
A. T. J.

"Note" American Sentinel 15, 1 , p. 2.

NO MORTAL man has either the authority or the power to sign the name of God to anything.

"The W. C. T. U. and Sunday Laws" American Sentinel 15, 1 , pp. 3, 4.

THE National W. C. T. U. has now definitely put itself on record on the question of Sunday laws and Sabbath-keepers, in the following words:–

"Resolved, That we favor the amendment of all State Sunday laws which do not contain the usual exemption for those who keep the Sabbath day."

This resolution was offered "as involving all necessary points, and omitting the objectionable ones," in the following resolution, which was before the convention:–

"Resolved, That as a National Woman's Christian Temperance Union we protest against any such interpretation or use of any lines of our work as shall give aid or comfort to those who, through ignorance, prejudice, or malice, would enact or enforce such laws as can be made to serve the purpose of persecution, or to in any manner interfere with the most perfect liberty of conscience concerning days, or the manner of their observance."

Now, we wish that somebody would take this original resolution and point out the "objectionable points."

We really desire to know what points there are in that resolution that are "objectionable;" and then to know, also, why they are "objectionable."

As the National Union has taken this action, and so has committed itself to the consideration of this subject, it is entirely proper for them to signify the "objectionable points" in their resolution. And we now say to all the women of the N. W. C. T. U. that the columns of this paper, the AMERICAN SENTINEL, are freely open to them, in which to show these "objectionable points."

It is proper that they should do this, because we are concerned in it. They have adopted a resolution definitely directed to "those who keep the Sabbath day." There are about fifty thousand of the Seventh-day Adventists, alone, besides the Seventh-day Baptists, in the United States, who are concerned in the action of the National Union in passing this resolution, and who shall be concerned in their putting the resolution into effect. And, as in their estimation, the resolution that they passed, was passed expressly in order to avoid the "objectionable points" in the resolution that was before the convention, they ought to be willing, for the sake of the many who are concerned, to state what are the "objectionable points" in the original resolution, and why we should be expected to accept the substitute, and their action in carrying it out, instead of insisting upon the principles embodied in the resolution for which the one that was adopted is the substitute. For, surely, they ought to have our co-operation in what they have adopted; and we can assure the N. W. C. T. U. that we do sincerely wish to co-operate with them in every way that is possible; and we will do so. But when a vital principle is involved, then adherence to principle is of more worth than is co-operation at the expense of principle.

IN the National W. C. T. U. convention the following notice was given:–

"Madame President and Delegates: I give notice that at the next annual convention I, or some one in my place, will offer the following amendment to the constitution:–

"ARTICLE VI.–PLANS OF WORK

"Nothing shall ever be incorporated into any plan of N. W. C. T. U. work, by department or otherwise, which must of necessity become the occasion of sectarian controversy, or which can in any sense be made to interfere with perfect liberty of conscience."

This is a regularly established procedure in the N. W. C. T. U. in all matters pertaining to amendments to the constitution. This notice, therefore, stands as perfectly regular and strictly an order; and, as such, is before the union for consideration, through the whole year, until the next annual convention, and will then be before the convention for consideration in convention, and for the decision of the convention.

Thus, by two distinct acts–their own action as a convention, and this notice of an amendment to the constitution–the N. W. C. T. U. is committed definitely to the consideration of Sunday laws as affecting Sabbath observers, and to the consideration of their plans of work with respect to whatever may be, or may become, "the occasion of sectarian controversy, which can in any sense be made to interfere with perfect liberty of conscience." In other words, the N. W. C. T. U., by these two acts, is brought face to face, officially and as a body, with the question of religious liberty–the rights of conscience as involved in Sunday laws and Sabbath observance. We are glad of it. This is a good thing. It is one of the best things that has happened to the N. W. C. T. U. since about 1886, at least, if not one of the best things that ever happened to it.

The National Union, in convention assembled, has declared itself in "favor" of "the amendment of all State Sunday laws which do not contain the usual exemption for those who keep the Sabbath day." This action of theirs commits them to an examination of all the State Sunday laws, to discover which of them does "not contain the usual exemption for those who keep the Sabbath day;" and then, having found these, to "favor the amendment" of them.

In the nature of the case, this commits the whole National Union to the study of the question of Sunday laws and Sabbath observers. And, as there is a regularly introduced notice of an amendment, which they will be asked to adopt at the next annual convention, by which "nothing shall ever be incorporated into any plan of the N. W. C. T. U. work, by department or other-

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wise, which must of necessity become the occasion of sectarian controversy, or which can in any sense be made to interfere with perfect liberty of conscience,"–this, backing up their own work to which they are committed by their own resolution, in the nature of things, requires them, in the examination of "all State Sunday laws," to consider whether there be any thing connected with these that may "become the occasion of sectarian controversy, or which can in any sense be made to interfere with perfect liberty of conscience."

Thus, by their own action in resolution, and by regular notice of an amendment to their constitution, the N. W. C. T. U. is pledged to the consideration of "perfect liberty of conscience" as connected with Sunday laws and Sabbath observers. And, in the consideration of this mighty question,–one of the most important ever known,–the most important that has ever been before the N. W. C. T. U., the AMERICAN SENTINEL can freely give, and hereby does pledge itself to give, the most hardy co-operation. And we call upon all Seventh-day Adventists in the nation to give the same co-operation in the consideration of this great question as the AMERICAN SENTINEL proposes to give. Let all "those who keep the Sabbath day" assist by all possible means–by literature, lectures, sermons, Bible instruction, social converse–in every way help, and co-operate with, the women of the N. W. C. T. U. in the consideration of this great question, which is inevitably now before them for at least a whole year.
A. T. J.

January 11, 1900

"Front Page" American Sentinel 15, 2 , p. 17.

THE chief evil of church-and-state union consists not in the showing of partiality to a particular church, but in the attempt to propagate religion by civil force.

THERE can be no union of church and state without a union of church and state, any more than there can be a church without religion, or religion without a church.

A UNION of religion and the state, as distinguished from a union of church and state, is only a broadened form of the latter; and an evil never grows less by spreading out. A union of the state with religion which favored all the churches alike would be only so much worse than a union which favored but one church.

"YOU cannot have stable government without religion," we are told; but it seems to be overlooked that religion, when joined with a government subject to change, must itself become unstable; even, as one writer has said, "the football of contending majorities." No government is unchangeable; and therefore no government can maintain an unchanging standard of morality.

THE crowning work of God's creation was not a state, or government, but a man, made in his image; and no greater thing has ever been created since. The Son of God died to save the individual; but he did not die and would not have died, to save any state or government. It is the individual that is of chief value in the sight of God.

SOME professors of Christianity seem more anxious for a political saviour than for a personal Saviour. That was the trouble with the Jews when they rejected Christ.

MEN say the Sabbath law of God does not specify a particular day of the week; but in their own "Sabbath laws" they never fail to specify one particular day. Are they more particular than God?

THE state cannot decree any religious observance, without assuming to be an authority in religion; it cannot assume authority in religion without erecting a claim to infallibility; and it cannot claim infallibility without an assumption of equality with God.

"The 'Usual Exemption' Favored by the W. C. T. U" American Sentinel 15, 2 , pp. 17-19.

THE W. C. T. U. has put itself on record, by resolution regularly adopted, as in favor of "the amendment of all State Sunday laws which do not contain the usual exemption for those who keep the Sabbath day."

It is certainly of interest to all "those who keep the Sabbath day" to know what "the usual exemption" is, or is likely to be. And there is sufficient history on this subject to give considerable information–history, too, of which the N. W. C. T. U. is a part. For the benefit of all, we shall here sketch this history of "the usual exemption."

In 1888, at the request of the N. W. C. T. U. and allied organizations, Senator Blair introduced into the United States Senate, "a bill to secure to the people the enjoyment of the first day of the week, commonly known

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as the Lord's day, as a day of rest, and to promote its observance as a day religious worship." The bill met with considerable opposition throughout the country; and of this opposition "those who observe the Sabbath day" were a part.

To check this opposition, an amendment to the bill was suggested by the N. W. C. T. U., at the great hearing that was held in the Senate Committee room, at Washington, D. C., Dec. 13, 1888. This proposed exemption, which was added to the Blair bill, reads as follows:–

"Nor shall the provisions of this act be construed to prohibit or to sanction labour on Sunday by individuals who conscientiously believe in and observe any other day than Sunday as the Sabbath or a day of religious worship, provided such labor be not done to the disturbance of others."

In January, 1890, again at the request of the N. W. C. T. U. and allied organizations, what is known as the Breckinridge bill–"a bill to prevent persons from being forced to labor on Sunday"–was introduced into the House of Representatives, in Congress, together with one of like nature in the Senate. The blank petitions, which were circulated all over this land for signatures, and which, when signed, were presented in Congress, and in response to which the Breckinridge bill was introduced, read thus:–

"To the House of Representatives of the United States:

"The undersigned organizations and adult residents (twenty-one years of age or more) of the United States hereby earnestly petition your honorable body to pass a bill forbidding in the United States mail and military service, and in interstate commerce, and in the District of Columbia and the Territories, all Sunday traffic and work, except works of religion, and works of real necessity and mercy, and such private work by those who religiously and regularly observe another day of the week by abstaining from labor and business, as will neither interfere with the general rest are with public worship."

In response to this petition, the Breckinridge bill, as originally introduced, bore this exemption,–

"Provided, however, that this provision of this act shall not be construed to apply to any person or persons who conscientiously believe in and observe any other day of the week than Sunday as a day of rest."

And this exemption was especially claimed by the W. C. T. U. as that which they had "given."

Another item in this connection is the fact that the same Dr. W. F. Crafts who helped the N. W. C. T. U. at Seattle in framing and adopting this substitute resolution, was also the chief aid of the N. W. C. T. U. in framing, introducing, and working for the adoption of the Blair Sunday bill and the Breckinridge bill; and he was their chief aid in circulating, securing signatures to, and presenting, the petitions that brought forth the Breckinridge bill; and it was he who was also the chief instrument in framing all these proposed exemptions.

These examples, therefore, give a very fair idea of what is meant by the phrase "the usual exemption," in the resolution adopted by the late N. W. C. T. U. convention. This is so because the persons concerned with the framing of this resolution are, and measure at least, the identical persons who framed all these exemption clauses.

Now, let any one examine carefully every one of these exemption clauses, and see how much real exemption "the usual exemption" "gives" to "those who keep the Sabbath day." The first one requires that whoever shall be exempted must "conscientiously believe in and observe" another day than Sunday as the Sabbath. And even then it is distinctly declared that this law shall not be construed "to sanction labor on Sunday by individuals who conscientiously believe in and observe any other day than Sunday as the Sabbath as a day of religious worship." And, further, that when this labor is done without the "sanction" of the law, it must "be not done to the disturbance of others."

The actual reading of the exemption clause in the Breckinridge bill is that the law "shall not be construed to apply to any person or persons who conscientiously believe in and observe any other day of the week than Sunday as a day of rest." But the petition, in response to which that bill, with its exemption, was framed, shows the intent of the clause in the minds of those who originated it; and "the intention of the lawmaker is the law."

Now notice how all-embracing that exemption is, in the petitions that were present, which called forth the exemption: nothing is excepted "except works of religion, and works of real necessity and mercy, and such private work by those who religiously and regularly observe another day of the week by abstaining from labor and business, as will neither interfere with the general rest NOR with public worship." Nobody can have the benefit of the exemption from the requirements of the Sunday laws unless he meets all the strict requirements, both public and private. In short, the exemption clauses which they have framed deliberately propose to take cognizance and jurisdiction of the whole religious and conscientious life, public and private, of those who observe any other day than Sunday. And such is the nature of "the usual exemption for those who keep the Sabbath day."

Nor is that all. It is found in actual practise that this "usual exemption" is not exempt; as indeed it was never intended that it should, and as its very nature prohibits its doing. In the late convention at Seattle, when this was before the N. W. C. T. U. for discussion, Mrs. Tomlinson, national superintendent of parlor meetings, told a convention that:–

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"New Jersey has a law which makes an exception of those keeping the seventh day as the Sabbath; and yet in my own State this last winter the seventh-day people who had observed the day strictly, and who opened their stores or places of business in a quiet manner upon the first day the week, were visited by the chief of police, and told that if they did not close their places of business upon the first day, they would be arrested, . . . Therefore in those States where there is an exemption the people are not always protected."

And this in itself is in exact accord with statements made on this subject in former times. In July, 1887, there was a joint convention of the National Reform Association and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (not a national convention), held at Lakeside, Ohio. Upon this subject of exemption, in that convention David McAllister of the National Reform Association, who then, and for years, worked hand in hand with the W. C. T. U. everywhere, in national and other conventions (and who no doubt, is doing so yet), said:–

"Let a man be what he may,–Jew, seventh-day observer of some other denomination, or those who do not believe in the Christian Sabbath,–let the law apply to every one, that there shall be no public desecration of the first day of the week, the Christian Sabbath, the day of rest for the nation. They may hold any other day of the week as sacred, and observe it; but that day, which is the one day in seven for the nation at large, let that not be publicly desecrated by any one, by officer in the government, or by private citizen, high or low, rich or poor."

This is sufficient to give to the N. W. C. T. U., and to the public, a good understanding of the nature and operation of "the usual exemption for these who keep the Sabbath day," which, by resolution, the N. W. C. T. U. has voted to "favor." Need it seem strange to the N. W. C. T. U. that "those who keep the Sabbath day" will probably not be very enthusiastic helpers in obtaining such exemption? Should it seem to them strange that our co-operation might be found lacking?

But while, and the nature of things, we can not co-operate in the endeavor to secure such exemption, we will constantly do our best, in a perfectly plain but altogether respectful way, to make plain to the W. C. T. U. just what is involved in Sunday laws, whether with or without exemptions. That is why we write this. We gladly do the women of the W. C. T. U. the justice to say that we believe they do not in any degree realize the true character of Sunday laws whether with or without exemption; and that they do not discern the true issue that is before the N. W. C. T. U. We believe that if they did discern this, they would be far from doing what they have done, and are doing, in that connection. We hope that they will candidly consider the whole mighty question that is now before them.
A. T. J.

"Government by a 'Single Mind'" American Sentinel 15, 2 , pp. 19, 20.

SOME time ago, in these columns, we queried as to how long this country could remain a republic, a government of the people by the people, and at the same time work hand-in-hand with two monarchies in world affairs.

In Harper's Weekly of December 30, 1899, there is printed a long argument by one of the regular staff of the Weekly, in favor of a one-man power in the Government of the United States. The material of the article is derived from the subject of treaties.

The rider advocates "understandings" rather than treaties with foreign powers. He cites the fact that treaties which had been arranged satisfactorily by the executives of the powers concerned "fell before clamor," or "fell by the refusal of the Senate to ratify;" and then says:–

"Perhaps this bit of our recent history illustrates as well as any other the reason why an American executive, bent on accomplishing an object through co-operation with a foreign power, would prefer an unformulated understanding rather than face the almost certain defeat involved in the submission of the treaty to the Senate."

But when it is the government of the people why should an American executive be bent on accomplishing an object in himself alone with the voice of the people or in spite of the voice of the people? In such case he is not an executive of the government of the people, but the executive of his own will. He alone becomes the government; and whatsoever does not conform to his personal will can have no place. And that is nothing but the advocacy of a one-man power.

The National Constitution has settled it that treaties shall be made "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate." By the Constitution the executive has no power at all in any matter of treaties, apart from the Senate; and he has no right to have or to exercise any will of his own in the subject. Here are the words: "He [the executive] shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the senators present concur." If the Senate advises contrary, or refuses to consent, that is nothing to him: he has no further responsibility in the matter–provided the he cares anything for the Constitution, provided that he cares anything for the voice of the people through their chosen representatives, provided he recognizes government of the people by the people. But if he cares nothing for all this, and is "bent on accomplishing an object" himself according to his own will, Constitution or no Constitution, Senate or no Senate, people or no people, then if the Senate refuses consent, he will resent it and do the thing anyhow, by agreement or understanding; or if he thinks he has reason to suppose that the Senate will not consent, then he will execute his own will through an understanding

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without giving the Senate any chance at all, either to advise or consent. And this is only government by one–a one-man power.

If the quotations already given are not sufficient to convince that a one-man power here is thus openly demanded, then read the following:–

"The participation of the Senate in the treaty-making function is the cause of the difficulties; and while the weakness has thus far wrought no serious harm, it is something to be gravely considered if we take a place among the Asiatic powers. . . The fact is that the power to make treaties, if we are to enter into a course of national progression, or retrogression–call it what you will, but involving those close mutual relations which Jefferson described as 'entangling alliances'–must include the power to make conventions quickly and secretly and the power to abide by them. Moreover, it is essential that the single mind with which our Government deals must be met by a single mind on our side. . . . In short, if foreign alliances are to become essential to us, we must set up a power that can make treaties quickly, keep them secret if necessary, and abide by them to the end."

All of that is certainly plain enough to be grasped by anybody. And surely the thing advocated as "essential" is rather startling, even though it be the inevitable accompaniment of any effort to have a republic to work hand-in-hand with monarchies. Yet startling as it is that this thing should be thus openly advocated, at so early a stage in the new career, it is yet more startling to be authoritatively informed that not only is this thing advocated by this writer, but it is actually being studiously put into practise by the present administration. More than a month ago Washington correspondence gave to the country the information that it was not expected that the agreement between the United States and the other powers concerning China will be arranged in "a general and formal treaty;" and for the reason that–

"It would be extremely difficult to frame any such convention so as to secure the approval of the United States Senate without a protracted struggle, which might disclose disagreeable weaknesses in the Government's policy, and besides, the effort would be sure to arouse opposition from the considerable element in the United States that is unalterably opposed to any sort of foreign entanglements."

And that is simply to say that in this matter the national affairs are to be conducted without the people. A certain course–the strictly proper governmental course–is studiously avoided, because it would be "difficult to secure the approval" of the representatives of the people, and because it would arouse opposition among the people themselves, and "might disclose disagreeable weaknesses in the Government's policies." That is to say, because the administration doubts that the approval of the people would be given, the thing shall be done anyhow, and therefore without its coming within reach of the people at all.

This is nothing else than in principle, and for the occasion even in practise, the abandonment of government of the people by the people. People are informed that since the administration fears that the people will not approve its policies, the administration will execute its policies in the anyhow; that the administration cannot trust the people, and therefore the people shall not be consulted.

This is precisely the course of the republic of Rome over again. First it was a government of the people by the people. Then it was government by a few, which could not trust the people. Then, as in a little while it came about that these few cannot trust one another, it became a government by one; and that one the most powerful. And how rapidly this later great republic is running the course of that ancient great republic!

It is true that, so far, this is all said and done in connection with treaties. But how long will the practise be carried on in that connection before it shall be extended to other things? The principle once adopted, when shall be set the limits to its application? A. T. J.

"Why the Sentinel Protests" American Sentinel 15, 2 , pp. 20, 21.

THE Declaration of Independence was put forth by the American Colonies to Great Britain and to the world, as a notification of and justification for their absolute independence.

That Declaration spoke for all people on the earth, as was necessary that it should do. The American colonies did not assert their independence because of any characteristic or circumstances peculiar to themselves, but because "all men are created equal," and because "to preserve these rights [of all men] governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." The colonists claimed this for themselves only on the ground that it was self-evidently due to all.

Now the United States has denied to another people the right of independence; this nobody disputes or can dispute, for the record of it has been in every issue of the daily press for over a year. And as it is true that the Declaration of Independence asserted the right of all people to independence, and that the colonies claimed that right for themselves only under the assertion of it for all, just so true is it that the United States has now repudiated the Declaration of Independence and surrendered its own claim made therein to such freedom.

And as surely as the United States maintains its present course in this respect, so surely must follow that the doctrine of the equal rights of all men and of the justice of government by consent of the governed, will be relegated to the limbo of outgrown traditions, as one of no binding authority or practical importance in this day.

But upon this doctrine the AMERICAN SENTINEL has

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stood from the first day of its publication. That has been its foundation; and upon no other foundation could it have made the appeals that it has for justice and religious freedom. Upon no other can it make such appeals now or in time to come.

And this is why the AMERICAN SENTINEL has from the first protested against the course of the nation in setting aside the doctrines it put forth to the world in 1776. And surely, when the very foundation on which it stands is being swept from under its feet, the SENTINEL can protest against it without meriting the charge of having "gone into politics."

When the doctrine of the equal rights of all men shall be no longer be held as true by the American people; when appeal for justice can no longer be made upon this that is the one ground common to all–then further appeal to American principles against religious tyranny will be useless, and the mission of the AMERICAN SENTINEL will have reached its end.

"Back Page" American Sentinel 15, 2 , p. 32.

SOME people seem to have the idea that the Sabbath law of God commands them to see that their neighbors keep the Sabbath, whether they themselves do so or not. They are willing to break the Sabbath themselves, if need be, in order to make others keep it. And indeed, it is impossible to enforce a Sabbath law without breaking the Sabbath to do it.

THE Sunday laws of the State contain–with few exceptions–" usual exemption" for observers of the seventh day; which is supposed to make such laws unobjectionable. But when analyzed, this "exemption" is found to be really a condemnation of the Sunday law on the ground of consistency. If the law is one that interferes with conscience or with rights, it has no good reason to exist; and if it does not interfere in this way, why exempt any class from its penalties? But as we show elsewhere in this issue, this "usual exemption" clause is not to be taken at its "face value."

January 18, 1900

"Front Page" American Sentinel 15, 3 , p. 33.

ALL men have equal rights because all are created in the image of God.

SABBATH-KEEPERS cannot be made out of Sabbath-breakers by any process but a change of heart.

THE laws of men can uphold no standard of morality that rises higher than the level of human wisdom.

THE good neighbor and a good citizen is always the man who adheres strictly to the dictates of his conscience.

NO MAN can yield his conscience to Cesar and to God at the same time. The domain of conscience does not admit of two sovereigns.

PEOPLE who venture to interfere with the conscience of others because of religious differences, would do well to remember that conscience is strictly a divine and not a human institution.

THE "national conscience" is the conscience of the majority, and the majority represent only a power and authority that are human. In religion, the majority have nearly always been in the wrong. God is the only authority in religion, and in religion he speaks to the majority through each individual, and not to each individual through the majority.

THE Sunday laws do violence to the rights of all people, no less than to those of the class are made to suffer by them. There are a restriction upon religious freedom.

SINCE the carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, and cannot be, as the Scriptures declare, it is plainly unscriptural and wrong to attempt to enforce the law of God, or Christian morality, by the law of man. And no other kind of morality ought to be enforced by any law.

"The 'Usual Exemption' Analyzed" American Sentinel 15, 3 , pp. 33-35.

FROM the evidence which we have given from the record made by the N. W. C. T. U., it is certain that "the usual exemption for those who keep the Sabbath day," from the requirements of Sunday laws, which the Union "favors," does not exempt. That is to say, "the usual exemption" is so hedged about with restrictions that it is robbed of all the quality of an exemption.

In order for any person to have the benefit of this "usual exemption," it is not enough to observe another day, but the person observing another day must "believe in" it.

Nor is it enough to "believe in" and "observe" another day; but the person observing another day must "conscientiously believe in" it.

And when a person does conscientiously believe in and observe another day than Sunday as the Sabbath, still the exemption does not count unless the person "religiously" observes the day that he conscientiously believes in and observes.

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And when he "religiously" observes the day that he "conscientiously believes in and observes," still the exemption does not count unless he "regularly" observes the day that he conscientiously believes in and religiously observes.

And then the exemption does not count unless the "religious" and "regular" observance of this day that he "conscientiously believes in" and "observes, "is performed" by abstaining from labor and business."

And even THEN the exemption does not count unless the work that he does on Sunday is work of "religion," or work of "real necessity and mercy," or "such private work as will neither interfere with the general rest nor with public worship."

That is to say that "the usual exemption" requires belief, and even conscientious belief; and religious action, and regular religious action, on whatever day a man may choose to observe as the Sabbath; and also requires religious conduct, both public and private, on Sunday, or else the exemption does not count.

And even with all this, the "usual exemption" does not exempt from the requirements of the law, but only from the penalty of the law.

This is certain, and we know it, from the fact that Mrs. Bateham, speaking for the N. W. C. T. U., said so at the great hearing on the national Sunday law, before the Senate Committee, in Washington, D. C., Dec. 13, 1888. Senator Blair had said to Mrs. Bateham these words:–

"Let me ask you a few questions, Mrs. Bateham, to see if the Woman's Christian Temperance Union understood exactly the relation of what they propose to do to this legislation."

He then stated that an exemption of the observers of another day would allow these observers of another day to do the work of the post-offices, and that of such other occupations as the Sunday law was intended to prohibit, and thus the law would fail of its purpose in prohibiting these occupations on Sunday; that is, it would so fail by means of the very thing which they themselves propose–the exempting of observers of another day in hope of checking their opposition to the law. His remarks are summed up in the following sentences:–

"Now, you go to our Seventh day Baptist or Adventists friends, for instance, and propose to introduce a principle by which they can carry on the Post-Office Department on the Sabbath just as completely as they see fit. In other words, you propose to exempt them from the operation of the law so far as it prohibits post-office work on the Sabbath. Suppose you have a Seventh-day Baptist man for postmaster. Suppose you fill up every post-office in the country on the Sabbath, with Seventh-day Baptist people. You have the Post-Office Department in operation by virtue of this exemption because they can do the work conscientiously on that day."

To this Mrs. Bateham made the following reply:–

"If you remember the clause, we do not propose to provide that they shall be able to do this work; but that they shall be exempt from the penalty. They are not allowed to do the work; but they are to be exempted from the penalty. Therefore, unless they could prove that they had not done this work to the disturbance of others, it would be impossible for them to carry on post-office matters, for instance, or any other public employment, on Sunday."

If any further evidence is needed on this it is presented by Dr. W. F. Crafts himself in his Sabbath Reform Documents , No. 28, in which he says that "The only States that have just and practicable exceptions on this point [of 'the usual exemption'] are New Jersey and Arkansas." And then that all may know exactly what the only just and practicable exemption is he presents as the example the following exemption found in the code of New Jersey:–

"Every inhabitant of this State who religiously observes the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath, shall be exempt from answering to any process in . . . or equity, either as defendant, witness, or juror, except in criminal cases; likewise from executing on the Sunday the duties of any post or office to which he may be appointed or commissioned, except when the interests of the State may absolutely require it, and shall also be exempt from working on the highways and doing any militia duty on that day except when in actual service. If any person, charged with having labored on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday, shall be brought before a justice of the peace to answer the information in charge thereof, and shall then and there PROVE TO THE SATISFACTION OF THE SAID JUSTICE if he or she uniformly keeps the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath, and habitually abstains from following his or her usual occupation or business, and from its recreation, and devotes the day to the exercises of religious worship, then such defendant shall be discharged PROVIDED ALWAYS, that the work of labor for which such person is informed against, was done and performed by his third dwelling-house or work-shop, or on his or her premises or plantation, and that such work or labor has not disturbed other persons in the observance of the first day of the week as the Sabbath; and provided also, that nothing in this section shall be construed to allow any such person to openly expose to sale any goods, wares, or merchandise, or other article or that whatsoever in the light of his or her business or occupation."

That is say that by "the usual exemption of those who observe the Sabbath day," every person who observes any other day than Sunday, is subject to surveillance, to rest, and prosecution; and is thus subject to be put to all the expense, inconvenience, and that of a course the prosecution, up to the point where it is discovered that all the manifold restrictions of the exemption have been complied with–then, and only then, the penalty of the Sunday law shall not be applied in his case.

In other words, no one can be exempt from the re-

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quirements of the law; no one shall be allowed to do any work, either public or private, on Sunday, without being subject prosecution. But when the prosecution has been put through its full course, then he may be exempt from the penalty, provided he has fulfilled all the requirements of "the usual exemption," which are that he shall "believe in," and "conscientiously believe in," and "conscientiously believe in" and "regularly" observe, and "conscientiously believe in" and "religiously" observe, another day than Sunday; and provided the work which was done was a "work of religion," or a work of "real necessity and mercy or such private work as does neither interfere with the general rest or with public worship."

This is also certain, because it is already a settled rule of the courts: that the burden of proof lies on him who claims exemption; and also because Mrs. Bateham, speaking for the N. W. C. T. U., said that "unless they could prove that the work had not been to the disturbance of others, it would be impossible for them" to have the benefit of the exemption.

And such is "the usual exemption for those who keep the Sabbath day." By the official and representative statement of the N. W. C. T. U., we know that such is "the usual exemption for those who keep the Sabbath day."

And that such is its exact operation was stated by Mrs. Tomlinson, in the late national convention at Seattle, and can be confirmed by the actual experience of nearly a hundred cases in the courts of several States within the last few years.

What, then, is "the usual exemption for those who keep the Sabbath day" worth, which the N. W. C. T. U. has put itself on record as favoring?–It is not worth paper that it is written on. It is a delusion and a snare to all who favor it.

We do not say that the women of the W. C. T. U. understand that all this is in the usual exemption; but that is exactly what is in it, whether they understand it not. And we write this simply that they and all may understand what is in it.
A. T. J.

"'Without the Constitution'" American Sentinel 15, 3 , pp. 35-37.

A YEAR ago Harper's Weekly regarded with the greatest disfavor the suggestion that the United States would govern the island possessions without the Constitution. This, because such a suggestion was fraught with peril to all true constitutional government in this nation.

Within the year 1899, however, Harper's Weekly was completely revolutionized. Accordingly, in next to the last number for that year the Weekly takes positive ground in favor of the United States governing all her island possessions without the Constitution. It is interesting to notice this position which is new ground for the nation in her governing.

Citing an admittedly questionable application of a Supreme Court decision, the Weekly says: "We have never been able to see why this decision does not necessarily sustain the contention that Congress, with the President's consent, or over his veto, may establish in the government it pleases over a Territory, without regard to the limitation of the Constitution."

This conclusion the Weekly then supports by a citation from another decision of the Supreme Court–the decision by which the property of the Mormon Church corporation was confiscated by the United States Government–which at the time it was rendered we showed in these columns was positively a monarchical decision: a decision which in principle made the United States Government a monarchy. See AMERICAN SENTINEL, Vol. 6, p. 147 (A.D. 1891).

From that monarchical, absolutist decision, Harper's Weekly quotes thus:–

"Doubtless Congress, in legislating for the Territories, would be subject to those fundamental limitations in favor of personal rights which are formulated in the Constitution and its amendments; but these limitations would exist rather by inference and the general spirit of

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the Constitution, from which Congress derives all its powers, than by express and correct application of its provisions."

And upon this quotation the Weekly proceeds thus:–

"In other words, the limitations as to personal rights are not binding in law, but are binding in morals. Therefore, whenever Congress deems that morality, including the essentials of good government, requires that these limitations shall not be observed, it is not only its right, but its duty to disregard them. . . .

"Congress, we think, under Justice Bradley's decision, would not feel itself obliged to consider at all the limitations [of the Constitution] in framing a law for the government of the Philippines. It would probably deny to the Tagal, for example, the right of assembling, the right to bear arms, the security against search and seizure, guaranteed by our own people. . . . Congress, in a word, would have a perfectly free hand in establishing a government for any of our new possessions, as free as the British Parliament possesses in legislating for the empire."

And the Weekly says that this view of the question is already the one adopted by the present national Administration, inasmuch as "Secretary Root holds the view that the Constitution does not apply to the distant Territories;" and "he is now charged with the government of all the colonies except Hawaii and Alaska:" and that Senator Frye in a published interview "is reported also to have said that the Constitution does not apply."

So much for the new position in regard to the abandonment of the Constitution by the Government, and the governing without the Constitution.

However, it is interesting to notice the curious reasoning, both of the Supreme Court and of Harper's Weekly, by which this abandonment of the Constitution is accomplished and justified.

The Supreme Court says the Congress, so far as it is subject to the Constitution at all in legislating for the Territories, is subject only by inference from the general spirit of it, rather than because of any "direct application of its provisions," and yet in the same breath says that it is the Constitution "from which Congress derives all its powers." And that is simply to say that the instrument "from which Congress derives all its powers" may be disregarded by Congress in the exercise of certain of its powers! In other words, that the Constitution in bestowing upon Congress "all" the powers that Congress can have, has bestowed upon Congress the power to disregard the very instrument from which it derives all its powers!! A sheer absurdity.

The Weekly, in explaining this passage from the Supreme Court decision, and in deriving comfort from it, says that the limitations of the Constitution are "not binding" upon Congress "in law," "but are binding in morals." And then from this draws the remarkable conclusion that "Therefore, whenever Congress deems that morality requires that these limitations shall not be observed, it is not only its right, but its duty, to disregard them." Which is simply to say that "morality" can require the disregard of that which is "binding in morals"! that "it would be duty to disregard" duty!! Another sheer absurdity.

By such reasoning as is displayed in these few examples, it is not in anywise surprising that men will perfectly satisfy themselves that the government in "the Colonies" can be conducted without the Constitution. And by the same sort of reasoning they can very easily satisfy themselves on occasion that government at home here in these United States can also be conducted without the Constitution.

In reviewing in these columns May 7, 1891, the Supreme Court decision quoted now by Harper's Weekly, we said that it "at once creates [in these United States], a sovereign power [apart from the people] and clothing it with paternal authority. And if this doctrine should be maintained, so that it becomes a principal of American law, and shall become established as a principle of government here, then the revolution backwards is complete; government of the people is gone; and that of a sovereign parent of the people as put in its place. THEN the doctrine of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution is subverted and the doctrine of sovereignty, absolutism, and paternalism is established in its stead." And this is now being fulfilled to the very letter, in very deed in the Government of the United States.

At the time of the delivery of that decision by the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice, with Justices Field and Lamar concurring, in a dissenting opinion, uttering a warning to the same effect in the following words:–

"In my opinion Congress is restrained, not merely by the limitations expressed in the Constitution, but also by the absence of any grant of power expressed or implied in that instrument. And no such power as that involved in the act of Congress under consideration is conferred by the Constitution, nor is any clause pointed out as its legitimate source. I regard it of vital consequence, that absolute power should never be conceded as belonging under our system of government to any one of its departments. The legislative power of Congress is delegated and not inherent, and is therefore limited. . . . Nor is there hear any counterpart in Congressional power to the exercise of the ROYAL PREROGATIVE. [And such exercise is] in disregard of the fundamental principle that the legislative power of the United States is exercised by the agents of the people of the Republic is delegated and NOT inherent."

These items suggest that which is susceptible of abundant proof, that this repudiation of the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution by this nation, is a thing of gradual growth and not of a sudden leap. It finds its life in the planting of principles years ago which by clear thinkers were observed and pointed out at the time. And not that the thing is done in open acts, it is also by these thinkers seen to be but the logi-

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cal and inevitable result of the acceptance of the pernicious principles that were insinuated years ago.
A. T. J.

"America Called to 'Rule the World' and Set Up the 'Empire of the Son of Man'" American Sentinel 15, 3 , pp. 37-38.

AT the last session of Congress, Senator Platt of Connecticut, speaking in reply to the idea that foreign conquest is forbidden to Americans by the Declaration of Independence, said that the true and just principle of government is that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of some of the governed." And now, at the opening of the present Congress, Senator Beveridge of Indiana, speaking for and outlining the policy of the administration with reference to foreign conquests, states the same thing in another way, by the assertion that "The Declaration has no application to the present situation. It was written by self-governing men for self-governing men." That is to say, "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the self-governed." Not "all men are created equal," but "all self-governing men are created equal."

Let us suppose that this is what the Declaration of independence means, as this Indiana senator says it is. How would it have served the purpose of the American statesman of 1776?

The Declaration of Independence holds certain truths to be "self-evident," which according to this new interpretation, are that "all self-governing men are created equal," that this class of men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," and that to preserve these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the self-governed." Are the self-evident truths? If they are self-evident, they are evident to all nations on the earth; to all people who have enough intelligence to comprehend the meaning of the language used in stating them. And the people who are now being subjugated by the United States have abundantly proved that they fully comprehend the language of the Declaration of Independence. Is it then self-evident to them that they have not the same natural rights that other people have, and that government, as regards themselves, does not derive is just powers from their consent? To say that such "truths" are self-evident–that these are the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence–is manifest absurdity.

The doctrine that only self-governing people are created equal and have the same unalienable rights, is not only not a self-evident truth, but it is not true at all. It is clearly contrary to the Word of the Creator. For that Word makes no distinction between men, save as regards character. It plainly says the God is no respecter of persons. It makes the same requirements upon all. It says that the Son of God came to the earth and died for all–for the individual of black or brown skin and uncivilized manners, just as truly and as fully as for the individual of white skin and civilized ways. Deny that all men have equal rights by creation, and you destroy the equality upon which all men are placed by the law and the gospel of God. If all men have not equal rights by creation, then their Creator has shown Himself respecter persons, contrary to His Word.

And how, as before inquired, with this new interpretation of the Declaration of Independence have suited the circumstances of 1776? What effect would it have produced upon King George III. and the English parliament, to be told that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of some of the governed?" Could not King George have agreed to that without any change in his views? Could he not have replied to the rebellious colonists, "It is true enough that governments derive their just powers from the consent of some of the governed, but you have not shown that this 'some' must include yourselves. And as a matter of fact, it does not include you at all, but only House of Lords, the House of Commons, and the English nobility." That is what King George could and would have replied to the Declaration of Independence if it had meant what members of Congress are now saying that it means. And what reply could the colonists have made? By the very admission that the consent of only "some" of the governed–of only the "self-governing" ones, the party in power–was necessary to just government, they would wholly have failed to prove the justice of their cause, and would have stood discredited before England and before the world.

Our forefathers of the Revolution put forth the Declaration of Independence in defense of a struggle for liberty. To-day, it is quoted in defense of a fight for conquest, and with this new situation there is evidently demanded a new and vastly different interpretation of its language.

Senator Beveridge has been to the Philippines, and reports that he has "cruised more than two thousand miles through the archipelago," and "ridden hundreds of miles on the islands." He went for the express purpose of making an investigation, upon which he could report before Congress, as he has not done. He therefore speaks as an authority on the subject, and is accepted as such by Congress and the Administration. The question of subjugating the islands is not to be decided by Congress, and this senator is come forward as the authoritative spokesman of the party upholding the policy of foreign conquest that has been begun. It is worth while therefore to note the attitude of this party as indicated by this speech.

The question before the American people is one of justice. The Declaration of Independence was an appeal to justice. The American Constitution was designed as

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the embodiment of the principles of justice in government. By these principles the nation has professed to have been hitherto guided. The question of the justice of foreign conquests, therefore, is the primary question involved, if it is to be even pretended that former American principles have not been completely abandoned.

Turning therefore to the speech of Senator Beveridge in justification of the Government's present attitude in this matter, what do we find? Hardly have we begun its perusal before we come to these words:–

"Just beyond the Philippines are China's illimitable markets."

What is the nation going to do with China's "illimitable markets?" We know what England did–she found China only a good market for opium and she was obliged to force the Chinese to buy that. The Chinese people are very poor. Will this nation force another Chinese market?

Continuing, we read such statements as the following:–

"Our largest trade henceforth must be with Asia. The Pacific is our ocean." "Where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus?" "The Philippines give us a base at the door of all the East."

And here is one that deserves special emphasis:–

"The power that rules the Pacific, therefore, is the power that rules the world. And with the Philippines, that power is and will forever be the American Republic!"

The Republic started out not only to be a "world power," but actually to rule the world!

We read further:–

"China's trade is the mightiest commercial fact in our future. Her foreign commerce was $285,738,300 in 1897, of which we, her neighbor, had less than 15 per cent. . . We ought to have 50 per cent. and we will."

That will leave Russia, France, England, Germany, and other nations to divide up the remaining 50 per cent., a scheme in which it is supposed they will readily acquiesce, to the great gain of the world's peace!

But, aside from all this, we read, the nation ought to take and hold the Philippines, because they are very valuable in themselves. "The wood of the Philippines can supply the furniture of the world for a century to come. At Cebu, the Rev. Father Segrera told me that forty miles of Cebu's mountain chain are practically mountains of coal."

The most remarkable mountain chain in the world, this must be. But that is not all:–

"I have a nugget of pure gold picked up on the banks of a Philippine creek. I have gold dust washed out by crude processes of careless natives from the sands of a Philippine stream. Both indicate great deposits at the source from which they come."

There is gold in the islands!

And the climate also is something wonderful, for it "is the best topic climate in the world." We will not try to adjust this conclusion with what we have heard about the rainy seasons.

The speaker does not forget to state that the Filipinos are not capable of self-government. "It is barely possible that one thousand men in all the archipelago are capable of self-government in the Anglo-Saxon sense. My own belief is that there is not one hundred men among them who comprehend what Anglo-Saxon self-government even means."

There is something mysterious about Anglo-Saxon self-government, as seen to-day, even to ordinary people in America.

The people of the Philippines "are not capable of self-government. How could they be? They are not of a self-governing race. "They are as a people, dull and stupid," and "incurably indolent."

We have heard of white people in America who were dull, stupid, and indolent, but we have never heard that for this reason they ought to be deprived of the right to vote.

In the following words there is forecast a long period of military rule, if not a permanent one, in the new territory:–

"The men we sent to administer civilized government in the Philippines must be themselves the highest examples of our civilization." "They must be as incorruptible as honor, as stainless as purity, men whom no force can frighten, no influence coerce, no money buy."

And if such men cannot be had for this distant territory, then "Better pure military occupation for years, than government by any other quality of administration."

In conclusion, we quote from this speech some statements which contribute especially to its significance. Note this:–

"If this be imperialism, its final end will be the empire of the Son of Man."

And that it is imperialism, and meant to be such, is plainly admitted:–

"Pray God the time may never come when mammon and the love of the ease shall so debase our blood that we will fear to shed it for the flag and its imperial destiny."

And this imperialism is to end in setting up the "empire of the Son of Man!" That was the way Constantine's imperialism was to end, and Charlemagne's. And there are other statements to the same effect:–

"Quick upon the stroke of that great honor [the end of the century] presses upon us our world opportunity, world duty, and world glory," and "Blind indeed is he who sees not the hand of God in events so vast, so harmonious, so benign." "And so, senators, with reverent hearts, where dwells the fear of God, the American people move forward to the future of their hope in the doing of His will." (Italics ours.)

The scheme of foreign conquest into which the nation has gone is now before us in full outline, showing

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its salient and characterizing features. The nation must taken hold the Philippines because they are valuable. They will give us wealth in Asiatic trade and territory, and they contain valuable wood, gold mines, and other treasures. In a word, we must have all this because it means riches to us. This is the consideration urged upon the American people; and in what way does it differ from the consideration which moves to any act of robbery, from seizing territory down to robbing a bank or plundering a house?

And the nation is thus to become a world power; and not only that, but it is actually to rule the world. And this is the will of God, and is to result in setting up the kingdom of the Son of Man!

It is a project which appeals to all classes of people, save those who hold the that all beings created in the image of God are endowed with sacred rights. The wealth to be gained appeals to the avaricious. The "world opportunity," "world glory," and world rule appeals to the ambitious; and the "call of God" to go forward and set up the "empire of the Son of man," appeals to the religious. All these can unite in giving it enthusiastic support; and all present indications affirm that this will actually be done.

All who can now say that this Republic has not now reach the greatest crisis in its history?

"In the Light of History" American Sentinel 15, 3 , pp. 39, 40.

IT is never safe to view current events and determine the character of a movement they represent, without the light that can be thrown upon them from history. "History repeats itself," and "the things written aforetime, were written for our instruction and admonition." To ignore the lessons of history is to invite the companionship of error and disaster.

The following passages from the history of the American Revolution, by Sir George Trevelyan, an English writer, are suggestive of the way in which history is repeating itself to-day. They present a parallel between what was then the cause of patriotism, and what is now declared to be only dishonor and treason:–

"The drop scene of the impending American drama as presented to British eyes, was a picture of the New England character daubed in colors which resembled the originals as little as they matched each other. The men of Massachusetts were sly and turbulent, puritans and scoundrels; pugnacious ruffians and arrant cowards. This was the constant theme of the newspapers and the favorite topic with those officers of the army of occupation whose letters had gone the rounds of clubs and country houses. The archives of the Secretary of State were full of trite calumnies and foolish prophecies. Bostonians, so Lord Dartmouth was informed, were not only the worst of subjects but the most immoral of men. . . . If they could maintain the state of independence they would be at war among themselves. (Italics ours.)

And the following expresses the views of the Tory refugees after the evacuation of Boston:–

"In their view congressmen in committeemen were a set of rascals, who only sought to feather their own nest and not to serve their country. According to the theory in the circles Otis started the agitation, which started everything, because his father missed a judgeship. Joseph Warren was a broken man who sought to mend his fortunes by upsetting those of others. John Hancock, too rich to want a place, suffer from wounded vanity, because compelled to walk behind his betters in the order of precedence. Richard Henry Lee had been balked of an appointment as distributor of stamps under the Act which then, and only then, he came forward to denounce. John Adams turned rebel because he was refused a commission of the peace, and Washington never forgive the British war office for having treated him with the neglect which was the natural portion of provincial military officers."

Then there was much in appearance at that time to justify these views. The United States was then far from being this strong, compact Government which the world beholds to-day. Events were constantly happening which were suggestive of anarchy and approaching political dissolution. Life and property were nowhere safe under the law. Congress moved about from place to place to avoid the invasions of British troops, and if there were enemies of the patriot cause who were pleased to scoff at the American "portable government," they dad facts upon which to base their ridicule. Even after victory had crowned the American arms, Congress, though nominally a body of 91 members, was rarely attended by a third of that number. "It degenerated to a mere debating club; was menaced by mutinous, unpaid troops, and forced to wander from town to town to find an abiding place. It possessed no national weight would ever."

Those who had confidently asserted that the colonies, independent, would be at war among themselves–just as confidently as the like assertion is made with reference to another people to-day–soon found much to justify their prediction. Another authority says:–

"The various States, as soon as peace was made with England, were involved at once in territorial disputes, the most serious of which occurred between Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Both claimed the valley of the Wyoming, but the majority of the settlers were from Connecticut. The award was finally made to Pennsylvania, and no further trouble was apprehended. During the winter of 1784 snow was deep and remained well into spring; went off rapidly and flooded the smiling, fertile valley of the Wyoming, burying the farms under a blanket of pebbles and sand. The people were starving. President Dickenson urged the legislature to send prompt relief; but, incredible as it may seem, it refused to help the accursed Yankees; they deserved all they got for settling on Pennsylvania territory. 'The flood was the hand of God punishing trespassers!' A scheme was launched to drive out the starving settlers and apportion their lands among a clique of speculators, so instead of food and raiment

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being given, a company of militia was sent ostensibly to preserve and restore order. That body stole what it could find, insulted women and beat defenseless men. When the settlers resented such action the cry went up: 'The troops are being resisted!' Then Patterson, the militia captain, said dispatches to Dickinson accusing the farmers of sedition, and forthwith attacked the settlement, turned about 500 men, tender women and delicate children out of doors and set fire to their homes! They were driven in the wilderness at the bayonet's point and told to find their way back to Connecticut: Many died from hunger and exhaustion. Of course this was going further than the Pennsylvania government desired; all Connecticut sprang to arms, and civil war was only averted by a meeting of the Pennsylvania censors who made tardy reparation to the despoiled settlers."

"Consider that this was nearly three years after the surrender of Yorktown, which virtually ended the Revolutionary war. It seemed to Europe when this affair, other boundary disputes not so serious, and the commercial war which New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts were waging against each other, came to its notice that anarchy must surely come. Public opinion in England thought that what English arms had failed to do would be accomplished by the internecine strife of the colonies, and they would return one by one to their old allegiance."

And yet all this represented the sacred cause of liberty and justice to human rights. Out of all this spring order, peace, and the freest and best government on the face of the earth. The colonists were right and their detractors were wrong. The cause of self-government was just, and that of foreign rule unjust. And the cause of self-government is no less just to-day.

"Back Page" American Sentinel 15, 3 , p. 48.

THERE are three discoveries which are usually involved in the process of absorbing new territory into the domain of a powerful nation. First–always first–the discovery is made that the new territory is very valuable. Next it is discovered that the stronger power owes a duty to the weaker power to educate it in the ways of right living, in the meantime taking charge of its affairs and the custody of its possessions. And third, it is seen that the hand of God is in it pointing the way to destiny, and that the extension of sovereignty can be carried out as a really pious undertaking. And this third stage in the process appears to have been reached by the United States, for we hear the nation being called upon by its statesmen to go forward and take forcible possession of the riches of the Orient, "with reverent hearts" and "in the fear of God." A happy combination indeed of "duty" and pleasure!

A MEMBER of the "United Christian Party" has sent us a copy of the "Declaration of Principles" of that organization, and informs us that "We do not seek to unite church and state, but we seek to unite professed Christian voters to work and vote for righteous principles."

We do not doubt that this party is not working to secure his conception of a union of church and state, and therefore do not question his honesty in making this statement. His conception of church-and-state union is held by very many honest and good people, but it is a narrow one. He would have all "professed Christian voters," unite to put in political office men who will enforce "righteous principles" in government. And it is certain that religious "righteous principles" are intended, because the call is to "Christian" voters.

This simply means, therefore, its enforcement of religious beliefs and institutions through politics, or the union of religion with the state. It can have no practical significance other than this. But this is just what is done under a union of church and state.

Of course, this would not mean that the state would side with one popular church against another popular church, as these people think would be necessary to constitute a union of church and state. They have in mind the well-known churches of the land, and a union of church and state means, to them, a union of the state with some one of these, to the exclusion of the others. But this, even if it could be done, would be but a mild form of church-and-state union, for the reason that the other popular churches would be too powerful to be treated with disrespect. They would be able to enforce their rights, and would of course do so. An illustration of this is seen in England to-day. The "Church of England" is the established church; it is joined with and supported by the state. But the Nonconformists are as large a body as the state church; and the result is they are treated with respect and no serious infringement of their rights is attempted.

It is where one church is powerful, and another weak and unpopular, that church-and-state union is seen in its malignant form. It is then that the dissenting body is despised and treated with contempt, and the rights of its members trampled upon and accorded no serious consideration. This is the way it has always been in history, and this world will never become so good that history will not repeat self in this respect. It should be remembered that the worst evils of church-and-state union were seen under the long reign of the papacy, when only one "Christian" church was known and recognized in the world. It was then that persecution raged most fiercely against a small, weak, and popular, despised bodies of true Christians.

January 25, 1900

"Front Page" American Sentinel 15, 4 , p. 49.

INTOLERANCE of man is never an attribute of Christianity.

NO WEAPON of Christian warfare is made to coerce men into doing right.

THE Sabbath was given to man without any law save the law God; and it needs no new support to-day.

IF men do not keep the Sabbath, that does not hurt the Sabbath, but it injures those for whom the Sabbath was made. They, and not the Sabbath, need protection; but the protection they need is to be kept from the power of sin in their own hearts, and that protection only God can supply.

AMS MORALITY is inseparable from religion, legislation cannot be based upon moral grounds without also resting on religious grounds, and thus becoming religious legislation. Proper legislation is not to preserve morals, but rights. The preservation of morality can be accomplished only by spiritual agencies.

NO PERSON is authorized to define the meaning of the Word of God for another person, or for the Government; nor can this authority belong to any number of persons together. The Holy Spirit alone holds the office of making clear to the mind the meaning of the divine Word, to each and every mind individually.

THE natural right of every man to be let alone by others, to enjoy himself in this life in whatever way he may feel inclined, is a self-evident truth,–one that all men recognize alike. It is the one ground that is common to all,–the one ground upon which all men have equality one with another. Hence it is the one proper ground of human legislation. Moral truths are not self-evident, and the authority for moral truths is not one which all men recognize, and to attempt to define and enforce moral truths would necessarily involve a despotism of one class over another. It is a part of each person's business to preserve his freedom of thought and action (within the bounds of natural rights) unmolested; but it is no part of his business to molest others by imposing upon them his views of moral or religious duty. The right of liberty for one is the right of liberty for all.

"The Same Now as Always Before" American Sentinel 15, 4 , pp. 49-51.

THERE are a whole lot of people who, through lack of careful attention in years past, as well as now, utterly fail to understand the position of the AMERICAN SENTINEL in relation to present issues.

These folks think that the AMERICAN SENTINEL is opposed to national expansion, and to imperialism as to territory. This is altogether a mistake: an entire misapprehension of the SENTINEL'S position, its work, and its principals.

As to expansion in itself, the United States might expand to the ends of the earth and the AMERICAN SENTINEL would never have a word to say against it. As for imperialism in territory the Uuited [sic.] States might extend its jurisdiction over the territory of a whole earth and the AMERICAN SENTINEL would never have any occasion to utter a word in opposition.

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But when in her expansion and her imperial absorption of territory, the Declaration of Independence must be repudiated, and the Constitution abandoned; when in such a career the fundamental principles of the nation and of natural right, are utterly ignored and when not ignored are scouted; here only and for this cause alone, it is that the AMERICAN SENTINEL enters its protest.

If this nation would simply hold fast in unswerving allegiance, the Declaration of Independence and the National Constitution in letter and in spirit, and should expand to the ends of the earth, then her expansion would be an unmixed blessing to the whole world; as in her original little sphere, and her earlier expansion, and in spite of all other power, she has been a blessing to the whole world. If these vital principles of this nation were held by the nation in unquestioning faithfulness, and its imperialism were only in territory, even though it should embrace the territory of the whole world; that also would be a blessing to the world. And the AMERICAN SENTINEL would be glad of it all; because, to enlighten and bless the whole world with these principles is just what, and only what, this nation was planted for.

Therefore, neither with expansion nor with imperialism in territory, has the SENTINEL ever had anything to do, nor will ever have anything to do. But since it is the indisputable truth that this expansion and imperialism is, in every element and at every step carried on in open and entire repudiation of the Declaration of Independence and in disregard of the plain word as well as the whole spirit of the Constitution; since all the opportunities of expansion and imperialism, are made only occasions for the further abandonment of the vital principles of this nation, which were given for the enlightenment of the world; then it is, and this is why it is, that in the interests of mankind, and in behalf of blessing to the world, the AMERICAN SENTINEL opposes the principles of this expansion and this imperialism: the principles bear in mind–not the things, but the principles.

Thus expansion and imperialism in territory might be extended by this nation to the ends of the earth and made to embrace the whole world; and if the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution were in faithfulness carried with it and through it all everywhere, nobody could rightfully have anything whatever to say against it because it would be only for the blessing of the world. Whereas on the other hand, even though expansion had never reached beyond the limits of the possessions of the original thirteen States, and even though imperialism in territory had never been either heard of or mentioned in this nation; yet if imperialism in principle and in governmental practise had been entertained now; and if the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution had been repudiated as they are now; then every Christian and everybody else who has any regard for self-evident truth and the natural rights of mankind, would, in integrity to principle, be required to say just what the AMERICAN SENTINEL is saying. Any such repudiation of principle by this nation can be but the calamity of the world.

In this misapprehension and misjudging of the SENTINEL by these folks, there is a point that is very strange; that is, how anybody who has ever read the AMERICAN SENTINEL to any extent, can think that its present position and views of the SENTINEL on this subject are in any sense now. In all this the SENTINEL stands precisely where it has always stood, and it says exactly what it has always said. The only thing that is new is the new phase of things that has developed in which are now applied the same things which we have always said. And even this new phase of things is but altogether new: it is in present procedure largely of actual fulfillment of that which long ago we said would certainly come of seed that was then being sown.

This could be proved to the length of pages from the files of the SENTINEL of years past. We shall not attempt to take the space for anything like all of it. In this week's SENTINEL there is an instance in point: when in the subject of governing without the Constitution, as now being done, we quoted from the columns of the SENTINEL of May 7, 1891, what we then said would certainly come, and which has now actually come. And here is another instance: In the SENTINEL of June 11, 1891, under the heading of "There is Mischief in It," we discussed certain issues that were then current. In that discussion we were obliged to consider and note the principle and development of a one-man power, and the despotism, in the Roman Republic; and the turning of it by the church power into a religious despotism. It was there and then remarked that by false principles and wrong practises among the people there was developed first that devil despotism which was at last turned into a religious despotism. And now we quote:–

"[Thus there was developed] more and more the despotism of the many, till it was merged in a despotism of three–the first triumvirate–which ended in the despotism of one, whom they murdered, which immediately again by a despotism of three–the second triumvirate–which ended again in the despotism of one–Cesar-Augustus–and the final establishment of the imperial despotism, the most horrible civil despotism that ever was, and which continued until Constantine and the political bishops turned it into the most horrible religious despotism that ever was.

"That was the end of that story then and there, and the perfect likeness to it will be the end of this story now and here.

"And this answers the query of one of our correspondents, as to what business has the SENTINEL, a religious paper, to touch this question which is political. We are persuaded that the SENTINEL has not missed its calling, nor spent its efforts in vain in this respect. The SENTINEL is a religious paper, that is true, and it exists for the sole purpose of exposing to the American people the movement for the establishment of a religious despotism here, after the model of the papacy.

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"But no religious despotism can ever be established over a free people. It were literally impossible to establish a religious despotism over the royal freemen who made the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution.

"This gradual but steady perversion and subversion of the genuine principles of this Government as established by our forefathers, this steady inculcating of the principles of paternalism, is but sowing the seeds of a despotism–whether of the many, of the few, or of one, it matters not–which at the opportune moment will be joined by the political preachers, and out of the wicked alliance thus formed there will come the religious despotism in the perfect likeness of the one which was before, and against which the continuous efforts of the AMERCAN SENTINEL have ever been and ever shall be directed.

"And that is the reason, and the only reason, yet reason enough, why the AMERICAN SENTINEL, a religious paper, touches this otherwise political question. . . .

"It may be that our correspondents will not agree with us just now; but that matters nothing to us. Five years ago [1886] when the SENTINEL first called attention to the movement to establish a religious despotism, we were criticised and pooh-poohed for that more than we are now for calling attention to this surest forerunner of it. But the SENTINEL knew then just what it was doing; and it knows now what it is doing just as well is it did then. Those who objected then, know now that we were right then; and those who object now may know sometime that we were right now; and we shall have known it all the time. . . .

"And we are perfectly willing to trust to the event to demonstrate that the coming religious despotism will be established substantially in the manner here outlined."

And now 1899 and 1900, this which in June, 1891, we said would come–a one-man power–is coming as fast as the days go by. That which in June, 1891, we were willing to trust to the event to demonstrate, is now January, 1900, being constantly demonstrated before the eyes of the whole world by the steady progress of events that the AMERICAN SENTINEL occupied, and speaks precisely the same things that it has always spoken, when it opposes the abandonment of the Constitution and the repudiation of the Declaration of Independence which are the acknowledged, and even the boasted, accompaniments of this expansion and imperialism of this nation. A. T. J.

It is the same way with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and others who are working for religious legislation. They do not all intend to establish a religious despotism, they do not all intend to persecute, but a religious despotism with its attendant persecutions, is in the principle of the thing, and will all appear as surely as they secure what they demand, nor will either the wickedness or the cruelty of the thing be relieved by the fact that they did not intend it.

We say to all, have nothing to do with either the religious or the civil movement. In religion let your dependence be upon God, and not upon the Government. And in civil things, let your dependence be upon your own manly self and not upon a paternal, pampering, coddling, meddling government, which must needs tell you what you shall eat and drink and wear, how long you shall work, when you are tired, when you shall rest, and when you shall be religious.

"National Reform Notes" American Sentinel 15, 4 , pp. 52-54.

THE following items of interest pertaining to the progress of the National Reform movement, are gathered from the latest of the National Reform organ Christian Statesman:–

IN the annual report of the Postmaster-General recommendation is made to Congress in favor of "the modification of the eight-hour law, which shall provide for six days' work of forty-eight hours, with as much additional hours on Sunday, not exceeding eight, as the exigencies of the service may demand." This disregard of the claims made for Sunday as a sacred day called forth a "faithful rebuke" from the theocratic party and "Mr. Smith [the Postmaster-General] has assured the editor of the Statesman that no such recommendation will ever again find place in his report."

"WITH the increasing prosperity of the times it now seems probable," says the Statesman, "that this year's receipts will be far in advance of those of any recent year." And these will be used "to carry forward the many important lines of practical work now in hand." "The present list of workers in the National Reform cause," we read further, "is by far the largest during the entire history of the movement," and "with such a corps of workers the year 1900 will be the inauguration of a new era in the cause of National Reform."

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THE proposed religious amendment to the Constitution, by which the Government is to be made "Christian," will, we are told, "safeguard the religious liberty and equality of all citizens by providing toleration and ecclesiastical freedom, and by completely separating church and state." This amazing assertion appears in the Christian Statesman as a part of an "admirable argument" prepared by Prof. J. McNaugher in support of a resolution passed at the late National Reform convention in this city.

To determine how much truth this assertion contains, we have only to note that under the State enforcement of Sunday observance, which the theocratic party aim by means of this amendment to make more rigid and more widespread, exactly the same results have followed that were seen under the religious persecutions of former times. This party want Sunday enforcement not only by authority of the States, but of the nation. This party want the Government to become "Christian" in order that Sunday enforcement may become more general and more rigid. And they say this would not bring religious persecution. It would not infringe religious liberty, but would safeguard it. But note: in various States of the Union, under the operation of existing Sunday laws, people who for conscience' sake could not conform to such requirements, believing themselves bound by the law of God to honor the seventh day of the week and not the first day, have been arrested, fined, imprisoned, worked in the chain-gang, and treated just as "heretics" were treated under the religious persecutions of the Dark Ages, except that they have not yet suffered the death penalty. In the one case the system has not been carried quite as far as in the other, but it is the same in character, for it bears the same kind of fruit. If a system of government that is called for does not mean religious persecution, then religious persecution will not be possible under it. And where such persecution does appear, the system under which it appears is plainly stamped as an invasion of religious freedom, however strongly its defenders may assert its innocence.

"A joint resolution has been introduced into the Senate of the United States by Mr. Kyle, which proposes the following amendment as Article XVI. of the Constitution: 'The Congress as the highest law-making power of a Christian nation, shall have exclusive power to regulate marriage and divorce in the several States, Territories, and the District of Columbia.' This amendment, if adopted, would harmonize the action of the legislative department of the Government with the decision of the Supreme Court in which it is declared that 'this is a Christian nation.'"

This would be an "amendment" of the Constitution, with a vengeance. It would sweep away the Constitution altogether. More than this: it would sweep away the Republic altogether, and in its place establish the worst form of monarchy. All this it would do in theory as soon as adopted by Congress; and actually, as soon as it should be carried into effect.

Marriage and divorce are regulated in each State by the State law. This is so by virtue of the principle of American Government which accords to each State the sovereignty over its own affairs. Should this power be taken from the State and given to Congress, this principle would be broken and the regulating power of the State over any other matter might with equal propriety be transferred in like manner. No logical ground would remain in support of the system of independent State government; and the complete absorption of State power by the national Government would follow as a natural result.

But this is not the worse feature of the proposed amendment. Congress, by its provisions, is to exercise this power "as the highest law-making power of a Christian nation." Congress is to become Christian. None but Christians–and orthodox Christians they must be–can be sent to Congress. "We the people of the United States," who ordain the Constitution, will be changed to "We the orthodox Christian people of the United States;" and all others can choose between being governed by the "orthodox Christians" or emigrating to some other land. Indeed, they have already been invited to emigrate by representatives of this "Christian" party.

And this, as the National Reform party correctly sees, "would harmonize the action of the legislative department of the Government with the decision of the Supreme Court in which it is declared that 'this is a Christian nation.'" Such is the nature and meaning of that decision.

THE God-in-the-Constitution party are trying hard to make capital out of the action of Congress in the Roberts' case. They want the Government to base its action against polygamy on religious grounds. At the annual business meeting of this association, the Committee on Resolutions was instructed to prepare "resolutions on the exclusion of Brigham H. Roberts, an avowed polygamist, from Congress, and on the securing of an amendment to the national Constitution excluding polygamists from all national offices on Christian grounds."

This scheme is now being actively pushed by the "reform" forces at Washington. "Several Joint Resolutions have been introduced into the House of Representatives for an anti-polygamy amendment to the Constitution." One of these reads thus: 'Polygamy is hereby declared to be an offense against the United States, and forever prohibited within them or any place subject to their jurisdiction; and no person engaged in the practise therefore shall hold any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States or any State." The theocratic party want to have inserted in this, after "polygamy," the words "being condemned by the law

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of Christ governing the marriage relation." The importance in this critical juncture," says the Statesman, "of giving to an anti-polygamy amendment an distinctly Christian character, with an express acknowledgment embodied in it of the law of Christ as of supreme authority in the government of the marriage relation, cannot be overestimated."

It is indeed a matter of great importance whether the Government legislates against polygamy and debars polygamists from office because of the law of Christ, or whether it is done upon purely secular grounds. For if the Government is to enforce one thing because it is demanded by the law of Christ, how can it refuse to enforce any other thing demanded by that law? The Government would be logically bound to attempt to enforce the law–or will–of Christ in all things, and thus to make itself a theocracy, executing the dictates of the church and calling back the dark days of religious persecution. It is to this ignoble point that the National Reform "God-in-the-Constitution" theocratic party are with untiring zeal striving to lead this nation.

IN behalf of the "religious amendment to the Constitution" demanded by the theocratic party, it is argued that "The conducting of civil government requires continually the determination of national moral problems." And "this necessity proves the nation itself to be a moral agent, and that it needs an infallible standard for its guidance, such as only the moral law of the Christian religion affords."

It is true that a being having moral responsibility needs to be guided by an infallible standard to be used by the Government? The theocratic "reformers" insist that the Government shall enforce the observance of Sunday. They say this is a duty commanded by the Decalogue. That is their view–their opinion–of it. But is their opinion infallible? And when they insist that the Government enforce their opinion of the meaning of the moral law, will the Government then be guided by an infallible standard? Certainly it will not. No man is infallible; no assemblage or organization of men is infallible. And no man or organization of men can give an infallible application of the moral law. No infallible directions can be given to the Government by any man or men with reference to moral duty. The Government, if it permits any such moral guidance, will be infallibly led astray.

The infallible standard afforded by the Word of God is of practicable value only through the agencies of instruction which God himself bas [sic.] provided. God has given, to the believer, his Holy Spirit, as an infallible guide into all truth. This cannot possibly be dispensed with. The infallible voice must be the voice of God, never the voice of man.

And as each individual of the human family is required to have faith, and to seek to the Lord for wisdom, so is the guidance of the Holy Spirit for each individual, independently of all others. The infallible standard of morality can be seen in its application to human affairs only by each individual for himself, and only within the limits of his own moral responsibilities. When one person attempts to apply God's infallible moral standard within the sphere of another person's responsibilities, he puts himself in the place of God, and can only lead others into darkness instead of light.

There is already in the world, and has been for centuries, a religious organization, which professes to do just what these reformers have in mind to do: it professes to apply the infallible moral standard to the affairs of governments as well as of individuals, and is ready to point out certain requirements as being morally binding upon governments. That organization is the papacy; and it became the papacy only by holding to the doctrine that civil governments are bound by the moral law, and assuming, just as the theocratic party does now, to point out to the civil power the moral duties binding upon it. That organization is as good a one as can be devised for that purpose. The National Reform party and its allies are forming another organization which can at best only be exactly like the first one, and not in any way better.

But even it these "reformers" or any body of men on the earth could speak with an infallible voice in applying the moral law to human affairs, the Government would still be debarred from attempting to conform to its requirements, for the reason that a government can not possess moral responsibility. Civil government is a creature of man, and the creature is reponsible [sic.] only to its creator. Civil government exists not to obey law, but to execute it; and the only law that civil government can know is the will of the people who create it. Civil government exists to prevent anarchy in human society, and it has no other purpose whatever. And when it does this, it reaches the limit of its responsibility and its usefulness. It has no other business than to prevent anarchy because there is no other necessity than to prevent anarchy because there is no other necessity for it. It prevents anarchy when it protects the individuals of society in the enjoyment of their natural rights; and it does this by enforcing the laws which have been devised for this purpose. Civil government is a means of serving moral beings, and not a moral being itself. Moral beings, so far as this world is concerned, and human beings, always. At the first, the only moral beings on the earth were Adam and Eve, and all other moral beings since their time are only such as have descended from them. God alone can create a being having moral responsibility.

BE intolerant as you please of sin in your own heart, but remember that you cannot look into the hearts of others.

"Position of the N. W. C. T. U. Regarding Sunday Laws" American Sentinel 15, 4 , pp. 51, 52.

BY indisputable facts and records, we have shown to some extent the character of "the usual exemption" with respect to Sunday laws, "for those who keep the Sabbath day," which by resolution and otherwise is favored by the N. W. C. T. U.

Now it must be remembered that this resolution favoring that "usual exemption" was adopted by the Union at the late national convention at Seattle as a substitute for a resolution that was already before the convention; and "as involving all necessary points, and omitting the objectionable ones," in the original resolution.

Understanding the real character and effect of "the usual exemption," which they favor, and that this "covers all necessary points," and avoids all "objectionable ones," in the original resolution, it is of especial interest to study the original resolution that was before the convention, to know what are the objectionable points in it.

And here is that original resolution:–

"Resolved, That as a National Woman's Christian Temperance Union we protest against any such interpretation or use of any lines of our work as shall give aid or comfort to those who, through ignorance, prejudice, or malice, would enact or enforce such laws as can be made to serve the purpose of pursecution [sic.] or to in any manner interfere with the most perfect liberty of conscience concerning days, or the manner of their observance."

Now we ask every soul to look carefully through that resolution, word by word and clause by clause. Please consider it in all its bearings from beginning to end. And when you have thoroughly weighed and considered it, then reflect, and weigh also the fact, that the N. W. C. T. U., in convention assembled, found in that resolution objectionable points to such an extent that it was actually set aside for a substitute involving such points who keep the Sabbath day."

According to the situation as it stands, the W. C. T. U. has taken the position that it is an objectionable

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thing for anybody to ask the N. W. C. T. U. to protest against any such interpretation or use of any lines of W. C. T. U. work as shall give aid or comfort to those who, through ignorance, prejudice, or malice, would enact or enforce such laws as can be made to serve the purposes of persecution.

Accordingly, therefore, to the W. C. T. U. it is not an objectionable thing for anybody, through ignorance, prejudice, or malice, so to use any lines of W. C. T. U. work as to enact or enforce such laws as can be made to serve the purpose of persecution.

It is an objectionable thing for anybody to ask the N. W. C. T. U. to protest against any such interpretation or use of any lines of W. C. T. U. work as shall in any manner interfere with the most perfect liberty of conscience concerning days, or the manner of their observance.

Accordingly, therefore, it is not an objectionable thing for anybody to use any lines of W. C. T. U. work so as to interfere with perfect liberty of conscience concerning days and the manner of their observance.

It is an objectionable thing for anybody to ask the N. W. C. T. U. to protest against the use of their material and machinery, even by the prejudiced and malicious, in persecuting.

It is not, to the national Union, an objectionable thing for anybody, even in prejudice and malice, to use the material and machinery of the N. W. C. T. U. to persecute concerning days and the manner of their observance.

So the N. W. C. T. U. has taken its position, has written itself down, and has published itself to the world. Assuredly, therefore, it was proper and most timely that a member should give notice, as was given, "that at the next annual convention I, or some one in my place, will offer the following amendment to the constitution.

"ARTICLE VI.–PLANS OF WORK

"Nothing shall ever be incorporated into any plan of N. W. C. T. U. work, by department or otherwise, which must of necessity become the occasion of sectarian controversy, or which can in any sense be made to interfere with perfect liberty of conscience."

Now let it be understood that we do not say that the N. W. C. T. U. consciously, intentionally, and of forethought, put themselves thus on record as not objecting to persecution or interference with liberty of conscience concerning days and the manner of their observance. We are perfectly satisfied, and free to say, that the women of the convention did what they did without any consideration at all of the real thing that they were doing. It is evident that they allowed their fears for Sunday and Sunday laws to become so aroused that they utterly lost sight of all merits of the resolution before them; that all calmness of consideration was forgotten; and that in this "state of mind" they rushed the resolution out of the way by whatever means possible. And in the doing of this, they committed themselves to the position that it is objectionable for anybody to ask them to protest against the use of their material and machinery to persecute and to interfere with liberty of conscience concerning days and the manner of their observance.

It is a good thing that the national Union has the whole year before it, in which to consider and to look soberly at what they really did, and then have an opportunity in the next annual convention to correct the mistake into which they allowed themselves to be hurried.

And having considered the subject for a whole year, then, at the next annual convention, will they really correct their mistake? or will they confirm their declaration to the effect that it is an objectionable thing for them to be asked to protest against any such interpretation or use of any lines of W. C. T. U. work as can be made to serve the purposes of persecution, or to interfere with the most perfect liberty of conscience concerning days and the manner of their observance? These are proper and interesting questions.
A. T. J.

"National Reform Notes" American Sentinel 15, 4 , pp. 52-54.

THE following items of interest pertaining to the progress of the National Reform movement, are gathered from the latest of the National Reform organ Christian Statesman:–

IN the annual report of the Postmaster-General recommendation is made to Congress in favor of "the modification of the eight-hour law, which shall provide for six days' work of forty-eight hours, with as much additional hours on Sunday, not exceeding eight, as the exigencies of the service may demand." This disregard of the claims made for Sunday as a sacred day called forth a "faithful rebuke" from the theocratic party and "Mr. Smith [the Postmaster-General] has assured the editor of the Statesman that no such recommendation will ever again find place in his report."

"WITH the increasing prosperity of the times it now seems probable," says the Statesman, "that this year's receipts will be far in advance of those of any recent year." And these will be used "to carry forward the many important lines of practical work now in hand." "The present list of workers in the National Reform cause," we read further, "is by far the largest during the entire history of the movement," and "with such a corps of workers the year 1900 will be the inauguration of a new era in the cause of National Reform."

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THE proposed religious amendment to the Constitution, by which the Government is to be made "Christian," will, we are told, "safeguard the religious liberty and equality of all citizens by providing toleration and ecclesiastical freedom, and by completely separating church and state." This amazing assertion appears in the Christian Statesman as a part of an "admirable argument" prepared by Prof. J. McNaugher in support of a resolution passed at the late National Reform convention in this city.

To determine how much truth this assertion contains, we have only to note that under the State enforcement of Sunday observance, which the theocratic party aim by means of this amendment to make more rigid and more widespread, exactly the same results have followed that were seen under the religious persecutions of former times. This party want Sunday enforcement not only by authority of the States, but of the nation. This party want the Government to become "Christian" in order that Sunday enforcement may become more general and more rigid. And they say this would not bring religious persecution. It would not infringe religious liberty, but would safeguard it. But note: in various States of the Union, under the operation of existing Sunday laws, people who for conscience' sake could not conform to such requirements, believing themselves bound by the law of God to honor the seventh day of the week and not the first day, have been arrested, fined, imprisoned, worked in the chain-gang, and treated just as "heretics" were treated under the religious persecutions of the Dark Ages, except that they have not yet suffered the death penalty. In the one case the system has not been carried quite as far as in the other, but it is the same in character, for it bears the same kind of fruit. If a system of government that is called for does not mean religious persecution, then religious persecution will not be possible under it. And where such persecution does appear, the system under which it appears is plainly stamped as an invasion of religious freedom, however strongly its defenders may assert its innocence.

"A joint resolution has been introduced into the Senate of the United States by Mr. Kyle, which proposes the following amendment as Article XVI. of the Constitution: 'The Congress as the highest law-making power of a Christian nation, shall have exclusive power to regulate marriage and divorce in the several States, Territories, and the District of Columbia.' This amendment, if adopted, would harmonize the action of the legislative department of the Government with the decision of the Supreme Court in which it is declared that 'this is a Christian nation.'"

This would be an "amendment" of the Constitution, with a vengeance. It would sweep away the Constitution altogether. More than this: it would sweep away the Republic altogether, and in its place establish the worst form of monarchy. All this it would do in theory as soon as adopted by Congress; and actually, as soon as it should be carried into effect.

Marriage and divorce are regulated in each State by the State law. This is so by virtue of the principle of American Government which accords to each State the sovereignty over its own affairs. Should this power be taken from the State and given to Congress, this principle would be broken and the regulating power of the State over any other matter might with equal propriety be transferred in like manner. No logical ground would remain in support of the system of independent State government; and the complete absorption of State power by the national Government would follow as a natural result.

But this is not the worse feature of the proposed amendment. Congress, by its provisions, is to exercise this power "as the highest law-making power of a Christian nation." Congress is to become Christian. None but Christians–and orthodox Christians they must be–can be sent to Congress. "We the people of the United States," who ordain the Constitution, will be changed to "We the orthodox Christian people of the United States;" and all others can choose between being governed by the "orthodox Christians" or emigrating to some other land. Indeed, they have already been invited to emigrate by representatives of this "Christian" party.

And this, as the National Reform party correctly sees, "would harmonize the action of the legislative department of the Government with the decision of the Supreme Court in which it is declared that 'this is a Christian nation.'" Such is the nature and meaning of that decision.

THE God-in-the-Constitution party are trying hard to make capital out of the action of Congress in the Roberts' case. They want the Government to base its action against polygamy on religious grounds. At the annual business meeting of this association, the Committee on Resolutions was instructed to prepare "resolutions on the exclusion of Brigham H. Roberts, an avowed polygamist, from Congress, and on the securing of an amendment to the national Constitution excluding polygamists from all national offices on Christian grounds."

This scheme is now being actively pushed by the "reform" forces at Washington. "Several Joint Resolutions have been introduced into the House of Representatives for an anti-polygamy amendment to the Constitution." One of these reads thus: 'Polygamy is hereby declared to be an offense against the United States, and forever prohibited within them or any place subject to their jurisdiction; and no person engaged in the practise therefore shall hold any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States or any State." The theocratic party want to have inserted in this, after "polygamy," the words "being condemned by the law

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of Christ governing the marriage relation." The importance in this critical juncture," says the Statesman, "of giving to an anti-polygamy amendment an distinctly Christian character, with an express acknowledgment embodied in it of the law of Christ as of supreme authority in the government of the marriage relation, cannot be overestimated."

It is indeed a matter of great importance whether the Government legislates against polygamy and debars polygamists from office because of the law of Christ, or whether it is done upon purely secular grounds. For if the Government is to enforce one thing because it is demanded by the law of Christ, how can it refuse to enforce any other thing demanded by that law? The Government would be logically bound to attempt to enforce the law–or will–of Christ in all things, and thus to make itself a theocracy, executing the dictates of the church and calling back the dark days of religious persecution. It is to this ignoble point that the National Reform "God-in-the-Constitution" theocratic party are with untiring zeal striving to lead this nation.

IN behalf of the "religious amendment to the Constitution" demanded by the theocratic party, it is argued that "The conducting of civil government requires continually the determination of national moral problems." And "this necessity proves the nation itself to be a moral agent, and that it needs an infallible standard for its guidance, such as only the moral law of the Christian religion affords."

It is true that a being having moral responsibility needs to be guided by an infallible standard to be used by the Government? The theocratic "reformers" insist that the Government shall enforce the observance of Sunday. They say this is a duty commanded by the Decalogue. That is their view–their opinion–of it. But is their opinion infallible? And when they insist that the Government enforce their opinion of the meaning of the moral law, will the Government then be guided by an infallible standard? Certainly it will not. No man is infallible; no assemblage or organization of men is infallible. And no man or organization of men can give an infallible application of the moral law. No infallible directions can be given to the Government by any man or men with reference to moral duty. The Government, if it permits any such moral guidance, will be infallibly led astray.

The infallible standard afforded by the Word of God is of practicable value only through the agencies of instruction which God himself bas [sic.] provided. God has given, to the believer, his Holy Spirit, as an infallible guide into all truth. This cannot possibly be dispensed with. The infallible voice must be the voice of God, never the voice of man.

And as each individual of the human family is required to have faith, and to seek to the Lord for wisdom, so is the guidance of the Holy Spirit for each individual, independently of all others. The infallible standard of morality can be seen in its application to human affairs only by each individual for himself, and only within the limits of his own moral responsibilities. When one person attempts to apply God's infallible moral standard within the sphere of another person's responsibilities, he puts himself in the place of God, and can only lead others into darkness instead of light.

There is already in the world, and has been for centuries, a religious organization, which professes to do just what these reformers have in mind to do: it professes to apply the infallible moral standard to the affairs of governments as well as of individuals, and is ready to point out certain requirements as being morally binding upon governments. That organization is the papacy; and it became the papacy only by holding to the doctrine that civil governments are bound by the moral law, and assuming, just as the theocratic party does now, to point out to the civil power the moral duties binding upon it. That organization is as good a one as can be devised for that purpose. The National Reform party and its allies are forming another organization which can at best only be exactly like the first one, and not in any way better.

But even it these "reformers" or any body of men on the earth could speak with an infallible voice in applying the moral law to human affairs, the Government would still be debarred from attempting to conform to its requirements, for the reason that a government can not possess moral responsibility. Civil government is a creature of man, and the creature is reponsible [sic.] only to its creator. Civil government exists not to obey law, but to execute it; and the only law that civil government can know is the will of the people who create it. Civil government exists to prevent anarchy in human society, and it has no other purpose whatever. And when it does this, it reaches the limit of its responsibility and its usefulness. It has no other business than to prevent anarchy because there is no other necessity than to prevent anarchy because there is no other necessity for it. It prevents anarchy when it protects the individuals of society in the enjoyment of their natural rights; and it does this by enforcing the laws which have been devised for this purpose. Civil government is a means of serving moral beings, and not a moral being itself. Moral beings, so far as this world is concerned, and human beings, always. At the first, the only moral beings on the earth were Adam and Eve, and all other moral beings since their time are only such as have descended from them. God alone can create a being having moral responsibility.

BE intolerant as you please of sin in your own heart, but remember that you cannot look into the hearts of others.

"Back Page" American Sentinel 15, 4 , p. 64.

THE Scriptures constitute a valuable text-book on the subject of "manifest destiny." The destiny of men and of nations is there made very manifest indeed, and one needs only to believe what he reads in order to know all about the subject. "The soul that sinneth it shall die," may be cited as an illustration. That is manifest destiny for one class of people. On the other hand, "he that believeth and is baptized [thus having his sins removed] shall be saved;" and this is manifest destiny for another class of people. The governments and kingdoms of earth are spoken of in Psalms 2 and Daniel 2 as being finally broken in pieces to make way for the setting up of the everlasting kingdom of God (see also Rev. 13, last half); and this is manifest destiny for the governments. And that this is so, no Christian can consistently deny.

February 1, 1900

"Front Page" American Sentinel 15, 5 , p. 65.

THE Sunday law contains the germ of a "Sabbath trust"–a monopoly on Sabbath observance. The meaning of the Sunday law, is, "Our Sabbath or none."

THE heart is the fountain head of the good or evil that blesses or curses society; and only that which can reach the heart can help to cleanse society of its wickedness.

THE true Sabbath keeper is not willing to break the Sabbath in order to find out whether some one else is keeping it, or to force some one else to keep it, or to hire others to do these things.

THE perfect man is simply justified by the moral law, and the transgressor is simply condemned by it. In no case has the law–even the divine law–any power to lift men to a higher moral plane.

IF it had been possible to make men good by law, there would have been no gospel pointing to Jesus Christ as the one and only way of salvation; and every scheme to make men good by law denies the necessity of the gospel.

THE person who tries to drive another person to the Lord, must necessarily be further from the Lord than is the one whom he would drive, since the object driven must always move away from the driver. The individual who comes nearer to God must always be drawn, not driven. This is why individuals and society cannot be made better by law.

THE Sabbath cannot be kept on two days in the same week; for to observe two days by rest from work is not Sabbath observance, since the very essence of Sabbath keeping is the setting apart of one day of the week, by rest, from all the others. Ex. 20:8-11.

GOD made the day for work, and the night for rest. He made the first six days of the week for the pursuance of secular affairs, and the seventh day for rest from secular labors, and the consideration of things spiritual. This is God's order and God's law. Men have been trying to improve upon it ever since it was instituted, but they have never succeeded, and never will.

"A 'Christian Political Union' Called For" American Sentinel 15, 5 , pp. 65, 66.

A "NATIONAL assembly" of "Christian politicians" is to be held May 1, of this year, in the city of Rock Island, Ill., for the purpose of organizing a "Christian Political Union," which will apply "the principles of Christ to the Government of the United States of America." This call, which is in the form of an address adopted by a "conference of Christian men and women" held in Willard Hall, Chicago, December 31 last, is as follows:–

"To all Christian Voters and Friends of Jesus of Nazareth throughout the United States of America, Greeting:

"We believe the fullness of time to have arrived when the eternal principles of justice, mercy and love, as exemplified in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, should be embodied in the political economy of our nation, and

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applied in concrete form to every function of our Government,–national, state, municipal and local.

"We believe that the most direct means of accomplishing this end is the formation of a political body of united Christian men and women, who shall use their elective franchise for the selection of able, worthy, and conscientious public officials who will seek in their respective positions to perform the functions of government in the spirit of the Man of Galilee.

"We believe that a sufficient number of our fellow-citizens have been so spiritually and intellectually enlightened by the example and teachings of Christ and his disciples as to equip them for wise and efficient leadership of such a political force; and to these we appeal for immediate and vigorous co-operation.

"We believe that the pressing need, yea, the necessity of the times among the great masses of our fellow-citizens is a practical application commercially and socially of the spirit and principles of Jesus of Nazareth. . . .

"We therefore call for a national assembly of Christians men and women of legal age, representing every State, territory and possession of the United States of America, to meet in the city of Rock Island, Ill., on the first Tuesday of the month of May (May 1), in the year of our Lord 1900, at the hour of 10 A. M., for the purpose of formulating a plan for national political action.

"For the purpose of securing the fullest possible expression of the will of the people, we recommend that, for this initial national assembly, the number of delegates named by each State, territory, or possession, shall be fixed at the discretion of the constituents. 'Whosoever will, let him' come. The only test of eligibility shall be:–

"Actual personal attendance at the conference and satisfactory answer of the following question: 'Have you been elected as such delegate by a parliamentary body of your fellow citizens, and do you believe in the application of the principles of Christ to the government of the United States of America?'"

These are remarkable statements, and all the more significant because they express a sentiment, or conception, that is everywhere pervading the religious world. And how does this prevailing conception accord with the divine standard of religious truth? Let us note some of its features:–

The "eternal principles of justice, mercy, and love, as exemplified in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ," are now to be "applied in concrete form to every function of our Government." But have these principles, as thus exemplified, been applied in concrete form to the lives of the individual citizens?–Oh no; only to a very small extent. This is a truth plainly seen on every hand. How then can they possibly be applied in the Government, which is of the pople [sic.] and by the people?

"Worthy and conscientious public officials," to be chosen by the people, are to "perform the functions of government in the spirit of the Man of Galilee." And the leaders of this new political force are to be "a sufficient number of our fellow-citizens" who have been equipped for such leadership by being "spiritually and intellectually enlightened by the example and teachings of Christ and his disciples." But where in all the record of the example and teachings of Christ and his disciples, is there to be found any instruction or any precedent, conducting political affairs? The Saviour kept entirely aloof from politics, though the government of Judea was more corrupt in his day than is the government of the United States at the close of the nineteenth century. If it had been important for Christians to apply the principles to the governments of the world, would he not have instructed them upon this point?

The "pressing need" and "necessity of the times" is "a practical application commercially and socially of the spirit and principles of Jesus of Nazareth." Does this mean that there is any greater necessity for society to-day than that of these principles to the individual heart, by God's plan of faith in Jesus Christ? And if it does mean this, can it possibly be true?

The masses of the people are unchristianized; this is plain. Iniquity and corruption abound on every hand. The great cities are like Sodom and ancient Babylon. Men and women are given to every form of worldly pleasure and every form of vice. The church congregations are small. The great majority of the voting population are not even nominally Christian. And yet (it is thought) somehow, through these very people, and without changing them individually at all, the Government is to become Christian! Somehow, through these unchristian masses who do not apply the "principles of Christ" to their own practises at all, these principles are to be applied and carried out in the practises of the Government! This is strange blindness, truly.

In every manifestation of Christianity, the starting point from which it is developed is always the individual heart. This is the starting point, always; and any thing which does not start there–anything which ignores that starting point–cannot be Christianity. And Christianity starts in the individual heart only by the grace of God, through faith.

"The Secret of the National Apostasy" American Sentinel 15, 5 , pp. 67, 68.

THE abandonment by the Government of the United States of the fundamental principle of the nation, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, is not at all a new thing except in the mere acts in which the thing is manifested in practise. This practise is only the fruit of evil seed diligently sown all over the land for more than thirty-five years.

All these years there has been an organization working and aiming definitely to turn the United States Government into a government of another form. Accordingly it has denied the fundamental principles of this nation as the nation was founded.

All these years this organization has had its agents traveling throughout the length and breadth of the land, diligently teaching these principles which are antagonistic to the principles of the nation. These agents have had unquestioned entry into the academies and colleges of the whole country; they have been prominent on the programs of Chautauqua assemblies; they have had the sympathy and support of the churches and of the W. C. T. U. everywhere. And all these opportunities they have employed to the uttermost.

The organization to which we refer is the National Reform Association: which attained a permanent organization in January, 1864. Their theory of government has from the beginning been only the theocratical one; and accordingly they have ever insisted that this nation should incorporate this theory into its Constitution and thus make of the Government a theocracy instead of a republic; its powers seated in a hierarchy instead of being derived from the consent of the governed.

The representatives of this organization have openly proclaimed, as for instance at a convention at Sedalia, Mo., May 23, 24, 1889, that–

"To appeal to divine authority in our legislation would be to fundamentally change the law of our land, or the principle adopted by our fathers when they said that all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. I for one do not believe that as a political maxim. I do not believe that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. And so the object of this movement is an effort to change that feature of our fundamental law. . . . And I see in this reform a providence teaching us the necessity of recognizing something else besides the will of the people as the basis of government.

And as in another instance at Chautauqua (N. Y.) Assembly in August of the same year, a representative of the National Reform combination of organizations, proclaimed:–

"Governments do not derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Now in the discussion of this question in national circles to-day it is recognized that it is the younger generation of public men who are leading in the path of world-glory at the expense of the fundamental principles of the nation; while the old men are the convervatives [sic.], and call for allegiance still to these principles wherever the jurisdiction of the nation may be extended.

This is the truth. And this younger generation of public men of to-day were the boys in the academies and colleges of the country twenty to thirty years ago. And these were the boys who in those academies and colleges were inoculated in those years with this virus of the National Reformers that governments do not derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. And now when those boys as the men of the younger generation in public affairs to-day meet a crisis in which it must be decided whether the fundamental principles of the nation shall be adhered to or repudiated they are prepared, and have long been prepared, to repudiate these principles in the interests of a will-o-the-wisp of "the empire of the Son of God," and in order to the execution of "his will"!

This is the secret and the true philosophy of this repudiation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the nation to-day.

The first definite and decisive national steps in this ruinous course were taken in 1892 when the United States Supreme Court declared that an establishment of religion was within the intent of the Constitution, and that therefore "this is a Christian nation;" and when Congress by definite act set aside the Sabbath of the Lord from his own law, and substituted Sunday in its stead; and when the Executive approved the legislation. In that procedure the national Government in all three of its essential branches, did espouse the principles of a theocracy–the National Reform principle.

After that it was in the nature of things that it would be only a question of occasion and opportunity as to when the fundamental principles of the Republic would be openly repudiated by the nation. In 1898 and onward the opportunity came, and was greedily seized, and the occasion has been to date most diligently employed. And it is all only the logical result of the inculcation of the National Reform principles in the formative years of those who are now the younger generation of present day "statesmen."

Nor has that evil scheme yet reached its culmination; nor will it have reached its culmination until the Government shall have been brought under the sway of a hierarchy, the civil power dominated by the ecclesiastical, after the perfect likeness of the system of the Dark Ages.

Ten years ago in discussing the principles and character of that organization we said: "Such is the National Reform combination and its principles as it stands, in itself considered. And from all this it is evident that the whole scheme and organization forms only a colossal religious combination to effect political purposes, the chief purpose being to change the form of the United

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States Government and turn it into a new 'kingdom of God,' a new theocracy, in which the civil power shall be but the tool of the religious, in which the Government shall no longer drive its just powers from the consent of the governed; but shall be absorbed in the unjust and oppressive power of a despotic hierarchy, acting as the representative of God,' asserting and executing its arbitrary and irresponsible will as the expression of the law and will of God."

And so it is swiftly coming to pass.
A. T. J.

"The Pope, the Archbishop, and the United States" American Sentinel 15, 5 , p. 68.

LATE dispatches from Manila indicate that there was truth in the report recently circulated that the Catholic friars would be maintained in office in the Philippines under American authority. At a reception given by Filipino priests to Archbishop Chapelle, which was attended by the most prominent citizens of Manila, these dispatches state, the "woman principal of the municipal school," who was "one of the guests," "started to read a petition praying for the withdrawal of the friars from the islands," when "Archbishop Chapelle stopped her, saying that question would be regulated by the pope, Gen. Otis, and himself."

Previously, according to report, both the archbishop and Gen. Otis assured the Filipinos that the friars would not be forced upon them against their wish; but now the archbishop's declaration is that the question will be settled according to the wishes of the pope, Gen. Otis, and himself.

The statement was received with an angry demonstration by the Filipino audience, and cries of "no friars in any capacity."

It is clear enough that if the question of subjecting the people to the friars is to be settled by the pope, the archbishop and the American general, it will be settled by the pope and the archbishop; for against these two it is wholly improbable that the American commander, whose business is with military rather than with religious affairs, would offer any serious opposition. All that is wanted of Gen. Otis in this matter is to furnish the military authority and force necessary to carry the decree of the pope and the archbishop into effect.

And what business, it may well be asked, has the American commander in Manila–the representative of the United States–to act in conjunction with the pope and the archbishop in a question to government in the Philippines? Has the United States gone into a government partnership with the papacy in this new territory? and what business have religious officials with civil or military affairs? Whether then the question which is to be regulated by the pope, the general, and the archbishop be a civil or a religious question, what business have these three officers–the religious and one military–to act together in deciding it? How can the American Government do this without playing into the hands of the papacy?

The Filipino people do not want the friars; that is plain. But if they are to have civil and religious freedom, as has been so loudly promised from this side of the Pacific, what have they to fear in the matter? How can the friars be imposed on them against their will, if they are to be religiously and civilly free, as are the people in America? And if they are to be thus free, who but themselves will decide whether they are to have the friars over them or not? And if the people are to be free in the matter–if they are to decide the question themselves for themselves, as would be done in America–how happens it that the question is to be decided by the pope, the archbishop, and Gen. Otis alone? Evidently, if these reports are true, there is neither civil nor religious freedom for the Filipinos under American rule.

"Back Page" American Sentinel 15, 5 , p. 80.

THE Jewish nation reject Christ because they were seeking a political saviour,–a saviour of the nation, from the Romans. Christ came as a personal Saviour and therefore they did not want him. And do we not see the same thing to-day, in the United States? Are not the religious bodies of the land calling for political salvation,–for salvation of the nation, through politics–more loudly than they are calling for personal salvation? And in this are they not rejecting Christ, as did the Jews? Verily they are. Jesus is not a political Saviour, but a Saviour of individuals "from their sins."

February 8, 1900

"Front Page" American Sentinel 15, 6 , p. 81.

NOTHING that is spiritual in its nature can be preserved by a carnal ordinance or commandment.

WHEN men lose sight of principles in a controversy, it is lowered to the level of personal strife; but the contest for liberty and justice can never be settled by such means.

GOD offers the Sabbath rest to all; and the person who will not take the Sabbath when it is offered to him by the Lord, will not really take it when it is accorded him by the "Christian public." If he will not accept it from the law of God, he cannot accept it from the law of man. The acceptance or refusal of the Sabbath, by any individual, must be to God and not to man.

IF the Sabbath could be lost through failure of the law to enforce its observance, or by the general disregard of the people, would not the seventh-day Sabbath have been lost long ago? Yet it has not been lost; and the fact that it has survived without the support of either law or popular custom, is evidence that the Sabbath is not so perishable in its nature as some men loudly assert.

IF the first-day Sabbath is as good as the seventh-day Sabbath, it, like the latter, will survive without the aid of Sabbath laws and in spite of the disregard of world-loving people. And if it is not as good as the seventh-day institution, then plainly the latter ought to be adopted in its stead.

ONE man has the same right to "protection" in the observance of the Sabbath that another man has; the observer of the seventh day has a right to the same protection that is accorded the observer of the first day. And the first-day observer has no right to more "protection" in the observance of the Sabbath than can be justly claimed by the seventh-day observer.

THE Christian Church is in the world not to save institutions, but to save men. Christian institutions do not need saving; and if the church will devote her energies to the salvation of sinful men and women, the institutions will take care of themselves. Christian institutions do not benefit unsaved people; for only those who are Christians can appreciate them and make that use of them which their Author designed.

"Those Consecrated Fallacies" American Sentinel 15, 6 , pp. 81, 82.

IN the North American Review of December, 1899, there was published an article, entitled, "Some Consecrated Fallacies." It is exceedingly interesting to note what are these particular "Consecrated Fallacies."

However, in order to a clear understanding of the subject, it will be well to set down first, just what is a fallacy. The Century Dictionary defines it thus:–

"FALLACY: Deceptiveness; deception; deceit; deceitfulness; that which is erroneous, false, or deceptive; that which misleads; mistake."

What then are these "deceptive," "deceitful," "erroneous," "false," "misleading," and "mistaken" things that have been "consecrated;" and that so need to be exploded as to demand the publication of an

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article in the leading Review of the Western continent? Read:–

"The framers of the Declaration of Independence were inspired by an ardent patriotism and by lofty motives, and their statements embodied in sufficient justification of the cause to which they sought to devote their countrymen; but there was no revelation of universal and eternal truth in the 'glittering generalities' with which they prefaced these statements. On the contrary, they consecrated to perpetuity some of the most obvious fallacies that were ever promulgated to mislead men."

These "consecrated fallacies" then are to be found in the preface to the statements in which the framers of the Declaration embodied the justification of their cause. This confines the "consecrated fallacies" then to that part of the Declaration in which the framers set forth what they designated as "truths," and which they declared to be "self-evident." And that is just where this reviewer finds them; and here he goes:–

"They proclaimed it to be a self-evident truth 'that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'"

And he proceeds to explode these "consecrated fallacies" one by one in the following sort:–

"Whatever interpretation and exegesis may do for this declaration, in the sense in which it is commonly accepted and used in the place of argument it is neither self-evident nor truth. . . . Nor can any power at the command of mankind make them equal in this world or in the processes of time, whatever may be their destiny in eternity."

"It is useless to argue around this immutable fact, or try to interpret into the Declaration a meaning which it does not contain. All men are simply not created equal in any possible sense of the word."

So much for the "consecrated fallacies"–the deceitful, erroneous, misleading statement–that all men are created equal. And, of course, since that statement is not true "in any possible sense of the word," it follows naturally enough that nobody has any rights at all. And so he writes:–

"Nor, in any strict sense of the word, can all men, or any men, be said to be endowed by their Creator with any rights whatever. . . . They [rights] are not the natural endowment, though they may be the far-off heritage, of all men."

And all this being so, it would be simply impossible that governments should derive anything from the consent of the governed; and so, logically enough, this is another of those deceitful, erroneous, misleading statements–another of those "Consecrated Fallacies." Accordingly of this he writes:–

"Do they arrive their just powers from the consent of the governed? Let us not be blinded by the glitter of a generality, the meaning of which is not clearly defined. . . .

"In the situation of the country as it then was, when the alternative of oppression or independence continuing them, believing the people of the colonies to be the equals of those of the mother country, and equally entitled to a voice in the government to which they were subject, they prefaced their Declaration with that . . . ing and glowing utterance, which had a broad application as truth to their case; but which becomes a deceptive bundle of fallacies when promiscuously applied to the universal state of man, and which has taken the Declaration of 1776 as giving it an 'equal date with . . . and with Ararat.'"

As might very naturally be expected, all this representation of fundamental republican, and even Christian and therefore divine, principle, is so laboriously worked out solely to justify this nation in the course which has been taken with the people in Cuba, and the new island possessions. But at what an enormous cost and justification is found, when it can be only by . . . means!

We have spoken of it as the repudiation of Christian and therefore divine, principle, as well as repudiation of fundamental republican principle; and this is the truth. For is it not the statement of divine truth that "there is no respect of persons with God?" Is it not written, "If I did despise the cause of my manservant, or my maidservant, when they contended with me, what then shall I do when God riseth up? and when he visited, what shall I answer him? Did not he that made me in the womb, make him?" Is it not written from God, "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve?"

Yet this writer in the North American Review, will consistently disregard all these divine statements and considerations; because he does not believe that any have been created at all: they have been evolved. Here are his words:–

"All men are simply not created equal in any possible sense of the word. . . . The creation of men has been a gradual process of evolution, and they have been coming into being in different parts of the earth, through long generations, with differences and inequalities which development has varied and widened and not obliterated."

And thus by National Reformism on the one hand, and evolutionism on the other, Satan has so thoroughly paved the way for the oppression of mankind, that nothing else is now thought of, no other principle is now recognized by those in places of worldly power and influence.

It is high time to say to all people everywhere, "Behold your God."
A. T. J.

"The Philippine Question in the Light of Mexican History" American Sentinel 15, 6 , pp. 83, 84.

MEXICO and the Philippine Islands, more especially Luzon, were once both Spanish provinces, and were ruled–as all Spanish provinces were–by the Catholic Church. Out of this similarity in point of government arose conditions from which an interesting and instructive parallel may be drawn; and such a parallel has been drawn by a writer in The Ram's Horn, of January 27. And that writer if John Sobieski, the Crown Prince, by birth, of the kingdom of Poland. Of his credibility as an authority upon the subject with which he deals, The Ram's Horn says:–

"After an honorable career as a young soldier, he went to Mexico chiefly to investigate the popular uprising which culminated first in the conquest of that country by the army of Maximilian, and later in the overthrow of that usurper. Although Sobieski was, at that time, as he had always been, a devout Catholic, he found his mother church to be the parent of every conceivable outrage against the liberty of Mexico, and he gladly took up the fight in behalf of that oppressed people. This experience qualifies him to speak with authority on the subject which he discusses; and the parallel he draws between the course of events in Mexico in the 60's and those in the Philippines in the 90's, will be found no less mournful than striking."

"At the close of our [the American] Civil War," Mr. Sobieski begins, "I had determined to go to Mexico to fight in behalf of the republic against the so-called Emperor Maximilian. There was a great deal of sympathy at that time for Mexico, as it will be remembered our Government had never acknowledged the empire, nor received its minister, but had retained Romero, the last minister appointed by the republic.

"Not knowing Romero personally, I went to General Hancock, then the commander of the District of Columbia, to seek, through him, an interview with the Mexican minister. I was very well acquainted with General Hancock, having served with him on the plains before the war. So I went to him and told him my desire, and asked him for a letter of introduction, which he gladly granted, writing a high commendation. I easily secured an interview with the minister, who seemed to be great pleased at my enthusiasm, and our interview was quite lengthy. From him I received the whole history which led up to the invasion of Mexico by the combined forces of France and Spain. And the story I now give was afterwards repeated by President Juarez in an interview which he had with some American, English, and German officers who had served the cause of Mexico in the overthrow of Maximilian."

We give a condensed statement, following, of the facts narrated by Mr. Sobieski regarding conditions in Mexico and their causes during the period of which he writes.

"The Liberal Party in Mexico had come into power upon the issue of confiscating the church property." The church had come into possession of two thirds of all Mexican real estate. The church was monarchical in her principles and was continually conspiring against the Mexican republic, causing thereby numerous revolutions.

Upon the triumph of the Liberal Party at the ballot box, the church party appealed to arms, but were as badly beaten as they had been at the polls. Their leading generals, Marion and Majir, fled from Mexico and took refuge in Europe. The Liberal Party then confixcated the entire church property in Mexico, permitting the church, however, the use of church buildings for worship.

Generals Marion and Majir proceeded to Rome and had an interview with the pope, Pius IX., and it was determined to make an appeal to the Catholic powers of Europe, to re-establish the church in Mexico. Spain was willing, but was weak. Napoleon III., emperor of France, was able, but at first not willing. But he was ambitious. So the Mexican church generals arranged an interview with the pope's representative at Paris and the empress Eugenie, and at this council it was decided to urge upon the Emperor Napoleon, as a grand idea, that he establish in Mexico an empire which should serve as a breakwater against republican ideas which were constantly flowing out from the great Republic of the Western World. Archduke Maximilian, of Austria, was to be made emperor, and the two great Catholic empires of Europe were by this lofty project to be united against the rising Protestant powers of Europe, England, and Germany.

The scheme pleased Napoleon III., who was to have the honor of founding the new Latin empire, and he heartily joined in the undertaking. The support of Spain was secured by the promise of restoration of the confiscated church property.

Next a pretext was found for making war upon Mexico. That country was heavily in debt to French, Spanish, and English subjects, and being unable upon demand to satisfy these creditors, France declared war, and sent an army and fleet to Vera Cruz. This city was bombarded and captured. The French army marched upon the capital, and after a campaign of several months, the republic was apparently conquered. The

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church party assembled a congress and declared their desire that Maximilian should be emperor of Mexico. The latter replied that he "believed he had been called of God for the post," and with his wife set out for his new seat of authority. Proceeding to Rome they received instructions from the pope, and the papal blessing; thence they went to Vera Cruz, where the church party and the French soldiers received them with great demonstrations of honor. The new emperor soon found that the republic was not extinguished, as he had supposed.

A few months later, the United States, having suppressed the southern confederacy, demanded of France the withdrawal of her troops from Mexico, and France was forced to comply. Maximilian's power at once began to decline. His troops were defeated in the field and in May, 1867, he was taken prisoner and shortly afterwards put to death.

Since that time several efforts have been made by the church party to recover from this overthrow, but all have miserably failed; and Mexico meanwhile has been advancing steadily in the pathway of national progress and prosperity.

THE PARALLEL

The parallel between the conditions which gave rise to the struggle for freedom in Mexico, and the conditions from which the Filipinos have been long struggling to be free–but have finally failed–we give in Mr. Sobieski's own words:–

"The condition in Mexico in 1858, has its parallel of condition of things in the Philippine Islands, especially in the island of Luzon. The Catholic Church, or more properly speaking, the priesthood and friars, have acquired from two-thirds to three-fourths of all the valuable real estate of the island. It is well remembered as it has been stated by every writer and by General Merritt, of the United States Army, that the rebellion in the Philippine islands against Spain was more a rebellion against the monks and clergy than against the sovereignty of Spain. Indeed, the people of that island did not know much about the government of Spain. The church ruled it; they levied their taxes upon the people of that island and collected them, and it formed more than 80 per cent. of the taxes which that people had to pay. Then, in addition to this, being simply renters, they merely eked out an existence, and that was all, and could not have done that had it not been that it was a tropical climate where so little was required on which to subsist.

"The great aim of their uprising was to accomplish what had been accomplished in Mexico; to confiscate the real estate and turn it over to the government that would pass it out to the people. That property had not been acquired by the monks by purchase, but by confiscation. Whenever a man had a desirable plantation, they would trump up some charge against him, have him arrested, and, without investigation, shot; and the property was turned over to the monks. It was in this way, principally, that they had acquired their possessions.

"When the commissioners met at Paris, to make peace between this country and Spain, it will be remembered that the Philippine government, of which Aguinaldo was the head, appointed a commissioner to appear before that body and state their grievances, but the commissioners refused to listen to them, or in any way receive him.

"About this time, Archbishop Ireland, as the daily press informs us, had an interview with President McKinley, and it was there agreed that the property rights of the church or monks, should not be interfered with. Accordingly, a clause was put into the treaty that all the property rights that existed under Spain would be accordingly respected by the American Government. So the people of the Philippine Islands found that practically everything they had fought for against Spain would be lost if the America Government's supremacy was maintained. So to them it was only a question of slavery or death, and they preferred the latter.

"So this Government, by the treaty at Paris, put themselves in the same position that the Catholic Church party of Mexico occupied in 1858, and for which the Catholic powers invaded Mexico in 1861."

"A Question of 'Simple Justice'" American Sentinel 15, 6 , pp. 84, 85.

The Independent, which has all along supported the present national policy of foreign conquest, now–in view of certain developments in Congress–raises the significant inquiry, "Shall simple justice be done to Porto Rico?" "Congress," it says, "is asked, by papers and persons of influence, to say to the Porto Ricans, in effect:–

'The blessings which we enjoy as a nation are not for you; they are peculiar to us. United States laws and liberties and privileges are solely for the people of the United States, and when we say 'United States' we mean continental United States. We dare not extend the Constitution and laws of this definitely founded Continental area over any neighboring territory which is not contiguous and geographically a part of the solid earth of States and Territories. We must not cross a sea, however narrow, with our sacred Constitution and laws. They will not bear transportation. We may not carry them to Alaska or Hawaii. We dread the effect of the intervening sea upon them. We are tied to the mainland. If Manitoba were offered now, we would even be afraid to the great lakes. We must be careful, very careful, because what we do in Porto Rico will be a precedent for Hawaii, and worse still for the Philippines.'"

"What," The Independent proceeds to inquired, "is the specter which these fearful souls see and shudder over as they look across the West India ferry, and the Alaskan and Hawaiian? Statehood, they say. When they come down to the ocean and see the islands marshaling as Territories for the peaceful honors of Statehood, they are choked with spasms of a sort of hydrophobia. The sight of the water is too much for them, and they turn to Congress and say: 'This is a terrible thing. Don't make a dangerous precedent! Don't let

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in little Porto Rico, except in chains! The nation may go mad. Don't say 'Territory' to the Porto Ricans. They may call back, 'State.' Don't give them our Constitution and laws, as such, but say, 'These laws are for you, especially, as a province or dependency, or colony. They are not given to you as United States laws, but as Porto Rican laws. Take them and be happy, if you can; but don't expect anything like equality, for that can never be.'"

This is certainly a strange manifestation to come at this date from The Independent, or from any source from which the foreign-conquest policy has derived support. The Independent looked over and approved the tree, and now holds up its hands almost in horror at the fruit it is beginning to bear. There was plenty of opportunity to discover at the first, from an inspection of the tree, just what would be its fruit.

Right at the outset of the application of the "expansion" policy to the government of the new territory, it becomes necessary for a leading advocate of that policy to raise the question whether "simple justice" shall be done to the people of a part of that territory. This, from the standpoint it has occupied, is a very damaging admission.

What is the prospective injustice which The Independent fears? For one thing, the answer is, Porto Rico is not to be allowed free trade with the United States. Some of the trusts in the United States are against it, and these representatives of the money power are instructing Congress how it must act in the matter. For example, "There are senators and representatives whose constituents raise tobacco and sugar, and they argue that if more tobacco and sugar are raised within the bounds of the United States, the crops will be less remunerative to them." It is now beginning to be discovered by the advocates of foreign conquest, that expansion across the sea is a different thing from the expansion of Jefferson's day, which they have persistently sought to use as a precedent.

"If Porto Rico is covered by the Constitution," says The Independent, "our ports and its ports will be as open to each other as the slips on either side of the Hudson River are to the ferryboats that connect New York with Jersey City." But it is proposed that a tariff barrier shall be erected between the ports of Porto Rico and those of the United States, contrary to the Constitution. So many holes have now been made in the Constitution that it has ceased to be a very efficient cover for anything. And so "simple justice" to this people under the Constitution is denied.

The Independent proceeds to say that "If the United States cannot restore to Porto Ricans what it took from them, or give them an equivalent, it were better to turn them over to the tenderer mercies of some other nation. It is a monstrous thought that we, so boastful of our free and generous spirit, should even contemplate such a tariff as Senator Platt proposes. It would be a cruelty such as Spain, selfish and oppressive as she is, never committed. We are in a fair way, if Senator Platt and some of his colleagues (we trust there are not many of them) have their will, to crush aspirations which Spain did not wholly discourage."

Then The Independent proceeds to notice the President's plan for the government of the island, as being "by no means a liberal one," and declares that it contrast unfavorably with the old plan of Spain. And in all this The Independent is not alone, but voices the sentiments of other journals which have been and are yet ardent advocates of the new expansion doctrine of government by consent of some of the governed.

The situation is worth contemplating. Porto Rico is the very nearest of the captured islands which the Government has announced its intention of holding. And it was acquired with the least trouble. The people instantly submitted to American rule; they have been friendly and have caused no trouble. They are fairly intelligent. There was therefore every reason to expect that the United States would do the best by Porto Rico that it would do for any of its new island possessions. And yet, at the very outset of the practical application of its "benevolent" designs, it is so apparent that the Porto Ricans will not get even "simple justice," that journals which have all along supported the nation's policy are now forced to cry out against what they see taking place under it, and denounce the proposed rule as being worse than that of Spain.

Such are the firstfruits of American imperialism, as seen under the most favoring conditions. What, then, must be its final fruits?

And now that The Independent and other prominent journals see that the budding fruit of the tree is evil, will they be convinced that the tree itself is evil? or will they think that somehow a good tree can bear evil fruit? Will they go to the root of the matter, and renounce the evil principles from which such practises are beginning to result?

The Independent's query can be answered: No; Porto Rico will not get "simple justice" under the Constitution, and that for the simple reason that "simple justice" under the Constitution was denied to its people when their territory was forcibly annexed to the United States. The initial step in the matter was contrary to "simple justice," and succeeding steps that are taken can only be expected to be of the same kind.

"Back Page" American Sentinel 15, 6 , p. 96.

IF the minority of people who observe the seventh day do not need to be protected in their Sabbath observance, why is it necessary to protect the majority who observe the first day?

THE Sabbath is declared in Scripture to be a "sign" between God and his chosen people, given that they may know that it is the Lord God who sanctifies them. Eze. 20:12, 20. This being so, what business has a State legislature, or other body of men, to attempt to place this sign upon unsanctified people, by enacting and enforcing Sabbath laws?

THE law of Christ cannot be applied to civil governments, because the law of Christ is not force; that is, it is not and cannot be turned into, civil force. The law of Christ is the law of love; and a civil government knows nothing about love. Civil government stands for justice, and justice neither loves nor hates. The law of Christ was made–so far as this world is concerned–for human beings only.

WHAT can be more natural than for a "Christian nation" to believe itself commissioned by the Author of Christianity to do missionary work? since all Christians are naturally missionaries. And as a nation must make its authority respected wherever it goes, and to do this must employ an army and navy, it follows very naturally that the army and navy come into use as missionary agencies, and bullets and shells are deemed essential in fulfilling a commission from the Lord. The "Christian nation" idea is the starting point, and the slaughter of human beings created in the image of God, is the termination. And it is all logical enough, if that idea is correct. But is it correct?

IN Washington's and Jefferson's day, it was asserted that "all men are created equal," and "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;" and these statements were put forth as self-evident truths. But now such journals as the North American Review come forward and declare that these same statements are among the "most obvious fallacies." How times have changed!

LET men behave themselves as individuals, and the government will behave itself, without any attempt to make it conform to a moral law. But let men misbehave as individuals, and the government which they administer will misbehave itself, in spite of any and all moral laws to which it may profess to conform. The righteousness of a nation is not a governmental, but an individual, matter.

IT is a curious idea which some people have, who want to see society reformed by law, that a law of the State, or of the United States, can make unchristian people "respect Christians and the day set apart for their observance." As anybody must know, people who are not Christians do not see any use in Christian doctrines and institutions; and many of this class are outspoken opposers of Christianity, believing its doctrines and practises to be founded upon error and productive of harm to mankind. They have no respect for them whatever. And yet the professors of Christianity propose to compel these people by law to observe a (professedly) Christian institution–Sunday–in order to secure their respect for it and for Christian people! What can the result be but to intensify their disrespect and dislike, and to strengthen the barrier between them and Christianity? People can come to God only by being drawn, but laws do not draw people; they confine them. The Lord draws people to himself by "cords of love;" but some modern reformers intend to drive people to him by the lash of legal force and penalties. The more they drive the people, the further will both they and the people get from the Lord.

NOTICE how, as brought out in the article "Those Consecrated Fallacies," on another page, the idea that men have come upon the earth by evolution goes hand in hand with the idea that men were never endowed with any rights, and therefore that it is nonsense to say that the purpose of civil governments among men is to preserve their "unalienable rights." The doctrine of the Declaration of Independence was enunciated from the standpoint of Christianity, and from that standpoint it still holds good. The doctrines of atheism well serve the purposes of despotism.

"DO WE need more holidays?" inquires a writer in the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post, in view of the fact that a bill is before Congress for making two new holidays, one in February and one in April. Then he proceeds to note that there are already twenty-nine holidays in the year, besides fifty-two Sundays and the Saturday half-holidays; and his conclusion is that while he would like to "crowd the calendar with them," it would "be well not to rush toward the conditions that exist in Russia and some other countries, where there are so many holidays that people who want to work have scarcely time or opportunity to get up in the world."

We should say so! Let a country crowd its calendar full of holidays, and it will speedily approximate to the condition of lands that have long been dominated by the papacy. People in this age of the world need plenty of time to work, both to enable them to prosper in business and to keep them out of mischief. The country has too many holidays already.

February 15, 1900

"Front Page" American Sentinel 15, 7 , pp. 97, 98.

CHRISTIAN government is government by love; civil government is government by force; hence there can be no such thing as Christian civil government.

GOVERNMENT by force represents justice, and is therefore not antichristian, for justice is not against Christianity. But government by force represents justice alone, and justice alone is not Christianity. In Christianity justice is combined with mercy, and "mercy rejoiceth against judgment." Christianity shows present justice satisfied by the cross of Christ, present mercy given the transgressor, and judgment delayed to a future time. To delay judgment in civil government would be to defeat civil government. Not to delay judgment for transgression in Christian government would defeat Christianity. Hence civil government cannot be Christian; neither, in its proper sphere, can it be antichristian.

CIVIL government becomes antichristian when it tries to be Christian, or when it makes a profession of religion.

WHAT is the difference, in principle, between a civil observance of a religious day (the "civil Sabbath") and a religious observance of that day? The very fact that the day is a religious day makes the observance of it a religious observance. And Sunday is, beyond all question, a religious day.

IF the Sunday institution had the support of the divine law, would there be any need of the frantic call for its support by human law? Would anything upheld by Omnipotence need to be supported by the arm of man?

IF "the powers that be are ordained of God," they are certainly not ordained to go contrary to the will of God. And in obedience to the will of any power, under this ordinance, the will of God must stand first.

THE whole principle underlying religious persecution is contained in the plea that religious observances ought to be enforced by the civil power.

IN the annual report of work of the New England Sabbath Protective League, we note the statement that "the League is formed for the purpose of defending the Sabbath against the persistent encroachments upon its sacredness by business and pleasure."

The special object of this organization is to preserve the sacredness of the Sabbath. The purpose of the League is therefore plainly a religious one.

Yet the League depends almost entirely, in its work, upon arousing public sentiment in favor of the enactment and enforcement of Sunday laws.

It is plain, therefore, that the New England Sabbath Protective League is an organization which demands the use of the civil power to serve a religious purpose; which, in principle, is all that was ever done or ever could be done under a union of church and state. Such a demand is both un-American and unchristian.

The League wants the civil power employed to preserve the (supposed) sacredness of Sunday. But how can the sacredness of anything be preserved by law? The inherent sacredness of the Sabbath was established

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by its divine Author, and that cannot be affected by anything that man may do.

The only other way in which the sacredness of the Sabbath can be concerned is in the keeping of it. It is to be kept holy–or sacred. But is this anything that can be secured by human law? Can the law of man make anyone sacredly observe the Sabbath? And has human law any business to attempt to enforce a sacred observance?

Will a person observe the Sabbath sacredly without going to church, where no circumstances prevent him from doing so? And if a sacred observance of the day is to be enforced, will it not therefore be necessary to enforce attendance at church?

And in this unamerican effort to preserve Sunday sacredness by law, is there not a confession that the alleged sacredness of Sunday is more a theory than a fact, and must depend upon the outward show which the enforcement of law can produce, or fail because it has no higher source of support?

Further on in this annual report we find this quotation which has been much used in the effort to justify Sunday legislation: "The liberty of rest for each is dependent on a law of rest for all."

How can this be? What proof of it is to be found in spiritual or in natural law–in reason or in revelation?

There is a liberty of rest, and there is also a liberty of work. The same law which said, Thou shalt rest, said also, Thou shalt labor. The right of a man to labor is universally conceded to be as sacred as any other right. It is just as sacred as the right to rest. It is altogether wrong, therefore, to compel one man to stop labor, in order that another man may rest.

The right to labor being as sacred as the right to rest, how can it be any more true that "the liberty of rest for each is dependent on a law of rest for all," than it is true that the liberty of labor for each is dependent on a law of labor for all? Why not make one man work in order that another man may work, as well as make one man rest in order that another may rest?

One man wants to work on Sunday; another man wants to rest. Why should the man who wants to work be compelled to rest, any more than the man who wants to rest should be compelled to work?

Some one may reply, There is more to this question than the simple right of mankind to rest or to work. The duty of Sabbath observance is involved in it.

But who shall say what day of the week is the Sabbath? This is a disputed question–a point of religious controversy. Can the state settle a religious controversy and command a religious observance? Has the legislature either the qualification or the authority to take such action?

If not–as all must agree–then what possible ground of justification can there be for compelling any person to rest, in order that the liberty of rest may be secured to some one else?

The assertion is often heard in connection with the agitation for the enactment and enforcement of Sabbath laws, that the Creator ordained "one day in seven" as a day of rest. People who offer this in support of a Sunday law are not sincere; they do not believe in a one-day-in-seven law at all. What they want–and the only thing they will accept–is a Sunday law. The Creator did set apart one day in seven, it is true; but he did not leave any indefiniteness about it, and he did not set apart Sunday, or the first day of the week. He set apart "the seventh day," which, as the weekly cycle was fixed by that very act, must necessarily have been, and must now be, the seventh day of the week.

"Progress Toward Despotism" American Sentinel 15, 7 , pp. 98, 99.

DEVELOPMENTS at the seat of the national Government reveal a rapid progress along the pathway to governmental despotism.

The first great step in this direction was the subjection of the policy of foreign conquest. That policy has to be justified in some way, and in the effort to do that have been involved the further steps in the direction of repudiating the principles of free government that has since been taken.

First, it was declared that the policy of foreign conquest was upheld by the Constitution. Next, the Constitution was declared to be a very flexible instrument that could be stretched and bent so as to cover almost anything. Next it was declared that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were "out of date and that while entitled to some regard as venerable documents having a historical importance, they could not be binding upon such a great and growing power as the United States has now become.

Next it was discovered that, however these doctrines might be regarded, the Government possessed certain powers which might be exercised "outside the Constitution;" and this was soon hailed as a discovery of great importance. It was soon settled, in fact, that the Constitution did not apply to territory outside the mainland of North America at all, and that in the new island possessions Congress might govern just as it pleased. And so it was considered proper to vest in one individual, for the government of this new territory, power and authority beyond any that could belong to him under the Constitution. Power and authority was vested in the Chief Executive of the United States–the President–which under the Constitution belonged to the legislative and judicial departments of the Government; and by this he was raised to a position over the new territory little if anything short of an actual dictator.

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Under the Constitution, Congress alone can declare war; yet the President of the United States, without Congress, put into the field of warfare against the Filipinos a larger army than was ever before raised by the United States to contend with a foreign power.

This was a plain usurpation of power, growing out of the authorized policy that had been adopted in dealing with the territory taken from Spain. But with this, as with every step in the departure from the former principles, vigorous and unceasing efforts have been made to fortify it and establish it as a legitimate feature of American government. It has even been proposed, under this program of government "without the Constitution," that the President shall have authority to conclude secret treaties with other nations, himself alone, or with such advice as he may choose, from his cabinet or perchance from a Catholic prelate, instead of "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate," as the Constitution provides.

As was inevitable, all these steps taken for the government of foreign territory "without the Constitution," and which were in the direction of "government by a single mind"–a one-man power–have begun to react upon the government of the home territory, to which it is still admitted the Constitution applies; and steps are now being taken at Washington to strengthen the power and authority of the Chief Executive over the people of the United States.

A New Hampshire senator has moved for an amendment to the rules of the Senate, for the purpose of shutting off the privilege of speaking upon general resolutions that may be introduced. The proposed amendment provides that "All resolutions shall be referred without debate to their appropriate committees, unless the Senate by unanimous consent orders otherwise." The purpose and significance of this move are explained thus:–

"The adoption of this rule would make it impossible for any senator to speak during the morning hour upon any resolution which he might have offered, except by unanimous consent expressly granted, because any resolution offered would go without debate to the appropriate committee. The committees are in the control of the majority party in Congress, and would not report any resolution for consideration which did not support the administration. Thus, by the operation of this rule, the voice of free debate would be as completely justified in the Senate as is the case in the House, where nothing can be considered without the previous indorsement of the committee on rules.

"The Senate, which has remained a deliberative body, where ever State had the right, through its two senators, to be heard upon the general state of the country, would fall under the complete control of the man making up the majority of the committee on rules, and practically under the control of the one man who might be chairman of that committee."

It is felt by the supporters of this move that there is too much talk in the Senate in favor of political liberty. A senator from South Dakota has been speaking in behalf of freedom for the people of the Philippines, and a senator from Illinois has been speaking in behalf of the Boers, and it is declared that the administration must not be subjected to such attacks. This proposed amendment to the rules will, if carried, practically shut off all speeches attacking the policy of the administration, because it will be necessary first to secure the unanimous consent of the Senate, and the Senate will never be unanimous in opposition to the policy of the President. It will consign all resolutions attacking the President's policy to committees which "are in the control of the majority party in Congress, and would not report any resolution for consideration which did not support the administration."

Thus the administration will be left practically at liberty to pursue its own policy, regardless of Congress, which is to say, regardless of the people whom Congress represents. And then, the Government will not be a government of the people by the people, but a government of the people by "the administration," which at least approximates to and must naturally soon result in, government by a single mind–a one-man power–a monarchy as absolute as that of Russia.

In line with all this that has been cited, is a bill that is now before Congress which provides that the President shall be given complete authority to prescribe rules of government and to appoint officials for their enforcement throughout the Philippine archipelago. The passage of this measure is looked for at an early date.

"Back Page" American Sentinel 15, 7 , p. 112.

THE Sunday laws of the States all recognize that it is necessary to do some work on Sunday, and provide an exemption for such work, often specifying work which is necessary only to avoid some pecuniary loss. But if it is a necessity that people should be saved from pecuniary loss, is it also a necessity that the people have the right to choose their own hours of rest, labor, and recreation? Are the natural rights of the people as much of a necessity to them as is something that can be represented in dollars and cents? The SENTINEL contends that nothing can be more of a necessity to the people than that they be allowed to enjoy their natural rights and liberties.

HOW TRUE was the prophecy of Thomas Jefferson, the great American advocate and exponent of natural rights, concerning the survival of the rights of the American people: "From the conclusion of this war [the Revolution] we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion."–Notes on Virginia, Query XVII.

Is it not true that the people have "forgotten themselves but in the sole faculty of making money?" Are they not careless of their rights, save such rights as are concerned with money-getting–is not money-getting, with the vast majority, the one all-absorbing craze? And how far off can we be from the convulsion which Jefferson foresaw?

WHAT is more tiresome than to spend a whole day doing nothing? What is more taxing on the nerves than a whole day of compulsory idleness? And yet this is the remedy proposed for the weariness that comes from the week of labor, by the people who advocate Sunday laws. For those people, as is well known, want to forbid both labor and recreation on the day they believe to be the Christian Sabbath. They themselves can find congenial occupation in going to church on Sunday, and they would go to church and observe the day without any Sunday law. But people who do not want to go to church, and do not have a religious regard for the day, can only be made more weary than ever by being forcibly shut off from the avenues of exercise and recreation they would naturally choose–compelled to loaf through the daylight hours of the Sunday Sabbath. To call this a remedy for weariness is truly a mockery.

February 22, 1900

"Front Page" American Sentinel 15, 8 , p. 113.

IN religion, the voice of authority is not that of the people, but the voice of God alone.

LEGISLATURES and courts exist to protect rights, not to manufacture or annul them.

IF the national Government or a State government can profess religion, it can with equal propriety join a church.

"CIVIC righteousness"–righteousness by law–is the righteousness that was boasted by the Scribes and Pharisees. It is a counterfeit.

THE right of every man to rest from work on Sunday, implies also his right to labor on that day; for if labor is not a right on Sunday, it is not a right on any day.

THE gospel of Christ is not a command, but an invitation; and if changed to a command by the coercion of the civil power, it ceases to be the gospel at all. And this is why the state cannot be religious without working against Christianity.

NO PERSON'S conscience is to be interfered with by law, unless it has become so perverted as to lead him to do violence to the rights of others. And in such a case the civil authority acts not for the purpose of chastising or correcting the conscience, but only to protect the rights that are suffering invasion.

IF the millions of people who labor on the seventh day do not thereby harm the few thousands who observe that day, how does it appear that these few thousands will harm the millions by doing work on Sunday?

THE Sabbath belongs to God, for he calls it "the Sabbath of the Lord," "My holy day," etc. And since we are to render to God that which is his, and to Cesar only that which is Cesar's, it is plain that Cesar has no business to command us to keep the Sabbath.

"A Methodist Bishop Calls for a National Sabbath Law" American Sentinel 15, 8 , pp. 113, 114.

THE Religious Telescope (Methodist) of Dayton, Ohio, published in a January issue an article by Bishop J. S. Mills, D. D., calling for "A National Sabbath-observance Law," in which the bishop says that such a law "is the only satisfactory prevention of Sabbath desecration known to me." He inquires what hinders such legislation, and proceeds to enumerate several hindrances.

"1. The indifference of the masses–Christians as well as others–on this subject.

"2. The open opposition of those persons (chiefly foreigners) who have a standing objection to Christianity and to all its institutions.

"3. The national greed for money is chiefly responsible for the Sabbath-breaking of the 3,000,000 of workingmen who toil on Sunday as well as the other six days of the week. These toilers would be glad for the privilege of the day of rest, but corporation greed forbids it.

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"4. In the recent past and now the Saturdarians [by this term he refers to observers of the seventh day] are the worst organized foe to a Sabbath law. They are distributing millions of pieces of literature over our land of a plausible, but deceptive character, aimed to prevent Sabbath legislation."

Now we had always supposed that the Christian religion–the gospel–was a "satisfactory prevention of Sabbath desecration"; in fact, we still believe this, and that conversion by its power is "the only satisfactory prevention"–the only thing that is sure to make a Sabbath-keeper out of a Sabbath-breaker. But the bishop confesses that this remedy is unknown to him.

A person desecrates the Sabbath when he does not keep it holy. And the reason the "Sabbath" (Sunday) is not more generally kept holy is, says the bishop, that the masses, including Christians, are indifferent, and large numbers of "foreigners" are opposed to Christianity. So in order to overcome this indifference and opposition to Christianity, and cause Sunday to be kept holy–that is, not "desecrated"–he would have a "national Sabbath-observance law"! A very likely remedy indeed!

He says that "corporation greed forbids" three million of workmen taking rest on Sunday, who "would be glad of the privilege of the day of rest." But should a workman, or any person, not keep the day God has commanded, because "corporate greed" forbids it? If nobody kept a command of God which the devil, represented by "corporate greed" or any other form of selfishness, forbids the keeping of, how many of God's laws would be observed in the earth? The fact that the Almighty commands a thing to be done ought to be evidence enough to satisfy a bishop that the thing can be done, no matter what other power forbids it. And therefore "corporate greed" is no real reason why workingmen cannot keep the Sabbath.

But how can the workingmen take a weekly day of rest when they would lose their positions by doing so? For answer one has but to point to the sixty thousand or more Christians in this country who observe the seventh day each week, and still get alone, without any law at all in their favor. If the minority do not need "protection" by law, the majority certainly do not need it.

The bishop is very indignant against those Christians who observe the seventh day as the Sabbath,–so indignant that he has to apply to them an epithet not found in the dictionary. But immediately following this, in answering the question "How can such a law be secured?" he says that "God commands the keeping of one day in seven as a day of rest." The seventh day people observe "one day in seven," which according to the bishop's statement is all that God commands, and yet for doing this he finds occasion to denounce them.

In his view it must be that the church has authority to go beyond the commands of God and exact "duties" of which his Word says nothing. And this is the pure doctrine of the church of Rome.

The bishop sees that it is very essential that all people should observe one fixed definite day; but why then can he not give the Omniscient the credit of knowing as much, and not claim that his law only commands the observance of an indefinite "one day in seven"?

This "one-day-in-seven" theory of the Sabbath commandment is only used to combat the idea that "the seventh day" in that commandment is the definite seventh day of the week, which the bishop and all his mind know very well they are not observing as the day of rest. The bishop simply does not believe in an indefinite seventh day at all; nor do any others who call for a Sunday law believe in it. If they did they would not call for a law commanding a definite day. And in all these calls for Sunday legislation, as in this one, there is revealed on investigation the arguments of the sophist and the principles of the papacy. All which proclaim that the cause of Sunday legislation is inherently bad.

"Back Page" American Sentinel 15, 8 , p. 128.

FOLLOWING fast upon the suggestion made by one in close touch with the administration, that the chief executive might find it necessary to conclude treaties with foreign powers without securing either the advice or consent of the Senate, comes the announcement that a secret treaty has been made with Great Britain, which is regarded by the State Department as an offensive and defensive alliance for the protection of the Western Hemisphere. And this treaty, it is further stated, is intended to supplant the "Monroe doctrine," under which the Western Hemisphere has been secured against European aggression from President Monroe's time down to the present.

This treaty is meant, of course, to be binding upon the nation; that is, upon the people; but as the people did not make it, either themselves or through their representatives, it is clearly an instance in which one man has assumed the prerogative of ruler of the American people.

Naturally the announcement causes considerable excitement and "senators, representatives, and men of all parties," we are informed, "declare that no British alliance shall ever set the Monroe doctrine aside." The truth is the Monroe doctrine has already been set aside by the American invasion of the Eastern Hemisphere, and nobody ought to be surprised that a substitute is now proposed to take its place. Nobody ought to be surprised that the Monroe doctrine should be regulated out of the American political system simultaneously with the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

THE so-called statesman who "loves" his country so much that he will maintain it in the wrong, will help his country along in the pathway of wrong, which never led anywhere else than to ruin. And as the most that a traitor can do is to bring ruin on the country he betrays, it is plain that these two men belong in the same class.

March 1, 1900

"Front Page" American Sentinel 15, 9 , p. 129.

THE person who most needs a reformation in himself, is sure to see the most need of reformation in other people. And when the church is most in need of reformation, she always sees that the cause of the trouble is that the state needs to become Christian.

IN the penitentiaries of the land there is enforced rest and attendance at church–or chapel–on Sunday; and why should people who are not under arrest for crime be treated on Sundays like the inmates of a penitentiary; that is, shut up by law (the Sunday law), with nothing to vary the monotony of their confinement save the privilege of going to church?

THE scheme to "acknowledge God" by the religious amendment to the Constitution, advocated by the National Reform party and its allies, is really a scheme to ignore God; since it ignores the inalienable rights with which the Creator has endowed the individual. This scheme, instead of leaving every man answerable to God in religious conduct, would make the minority in religion answerable to the majority, under the claim that the will of the majority, in religion, is the "law of Christ." Pretending to leave every man answerable to God alone, it would really make man answerable to his fellowman, by putting upon men the prerogative of interpreting and defining the will of God, the majority for the minority. This would simply be popery, for any scheme is popery which aims to subject men to human authority in religion.

THE state, being an organization of men, cannot be religious without conflicting with that other religious organization of men–the church; that is, the two will necessarily occupy the same sphere. The church will preach religion, and the state will enforce religion; for the state cannot be religious without enforcing religion. But coercion and persuasion cannot go hand in hand in religion. The latter is nullified by the former, and the religious state becomes paramount in the sphere of religion. So that if the state can properly be religious, there is neither necessity nor room for any other organization in the sphere of religion which is not subordinated to the state. There cannot be two independent organizations; the state cannot be religious and be independent of the church. And in every case which history presents, where the state has meddled with religion, either the church has become subordinated to the state, or the state has been subordinated to the church.

"National Reform 'Objections and Answers'" American Sentinel 15, 9 , pp. 130, 131.

IN a "Manual of Christian Civil Government," prepared by the editor of the Christian Statesman, who is a leader in the "National Reform" movement to "Christianize" the Government, the author devotes some space to a review of objections made to the movement, which he answers to his own satisfaction. A brief consideration of these objections and answers will be helpful to a right understanding of this important question now being pressed upon the American people.

First, the author cites "The Alarm Cry of 'Church and State.'" He proceeds under this topic to give the National Reform definition or conception of a union of church and state, thus:–

"A Christian secularist is the one who is logically driven to the union of church and state. He is forced to join hands with the advocates of ecclesiastical establishments. He forbids the state itself having any-

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thing to do with religion. Yet he believes Christianity essential to human welfare. The state is incompetent to give her citizens what is essential to her own prosperity and perpetuity. She must therefore go to the Christian church and have that organization do what the state herself cannot do, but must have done in her imperative need. This is union of church and state. It is the church doing the work that is essential in the sphere of the state itself."

Christianity is essential to human welfare; but it reaches the state through the individual, not the individual through the state. As Christianity makes individual men and women better, it adds to the welfare of the state, but it does not and cannot make individuals better by means of the state. Right here lies one of the fundamental fallacies of the National Reform system. It puts the cart before the horse–the state before the individual,–and thus involves the whole subject in confusion well suited to the purposes of sophistry. The individual comes first. The Creator made individuals on the earth, not states. The state came afterwards, as the work of the individuals when they had become sufficiently numerous to warrant such a form of government. Individuals were the creators of the state and they change the form and character of the government at their will. The state, as regards such changes, merely reflects the changes which have first come in the individuals.

It is the mission of the church to spread the gospel. The gospel makes good people out of bad people, and in this way conduces to the general welfare and prosperity. The National Reform expositor says that this work belongs in the sphere of the state itself; but it is neither necessary nor possible for the state to do it.

But following this far-fetched and impossible definition of church-and-state union, the author proceeds to give a true one, "Union of church and state," he says, "is some mingling of civil and ecclesiastical offices and functions." And how, we ask, can the state be religious without "some mingling of civil and ecclesiastical offices and functions" being the necessary result?

He says that "The Bible is the supreme law of each [church and state] in its own sphere"; and "The state must confine itself to the sphere of maintaining rights and doing justice among men." This is true, and this is in harmony with the Bible rule of rendering to Cesar what is Cesar's and to God what is God's. But this is not what the author of this "Manual of Christian Civil Government" means; for he adds: "To do this is [the state] must be guided by the law of the righteous Ruler of nations; and for itself, and not through any church, it must acknowledge its divine Ruler, and the moral principles of his law, revealed both in nature and the Scriptures, that apply to its distinctive sphere and functions. This is its own religion. This is national Christianity. And this is the best possible safeguard against the intermingling of civil and ecclesiastical offices and functions, or the union of church and state."

That is to say, the state must acknowledge God and be religious in its sphere, and the church must be the same in her sphere, and both these are demanded of Christianity! How many different ways of acknowledging God and being religious, then, does Christianity demand or admit of?

There is but one sphere of Christianity; and when both state and church try to be Christian, they . . . necessarily attempt to occupy the same sphere, and they must soon appear as superfluous and become assimilated to the other. This is the way it has always been in church-and-state union. And yet the National Reformer would have us believe that this attempt to combine the civil and ecclesiastical spheres into one "is the best possible safeguard against the intermingling of civil and ecclesiastical offices and functions"! This is the way he would prevent a union of church and state.

"Another practical and pointed way of answering this stale objection" (that the National Reform statement means a union of church and state), says the National Reform spokesman, "is by asking, What church?" "Some church as a visible organization would be in view, if there is to be an actual union of church and state."

What church?–Any church or all churches combined. Can union of the state with a dozen churches be any better than union with one alone? Where there are a number of powerful churches, as in this country, the religion of the state will necessarily be such as is acceptable to all these alike; for the state could not unite with one alone, in the face of the opposition of the others. And even if it should do this, the union would be a comparatively harmless one in its results, because the excluded churches would combine against it, and the state would have neither the power not the courage to make "heresy" a crime punishable with civil penalties. But united with all the powerful churches, the position of the state would be far otherwise, and it could and would then proceed, under their dictation, to attempt the suppression of "heresy" by the severest punishments.

But how could there be a union of the state with all the leading churches, when these churches are not united with each other? Ah, there is one point–onme church dogma–upon which all the leading churches are united and upon which they may form a union with the state and that point is, the necessity of observing Sunday as the Christian Sabbath. And the forming of the union upon this one point alone, does not at all affect the reality of the nature of the union. It is a union of church and state, identical in principle, however differing in details, with the plainest union of church and state that the world has known. And all the world worse will it be for the small minority of Christians who take issue with the state and the powerful churches upon this one point. All the more will they be denounced for standing out against the state and the churches upon a

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single point; they will receive only the less sympathy because their religious rights are not denied upon other points. Nor will it matter at all to them that the heavy hand of the law descends upon them for this one thing and not for such various forms of "heresy" as have been made punishable in the past. They will be fined, imprisoned, and otherwise punished, precisely as dissenters have been punished under the union of church and state in former times.

Thus the question "Which church" has no force at all as a reply to the charge that the National Reform movement does aim at a union of church and state.

"Back Page" American Sentinel 15, 9 , p. 144.

THE Sabbath law of God commands that the seventh day be observed as the Sabbath, and also commands that no other day be observed as the Sabbath. Hence it necessarily clashes with every Sunday law.

IT is wrong to perform secular work on the day set apart by the Creator as the Sabbath; but this is so only because of the duty which we owe to God. It cannot become a crime to do on one day of the week what is not criminal on another day of the week.

SABBATH desecration is a transgression of the law of God; and the penalty, fixed by the same Authority which enacted the law, is death. If men are to enforce this law, they are logically bound to execute its penalty, and send Sabbath-breakers to the gallows or the electric chair.

IT is not necessary to a union of church and state, that the two should be united to enforce religious beliefs and observances in general. A single point, as for example, the observance of Sunday as the Christian Sabbath, is sufficient basis for as real a union of church and state as ever existed. The results to all dissenters from this church dogma will be precisely the same–fines, imprisonment, etc.–that would follow to dissenters under the most obvious union of church and state that was ever known.

THE "civil Sabbath" is an alleged necessity of these times; yet if the men who are calling for it and expect to make so much use of it, would be perfectly civil in their own conduct, the "civil Sabbath" would amount to nothing. If they would admit the necessity of the Golden Rule, and practise it, they would never interfere with the religion of their neighbors in the way that the "civil Sabbath" is designed to justify them in doing.

NEARLY all the States of the Union have Sunday laws, but these laws differ widely from each other in their regulations and their penalties. In some States, also, they are at times quite strictly enforced; and in other States they are almost dead letters. And California has been for years without any Sunday law at all. And yet Sunday observance is about as general in one State as in another; it is not promoted by the Sunday laws, nor hindered by their absence. It is as general in California, which has no Sunday law, as it is in Pennsylvania, which has been noted for its Sunday law. And who, from these undoubted facts and conditions, can point out any necessity for Sunday laws at all, or discover any good purpose which they clearly serve in society?

March 8, 1900

"Front Page" American Sentinel 15, 10 , p. 145.

RELIGIOUS legislation brings both law and religion into disrepute.

THE so-called "civil Sabbath" could not stand a day if deprived of its religious support.

THE right of the people to be free is as much a right on Sunday as on any other day of the week.

THE law can justify or condemn, but it has no power to reform. Hence moral reforms are not promoted by legislation.

THE reason why some people do not have a "quiet Sabbath" is that they are too much concerned with what other people are doing on that day.

A RIGHT of conscience is not a right to interfere with the liberty of others, but one affecting only the conscience and conduct of the individual claiming it.

SINCE legislation represents the will of the majority, religious legislation depends for justification upon the utterly fallacious idea that the majority in religion must be in the right.

THE province of religion is not to increase the population of the jails, but to add souls to the kingdom of God. At least this is the province of Christianity. Hence it has no need for a Sunday law.

THE rights of all men are equal; and all men, as regards their rights, are equal. One man or class of men, cannot have a right which demands the subversion of the rights of others.

A WEEKLY day of rest is either the Sabbath of the Lord which he set apart at creation, or a counterfeit of it; and as such it must be a religious institution, and the resting upon it must be a religious act.

"National Reform and the Rights of Conscience" American Sentinel 15, 10 , pp. 145, 146.

ONE of the objections to the National Reform movement which are "answered" by a leading exponent of that movement in a "Manual of Christian Civil Government," from which we quoted last week, is that of its infringement of the rights of conscience. The author of this National Reform "Manual" assumes to answer this objection and to dispose of what he styles "this high-sounding claim," in this way:–

"What are meant by rights of conscience? and what is an infringement of them? Has any citizen a right of conscience to object to the Thanksgiving proclamations by our President and State governors? Has he a right of conscience to object to the employment at government expense of Christian ministers to pray in Congress or State legislatures? A certain citizen doesn't believe in these things: must they be abandoned as an infringement of his rights? The name of God in our State constitutions offends him: is this an infringement of his rights of conscience?"

Any person who would answer these questions in the affirmative, he says, is a "secularist Tartar."

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"Yes," we reply, "all these are, in principle, an infringement of the rights of conscience; and because they embody this evil principle, they ought to be abolished."

The principle upon which Thanksgiving proclamations by Presidents and State governors, State chaplaincies, and recognition of God in the State constitutions, rest, if the principle of church-and-state union. While in themselves not of much consequence, comparatively, they afford a basis upon which to build a complete church-and-state despotism without introducing any new principle of injustice. Once admitted and sanctioned by the people, they furnish the logic for all subsequent steps of oppression and persecution.

To meet the objection presented by the rights of conscience, however, the National Reform advocate sets up the claim that a secular form of government infringes the rights of conscience of people who want the government to be "Christian." This claim is worth noticing; hence we quote further from the "Manual":–

"But suppose this high-sounding claim of rights of conscience were granted–repeal our Sabbath laws; abolish the oath; banish the Bible from all our schools; hush the devout aspirations of prayer in Congress and State legislatures; discontinue all national and State calls to thanksgiving and prayer–do all this, and more than this, in deference to this plea of rights of conscience,–would the difficulty be ended? would the problem be solved? would no individual rights of conscience now be infringed upon? What about Christian citizens who believe that they have a right to a quiet Sabbath? What about citizens who believe with Washington that the oath is essential to our courts of justice? . . . Is there not an overwhelming majority of our citizens whose most sacred and precious rights would be wantonly and impiously trampled under foot by a government administered on the basis of the godless political creed of modern secularism?

"And whither would this cry lead us? Roman Catholics claim that our common schools are an infringement of their rights of conscience. Must we therefore destroy the most magnificent system of public instruction on the face of the earth? The war power of the national Constitution is opposed to the conscientious convictions of thousands of our best citizens. Shall we disband our small army, scuttle our iron-clads, and level our forts to the ground? . . . The consciences of multitudes are grievously oppressed by capital punishment. Shall we therefore forbid the execution of the murderer?"

The point to be observed in all this, to perceive its utter fallacy, is that the rights of conscience demand only individual liberty. A right of conscience is not a right to say what some one else shall do, but only what the individual who claims that right, shall do. This is a broad distinction, and one which the National Reformer purposely ignores. The so-called "right" to say what other people shall do, is just the sort of right claimed by these "reformers." They want to be allowed the "right" to mind not only their own business, but other people's as well. They have such a surplus of conscience that they want to be conscience not only for themselves, but for everybody else.

Thus, "what about Christian citizens who believe they have a right to a quiet Sabbath?" Does this "right to a quiet Sabbath" mean that nobody else has any right at all to the day? The right to rest is not more sacred than the right to labor. These people who want to rest on Sunday ignore the rights of the people who want to work or to engage in recreation. They can have a "quiet Sabbath" if they wish it, either at home, or in the fields, or at church. They are perfectly free to secure a quiet Sabbath in any of these ways, but they demand that other people shall not be left free. They can have a "quiet Sabbath" without disturbing other people; but that is not what they want. They want all work stopped, no matter if they are ten miles away from it. They want all plays and amusements prohibited no matter how far removed from their sight and hearing. They want to be allowed to say not only how they themselves shall regard Sunday, but how other people shall regard it. And they have the impudence to demand this as one of their "rights." If they would learn to mind their own business, certainly one of the civil obstacles to their enjoyment of a "quiet Sabbath" would be removed.

And so of the other infringements of "rights" which he mentions; they are all infringements of the "right" to say what somebody else shall do; which of course is not a right at all. Let Roman Catholics, and other religious bodies, instruct their children in religion in their own schools. Nobody denies them the privilege. And let religion be kept out of the public schools, in order that no one be taxed to support a religion which he repudiates. Let every one be free to support his own religion to the fullest extent, but not "free" to say that some one else must support it also. Freedom to dictate what other people must do is not freedom at all, but despotism.

And let those conscientious citizens who do not believe in war, stay away from war. They can claim no right to say what other people shall do in the matter. Likewise those who do not believe in capital punishment,–let them order their own conduct in the matter as they see fit; nobody will interfere with them. And let them leave other people equally free.

The simple rule which governs the whole matter is that no one–not even the National Reformer–has a right to interfere with the rights of other people.

"Back Page" American Sentinel 15, 10 , p. 160.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, as meaning that which can be affected by the law of the land, is only a part of civil liberty. It is civil liberty in religious matters. Hence a person's civil liberty cannot be denied without affecting his religious liberty; and a denial of the right of self-government is as truly an assault upon religious freedom as is the enactment of a Sunday law. The person whose civil rights are not respected, will in vain look for any deference to be shown to his religious. This is logical, and this is the way it has always been in history.

MAN, as a prophet, is a dazzling failure. Yet the world to-day is full of would-be prophets who assure us there is a better time just ahead, and whose predictions find ready acceptance with the people. Here is an illustration which we find mentioned in an exchange. A Frenchman, M. Bloch, last year wrote a book showing that war is impossible, on account of the marvelous efficient of the modern army rifle. Soon after its publication came the Transvaal war. And now the author has reissued his volume under a different title, and shows in it that with modern weapons the civilian is as good a fighter as the regular soldier; thus proving as our exchange remarks, that "the more effective and deadly the weapons, the more general will war be; and that is what anybody might have known beforehand."

THE Sunday laws exalt idleness above honest labor, make tobacco a greater "necessity" for people than bread, distinguish between a forenoon "shave" and an afternoon "shave" on the same day, and present endless similar inconsistencies and restrictions upon honest industry and individual freedom. What is the necessity for such laws? Why not class them with the outgrown relics of church-and-state times, where they belong, and drop them from the statute-books of the nation? Why not allow that the people have the right to be free on Sunday the same as on other days? Why treat them as capable adults six days in the week, and as children who must be kept under surveillance the remaining day? Will some advocate of the Sunday laws please tell us?

March 15, 1900

"Front Page" American Sentinel 15, 11 , p. 161.

THE Sunday laws are built upon the theory that man was made for the Sabbath.

COMPULSION, when exercised in religion, only stirs up unholy and bitter passions in the soul.

GOD'S idea in making the Sabbath was to save men; man's idea in making Sunday laws is to save the Sabbath.

THE Creator's Sabbath is perfectly fitted to the needs of all men; but a man-made Sabbath must have laws for forcing men into conformity with it.

SINCE the fourth commandment which covers the entire week, leaves no place for a "civil Sabbath," it is plain that such a "sabbath" is condemned by the Word of God.

THE state may compel a person to be religious, but it cannot possibly make him a Christian. And only the Christian religion makes people better than they were before.

ONE vital difference between God's law and man's laws is that the latter have no love in them; and this is one great reason why human laws can have no rightful connection with religion.

GOD did not create individuals to save the state but he ordained the power of the state to serve the interests of individuals. The state was made only for time; but man was made for eternity.

THE Sunday laws are about the only things that connect the present age of enlightenment with the Dark Ages of medieval church-and-state times. Why not cut these connecting links instead of trying to make them stronger?

GOD has his own laws, his own penalties and his own remedies for sin, which are in force to-day; and he neither asks man's help, nor will he tolerate man's interference, in dealing with sin. Man's laws are not to maintain righteousness, but rights. An act may be both a sin and a crime; but human tribunals can deal with it as a crime only.

"The Sabbath Was Made for Man" American Sentinel 15, 11 , pp. 161, 162.

THE "Lord of the Sabbath" declared that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." This statement embodies two ideas that lie at the foundation of the legislation that has been enacted for Sabbath observance.

On of these ideas is that the Sabbath was made for man. This is God's idea, and the foundation of his legislation for Sabbath-keeping.

The other idea (held by the Pharisees) is that man was made for the Sabbath; and this is the foundation of all human legislation to preserve the day. This of course is disclaimed by the authors of state Sabbath laws; but it is that to which reason and experience testify as being the truth.

God made the Sabbath to be wholly a blessing to mankind, and to put upon him no hardship. It was

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perfectly adapted for man's spiritual, mental and physical welfare; and, as God has made it, it is the same to-day. If people do not observe it, they lose the good of it, but they get no hurt from it. If they are against it, it is still not against them. It is for them, whether they observe it or not.

But men have made Sabbath laws from which vastly different results have come. They have used the force of the civil power to fit men to the Sabbath; not the true Sabbath, either, but their human idea of the Sabbath. If men did not want to conform to it, they were forced to do so. Where the human being did not fit to the institution set up by the religious majority, the state applied pressure to the human being until the fit was declared satisfactory.

If men do not observe God's Sabbath as his law directs, that law does not interfere with them. They lose the great good they would have gained from keeping it, but their liberty is not restricted and no penalties are put upon them. They are not coerced into anything. But if they fail to observe man's Sabbath as man's law directs, they are arrested, imprisoned, fined, put in chain gangs, and in other ways punished until they conform themselves to the Sabbath conception which the majority have set up.

God's Sabbath is like a mantle of glory and beauty given to man, which he may put on if he will; but the Sabbaths of the state laws are like a mold into which men must put themselves or be put; and if they do not fit the mold, they are hammered by the law until they are forced into it, at whatever sacrifice or injury to themselves.

All this is wholly contrary to God and to the purpose of the Sabbath. All such laws ought to be abolished. If men will not make the Sabbath a blessing to themselves, let it not be made a curse to them by the mistaken zeal of those who would make their refusal a crime to be punished with the pains and penalties of the criminal code.

"Back Page" American Sentinel 15, 11 , p. 176.

IT is almost universally conceded that the old "Blue Laws," in which class the Sunday laws are placed, have been outgrown; they are not supported in this day by the sentiment of the people. This should be a plain sign that the time has come to remove such laws from the statute books. But instead of this, the effort is generally made to enforce them as if they were the outgrowth of modern necessities and sentiment. Why not sever these dead branches from the tree of progress instead of trying to nourish them again into life? The tree cannot be benefited, but only injured, by such endeavors.

March 22, 1900

"Front Page" American Sentinel 15, 12 , p. 177.

THE purpose of Christianity is never to cast men out of the world, but always to cast the world out of men.

IT is a bad sign when the clergy get more concerned for the suppression of crime than for the salvation of men from sin.

IF you want a quiet Sabbath, spend the Sabbath day in the company of the "Lord of the Sabbath." You will find no occasion to complain of being "disturbed."

SEPARATED from religion, the state will never persecute; but joined with religion, the state will always persecute, because it will then be a party in a strife between opposing religions.

AMS THE Creator certainly worked on the first day of the week, it is plain that she Sunday law, which punishes men for following the Creator's example, virtually makes the Creator a criminal.

A MAN may be perfect as measured by the best laws that men can enact and enforce, and yet be the worst sinner on earth, measured by the law of God. Righteousness cannot be secured by human law.

NO LAW or act of a legislature can make wrong right, or absolve any person from obligation to conform to the law of justice. Therefore the question, What is right? must always take precedence of the question, What is the law?

THE civil government can deal with sin, is at all, only through its laws. But as God himself cannot deal with sin by law, even his perfect law, and still save the sinner, it is evident that no civil government has any business to try to deal with sin at all. However immoral an act may be, if it is not an invasion of rights, it is outside the province of human law.

"Sunday Laws and 'Works of Necessity and Charity'" American Sentinel 15, 12 , pp. 177, 178.

IN all the Sunday laws it is provided that the prohibition of work on Sunday shall not extend to "works of necessity and charity." This exemption gives the law a benevolent appearance, but in practise the exemption is never carried into effect. If it were, to the full extent of what "necessity and charity" demand, the law would be almost wholly robbed of its force.

Consider, for example, the man who observes another day of rest than that specified in the law. He is held to this observance by the demands of his conscience, which he cannot set aside. So to observe the Sunday law, he must rest two days in the week, and lose one day every week which he would otherwise have for labor. This seriously interferes with his business. Is it a "necessity" that he should be successful in business? Being a poor man (as most men are in this day) he finds that he cannot get along successfully working only five days in the week. Is it a "necessity" that he have time enough for work so that he can "make both ends meet?" And would work done on Sunday to this

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end, to enable him to live in comfort and decency, be "work of necessity?" If not, what does "necessity" mean?

He is a married man (most workingmen are) and has a wife and children to support? Is work done that is necessary for their support "work of necessity," if done on Sunday? And is there anything like "charity" in the act or acts which provide them with food, clothing, and decent and comfortable surroundings? Does "charity" mean that little children shall not suffer form hunger or insufficient clothing or squalid and unsanitary surroundings, and from all the adversities which poverty brings? And if a man has to work six day sin the week, and one of those days Sunday, to save his family from poverty, is such Sunday work "work of charity?"

Or consider the case of the man who does not observe the seventh day, but who cannot find steady work and is obliged to take all the work he can find to get along. If he works on Sunday, and thereby adds to his scanty resources for supporting himself and his family in decency and comfort, is such work "work of necessity" or of "charity?" The Sunday law does not allow that it is, either in this case or (in some States) in the case of the men who observes another day. In Tennessee, in Georgia, in Pennsylvania, and in other States, by the rule of the Sunday law it is not necessary nor charitable for a man to provide for himself and his family under the circumstances we have described. We have known of poor families in this country whom the Sunday law has deprived of their entire means of support, the husband and father being thrown into jail solely because he worked on Sunday to support them; so that if kind hands had not been extended to them from without, they would have been entirely destitute. And yet this was under a Sunday law which always excepted "works of necessity and charity."

The truth is that opportunity to work six days in the week is a necessity to most men and to those dependent on them. The opportunity to do this without violating conscience is likewise a necessity. The Creator recognized this when he provided for six days of work: "Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work." More than this: the personal liberty and freedom of choice with which the Creator has endowed every man, is also a necessity. If it had not been such the Creator would not have bestowed it upon the human family. The Sunday laws, while claiming to respect necessities, interfere with all these necessities; and these necessities in turn demand that such laws should be abolished. A law which denies to any person the necessities of life, is not only uncharitable but inhuman.

"Note" American Sentinel 15, 12 , p. 178.

LAW cannot bring men nearer to the perfect Standard of goodness, and therefore cannot make them better than they were before. If perfection of law is demanded as the essential of success in reforming society, this was in the law that was proclaimed to the world from Mount Sinai. If power to impress the law upon the minds of the people is thought to be the missing essential, there was no lack of this in the sight of Sinai smoking, burning summit, and the voice of thunder that shook the earth. Yet all this only drove the sinful people further from the Lord than they were before.

March 29, 1900

"Front Page" American Sentinel 15, 13 , p. 193.

FORCE combined with religion always results in a retrograde movement.

TO UNITE religion with politics is not to elevate politics, but to degrade religion.

AMS the state must always carry the sword of justice, it is plainly disqualified for service in the capacity of a missionary.

THE truly Christian reformer will approach the people with the Word of God, and not presume to approach God with the word of the people.

GOOD laws are the result, not the cause, of right sentiment in the minds of the people. A true reform must begin with the people, not with the laws.

AMS human law can represent no love but only justice, and Christianity cannot be separated from love, it follows that Christianity cannot be expressed in the form of law.

THE Creator gave the Sabbath to all men "without money and without price;" but the Sunday laws have fixed a price upon it, and those who will not pay must be fined or sent to jail.

RELIGIOUS truth has in all ages found its way opposed by the barrier of religious legislation; and religious legislation has always represented an effort to dam up the tide of progress in religious knowledge.

THE state cannot be religious. The express purpose of religion–the gospel–is to provide a way of escape for the transgressor; while the express purpose of the state in its laws against crime, its police, and its courts, is to close up every avenue of escape against the transgressor.

FROM its very nature religious legislation must constitute a bond of union between the church and the world.

"Back Page" American Sentinel 15, 13 , p. 208.

THE Sabbath was ordained to give man something more than mere rest; for on the seventh day God "rested and was refreshed." All that the Creator designed in giving the Sabbath is secured to man through the gospel; but the restraints imposed by legislatures and courts can provide neither rest nor refreshment.

SELF-GOVERNMENT is a simple art in itself, but civilization has made of it a complex system, altogether beyond the intellectual grasp of the inferior races. But because these people cannot govern themselves after the American system, we need not conclude they cannot govern themselves in any way. Governments are instituted among men to preserve rights and any people who respect human rights are qualified to make a success of self-government.

April 5, 1900

"Front Page" American Sentinel 15, 14 , p. 209.

CHRISTIANITY demands the denial of self; the Sunday laws demand the denial of conscience.

MORALITY cannot be preserved by legality. The forms of godliness without the power amount to nothing.

THE religion which crucifies self will never ask for a law to save self from any cost incurred by obedience to God.

REAL Sabbath rest is not in a Sabbath law, or in idleness, but in the Sabbath itself; and only he enjoys it who takes the Sabbath as the gift of the Creator.

IF a person has any rights at all, he has all the rights with which man has been endowed by the Creator. He cannot be denied one right without in principle being denied all.

BECAUSE the true Sabbath is a religious institution, any weekly Sabbath must borrow from it a religious character, just as any imitation derives its significance from the thing imitated.

THE spirit of Christianity does not prompt a person to inquire of the Lord what his neighbor ought to do, or to inform the legislature of how his neighbor should be made to act, on the Sabbath.

THE state may command men in religious observance now, but it will not answer for them finally at the bar of Him who alone has authority in religion.

IT is a bad thing to enact an unjust law, but a worse thing to enforce it after it is passed. If a bad law ought to be enforced, upon the same principle a bad character ought to be protected in doing injury to the public.

THE true Sabbath–the "Sabbath of the Lord"–is immortal because it is the same now that it was when God created it. Hence no one need be worried over the question of its preservation. Only that which has in it the seeds of sin and death needs to be guarded against the liability of destruction.

"A Baptist Clergyman's Defense of Sunday Laws" American Sentinel 15, 14 , pp. 209, 210.

WE have received from a clergyman of Cleveland, Ohio, the following letter in reference to his connection with the agitation for Sunday observance in that city (noticed recently in our columns), with a request for its publication, with which we very willingly comply:–

"EDITOR AMERICAN SENTINEL: You kindly sent me a copy of this week's SENTINEL that I might see your strictures on my plea for 'enforcement of the law.' Possibly you will grant a brief reply.

"Let me say: In keeping with the great denomination to which I belong, I believe in the separation of the church and the state. I do not believe in trying to make people religious by civil legislation. Nor do I believe in civil government granting at any time, anywhere, under any conditions, in states or territories, to Protestant, Catholic, or Jew, one cent of money for denominational purposes!

"My remarks, which you criticise, were not a plea for laws to be enforced in order to make people religious,

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or to attend any church, but were on this point: Cleveland has scores of business concerns which work thousands of men and women seven days in the week. These wage earners are crying for a day primarily for physical rest. The laws of the city are against the operation of those business places on the Sabbath. Yet because these business men make money by running on the Sabbath day, they run their business in violation of a plain law which the vast majority of people believe in as a physical right and necessity. Now, that these wage-men who get almost no time for physical rest, or mental improvement, or religious enjoyment, may have at least one day of rest, I said that the laws on our statute books which clearly forbid the operation of these factories and places of business on the Sabbath 'should be enforced,' that men and women who are now compelled to work on the Sabbath or be thrown out of their positions may have an opportunity to rest. If you differ from me on this point, then I shall have to be contented in not being agreed with. I believe that righteous laws, and such enforcement of righteous laws as will give American citizens respect for law, are among the chief necessities of our age and country.

"Respectfully,

"W. L. PICKARD,

"Pastor First Baptist Church, Cleveland, O."

Probably no more plausible statement of the case for the Sunday laws could be made than is here presented. The workingmen are, in very many cases, overworked by their employers; they are injured by working seven days in the week; it is a great wrong to a man and to his family that he should have almost no time in the week to spend with his wife and children; he ought to enjoy a weekly day of rest. All this we believe as fully as does the writer of this letter. We differ when we come to consider the proper remedy. He says there should be a Sunday-rest law, strictly enforced; we say that all Sunday laws are wrong in principle, and therefore delusive as a remedy for moral or social evils.

Would our Baptist friends be satisfied with a law which provided that these factory employees should each be given one day off each week, upon any day which might best suit the wishes of the employee or the convenience of the employer? No; we think he would not. The day upon which they are to rest, for physical recuperation and social requirements, must be Sunday, and no other.

More than this: the Sunday laws must apply not only to owners of factories and business concerns, but to all men generally. The individual who employs no one, but works only for himself, must stop his business, even though he prefers to work. This is what our Baptist friend demands unless he is decidedly at variance with his brother clergymen who favor Sunday laws.

As we have stated, Sunday legislation is wrong in principle. The Sabbath is a religious institution. Its observance is a religious act, and rest from labor is an essential feature of that observance. The legislature cannot appoint and enforce a weekly day of rest, without coming into contact with religion.

Here comes in the plea for the "civil Sabbath." The state does not interfere with religion, we are told, because it only decrees a "civil" Sabbath–mere rest from work. But mere rest from work, upon a fixed day one week, after the manner of true Sabbath observance, . . . a religious significance of which it cannot possibly be divested by legislative act. It has been so fixed by the act of the Creator.

We must keep in mind the arrangement which the Creator has established. His law says, "Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work." This covers the entire week, and divides it into six working days, and one rest day, and that rest day is a religious day. It provides no place for a "civil Sabbath," and no such institution can be put into it without altering it and interfering with the position assigned the "Sabbath of the Lord."

This is the divine arrangement for the week–one religious day of rest, and six working days. Omniscience was satisfied with it; why should not the Rev. Mr. Pickard be likewise satisfied? Why should any Baptist clergyman think it can be improved on by a State legislature?

And by this arrangement all men are bound. All men, including workingmen, are religiously bound not to turn the Sabbath into a civil day, nor to turn one of the six working days into a rest day. The six working days must retain their character as such in order that the Sabbath may retain its character as a day sanctified–set apart–from all the rest. Some men observe the seventh day, and feel in conscience bound to regard Sunday as one of the six working days. Others observe the first day, and if that day is the Sabbath they should feel in conscience bound to regard all other days as working days. Hence the state cannot appoint and enforce a weekly day of rest, under any plea, without interfering with conscience.

Any weekly day of rest, whatever name may be given it, must be either the Sabbath of the fourth commandment or an imitation of it. If an imitation of the true Sabbath, it is a counterfeit and as such must be offensive to the Author of the genuine institution. It is by the genuine Sabbath that men are to be benefited, and not by a man-made imitation.

The evil of all Sunday legislation is that it sets up a human authority where the divine Authority has spoken, and applies force in the domain of religion and the conscience. From the very nature of the Sabbath institution, as we have seen, this must be so. Hence it cannot be the proper remedy for the evil of overwork. The dictates of conscience ought to settle the question of Sabbath rest for workingmen, as for all others; but those who have no conscience in the matter, or who will not be governed by its dictates, must find a remedy by some other means than that which would bring compulsion upon the consciences of others.

"A Call for 'Christian' Politics" American Sentinel 15, 14 , p. 211.

A WRITER in the Sabbath Recorder says:–

"There can be no question as to the duty of a Christian to take part in politics.

"There can be no question about the necessity for the Christian to take part in making the laws, and selecting the officers to enforce them."

Is this so? Is there any question but that Jesus Christ took no part in politics, neither worked for the enactment or enforcement of any laws? And is there any question but that Christians are bound to be guided by his example?

Again, this writer says:–

"We cannot shirk these responsibilities and leave the country entirely in the hands of professional politicians and chronic office seekers."

But does not this writer know that true Christians in this country, as in other lands, are not in the majority, but constitute only a small minority? As a part of the government, they would constitute the tail and not the body, and the tail does not wag the body, but vice versa. The candidates will be selected by the great majority who are not Christians, but are "professional politicians, and chronic office seekers," and followers of these characters, and then the true Christians can vote for them if they choose, under the impression that they are casting a Christian vote; while the politicians laugh at their simplicity.

Anybody who reads a daily paper ought to know that politics in this country are managed by professional politicians, and always will be. These men have studied the subject until they have made a science of the business of getting and holding a majority of the popular vote; and the unskilled man can no more succeed in a political contest than can the novice succeed against the man of scientific skill in any other business. And the churches and religious organizations which aim to control politics will succeed in their purpose only when they are led by professional politicians; that is, when their religious leaders learn and copy the methods by which professional politicians attain success. But when this is done, where will be their standing as representatives of Christ?

True Christians are the "salt of the earth"–that which preserves it. Matt. 5:13. But will anyone claim that Christians preserve the earth by their votes? Yet Christians will argue in a Christian journal that Christians must be careful to cast their ballots into the great sea of political worldliness, in order to keep things from going to ruin!

Politics represents selfishness–the instinct of self-preservation, self-advancement, self-exaltation–which is common to all people. Any person, except perchance the true Christian, will resent an invasion of his rights, and will make trouble if he can for the person or party seeking to invade them. Hence there is a necessity felt to a greater or less degree by all persons in power, of respecting the rights of the people; and it is this necessity caused by the common instinct to "look out for number one," and not the "Christian vote," that maintains the rights and liberties which civil governments are instituted to preserve.

There are a vast number of people in this country who, while lacking the true Christian spirit, are tenacious of their religion, and ready to roll the ear of Judggernaut over the adherents of a rival religion where they constitute but a despised few. And it is just such pleas for Christian politicians as this the Recorder prints, that will take these over-zealous and under-wise "Christians" into politics for religion's sake. And when this comes to pass, as ere long it will, the Recorder will have plenty of reason to regret the results that will follow.

"Back Page" American Sentinel 15, 14 , p. 224.

BISHOP POTTER, who has recently returned from the Philippines with altered views touching that country and people from those previously proclaimed by him, says in The Outlook that "There are probably a few people in America who believe that self-government is an absolute and indefeasible right." There are a few people, probably, who still believe that "all men are created equal," and that all men "are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights," which governments are instituted among men for the purpose of preserving; and that civil governments accordingly derive their just powers from "the consent of the governed." This language means self-government for all people if it means anything, and there are a few people who still believe it speaks the truth. That is what we believe.

NO PARTY, religious or political, can put God into the Constitution by taking out of it that equality and freedom for all in religion with which God has ever been inseparably connected.

THE gospel does not mean that any person shall force even himself to do right, much less that he shall force others to do what he thinks is right.

THE appointed work of the Christian minister is not to restrain the hands, but to touch the heart.

April 12, 1900

"Front Page" American Sentinel 15, 15 , p. 225.

NO PERSON can gain moral strength by leaning on the law.

CIVIL law may be an obstacle to conscience, but never an aid.

RELIGION cannot be bound by binding the men who profess and teach it.

TO ENFORCE a religious observance is to put law in the seat of conscience.

THE more the church enters politics, the more will politics enter the church.

RIGHT and justice were established before there was any such thing as a majority vote.

SABBATH rest is an excellent thing in itself; but it never does the person any good upon whom it is forced.

THE powers that be are ordained of God, but the voice of the former must not be mistaken for the voice of the latter.

THE enforcement of the Sunday laws makes more real disturbance on Sunday than is caused by any amount of honest labor.

CONSCIENCE may sometimes lead an individual wrong; but without conscience, another power will control the individual which will always lead him wrong.

MAN'S prohibition can never stand where God has planted his permission; and he has permitted labor on the first day of the week, both by precept and by his own example.

"Extending the Constitution" American Sentinel 15, 15 , pp. 225, 226.

THERE is a great deal of talk everywhere in political circles over the question whether or not the Constitution extends of its own force to Puerto Rico and other new territory of the United States.

This however is not the fundamental question that is raised by the acquisition of this new territory. The great question underlying all others, is Shall justice be done to the inhabitants of this territory?

Some would-be statesmen talk as though the question of doing justice to these people depended on the question whether the Constitution extends to their lands or not. If it shall be decided that the Constitution does not extend to them, then this country is not bound to consider the question of justice in its dealings with them! Congress can govern them in any arbitrary way that it sees fit!

This is just the reverse of the truth. The question of doing justice in any territory does not depend upon the question whether the Constitution extends to that territory or not; but the question whether the Constitution extends thither depends upon the question whether the United States is bound to do justice in that territory.

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For what purpose is the Constitution? As set forth in the preamble, it is to "establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." Are these things desirable for the people of the new territory? Ought such provision to be made for them? If so, then the Constitution must extend to their land, because the Constitution is the very means devised by the United States to secure these blessings here at home. And this does not mean that their country and circumstances must be made to fit the forms and technicalities of the Constitution as it applies to the United States, but that the Constitution must be applied to them as their situation demands. Some of the forms of the Constitution may not fit their country, but this is no reason for denying them the essence of the Constitution–the principles of just government by which domestic tranquility, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity, are to be secured.

To say that the Constitution does not extend to the new territory, then, is to say that the people there do not need the blessings secured by it in the United States, or that they shall not be given them whether they need them or not. The latter has in effect been said by the Government. For the people of that territory are a conquered people, and a conquered people cannot secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity except by successful revolt against their conquerors. Having begun by denying liberty and justice to these foreign people, it is entirely logical that the decision should now be reached that the Constitution created for the purpose of securing these blessings to the people under it, does not apply to the territory where they reside.

"More Separation Needed" American Sentinel 15, 15 , p. 226.

THE London Christian affirms that church members are responsible for Sunday journalism in America, and fears that Sunday papers may yet be supported upon a similar basis in England. It says:–

"The seventh-day newspaper in America stays because it pays, and it pays because Christians advertise in it–so it is affirmed.

"If they withdrew their advertisements, something might be done. We fancy that this would be the difficulty in this country also. Representatives of both the journals that offended here for awhile have said that there was money in the venture, and therefore we can hardly count ourselves safe, unless Christians should be ready to make a stand and separate themselves. Separation we imagine, will become a vital question for the church in the not distant future. Testimony for our Master and his truth is wanted and it is not easy to see how we can give it while the world and the church are so intimately blended."

Yes; the church and the world are altogether too "intimately blended" to-day. The church needs a more clearer line of separation between herself and the world, but such a line will never be drawn so long as she . . . the world to gain political power. The church can never have that separation from the world which Christianity demands while the leaders of the church look in the halls of legislation, to persuade the state to give its support to religious institutions, such for example, as the Sunday Sabbath. Every religious law upon the State books is a bond of union between the church and the state, and so between the church and the world.

"Back Page" American Sentinel 15, 15 , p. 240.

THE Christian Statesman accounts for the lack of growth in the Methodist and other prominent churches the past year, by pointing out that these churches have not done their duty in the matter of "Christianizing society." This is an important duty for the church, says the Statesman, because without it there will not be "an environment in which the Christian character can come to perfection." "It is hard if not impossible to be a consistent Christian in society as we now find society." So the churches must destroy the evils that flourish in society, and so remove temptation and furnish an environment in which it will be easy to do right.

This conception of the mission of Christianity contains two fatal defects. In the first place the church cannot renovate this world so that the evils flourishing in society will be eliminated. If the Scriptures teach anything at all, they teach that the world itself will be destroyed by fire, with all the wicked upon it, and that thus the evils that afflict society will be finally removed. Christians will not save the world, but will be saved out of the world. And secondly, Christian character is not brought to perfection by removing obstacles from the Christian pathway, but by a vigorous surmounting of these obstacles by the faith which lays hold upon infinite power. Christian character represents not a work done outside the Christian, but a work done within him. God's plan is not to take man and women to heaven by smoothing the way so that they can slide along easily, but by filling them with power to overcome the world and to rise above every possible obstruction. The only smooth way in this world is the way that leads downward.

"EAMSTER" is observed by the churches because of the resurrection of Christ. The day is celebrated as the anniversary of the day of the resurrection. As the anniversary day, it would, like Christmas or one's birthday, occur in different years upon different days of the week. Hence the churches would find themselves celebrating Monday, Tuesday, etc., as the day of the resurrection of Christ, when they had celebrated the previous Sunday for the same reason! In the interests of Sunday observance this would never do.

So it was decreed that the anniversary must always fall on Sunday, and we have an anniversary day which not only always falls on Sunday, but spreads out in the course of years over a period of four or five weeks between the beginning of March and the end of April! It does't [sic.] matter whether it falls in March or April, just so that it falls on Sunday.

All this celebration of Easter is of course a confession that Sunday is not the day of Christ's resurrection. A weekly event cannot be an anniversary, and an anniversary cannot be celebrated weekly. The logic of the weekly observance demands that there be no Easter, and Easter in turn disposes entirely of the claim made for Sunday as the weekly Sabbath.

Why will intelligent sensible people be guilty of such inconsistency! Why do not the churches either drop Sunday as the Sabbath, or drop Easter? If there is any good reason for holding to both as commemorative of the same event, we really wish some one would tell us what it is.

April 19, 1900

"Front Page" American Sentinel 15, 16 , p. 241.

CONSCIENCE can be properly surrendered only to the Word of God.

LAWS touching religion interpose the state between the soul and its Creator.

THE duties we are to render to Cesar are never those which belong to God.

GOD does not force any of his gifts upon mankind, and no man ought to try to force His gifts upon his fellowmen.

LAWS which are to maintain justice between man and man, must be founded upon something else than religious belief.

IT is one thing to demonstrate the necessity of a weekly rest, and quite another thing to demonstrate the propriety of a Sunday law.

JESUS CHRIST'S solution for the workingman's rest problem, and the only solution he ever advocated, is, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden; and I will give you rest." Have clergymen found a better one to-day?

THE Sunday laws, as enforced in some States, give the seventh-day keeper the alternative of dispensing with his property or dispensing with his conscience.

HOW CAN Sunday be both a religious and a "civil" Sabbath? How can a thing be both sacred and secular law? both tall and short? both white and black? Who can tell?

LIGHT needs no protection against darkness, nor truth against error, nor Christianity against false religions. When men are protected in their rights, religion will take care of itself.

"A New 'Sovereignty' in the United States" American Sentinel 15, 16 , pp. 241, 242.

A POLITICAL party in Maine–which one is not a material question here–at its State convention held recently adopted resolutions in which it is stated that–

"Congress may be safely depended upon to secure to all who accept its sovereignty the blessings of a just government and a progressive civilization."

The noteworthy point in this is the idea it puts forth of the sovereignty of Congress. This is strange political doctrine for this country. If Congress is the sovereign, what are the people? It has been understood heretofore that the sovereignty of the United States resides in the people, and the Congress has only such power and authority as are expressly granted to it by the Constitution. Now we have it plainly asserted that Congress possess sovereignty in itself.

If this were the first appearance of the doctrine of sovereignty in the United States other than that of the people, it might be taken for a mere mental slip on the part of its authors. But this doctrine has become too

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prominent to warrant such a view of this assertion of congressional sovereignty. For years there has been a plain tendency towards the transference of power from the people to certain classes and parties in the Government, to such a degree as even to suggest the coming of an absolute monarchy. We are hearing of "government without the Constitution" and even of "government by a single mind" as conditions at which, if realized here, the American people should not be greatly surprised. And with this the idea of the sovereignty of Congress is in perfect harmony.

The people do not appreciate the importance of retaining the sovereignty in their own hands. They are, for the most part, absorbed in getting rich, as Jefferson prophesied would be the case; and unscrupulous men of ambition, realizing their opportunity, are robbing them of their power and undermining the structure of American constitutional government.

"Government without the Constitution," and the "sovereignty of Congress" are expressions meaning one and the same thing. The Constitution is the rule of government declared by "we, the people of the United States." The "sovereignty" of Congress must necessarily exist outside the Constitution; and it can exist at all only by superseding the sovereignty of the people and setting aside the Constitution; for this country, like the world in Alexander's day, "does not admit of two suns or two sovereigns." Shall the sovereignty remain in the people? or shall it be transferred from the many to a few–to Congress, then to a clique, to a triumvirate, and finally to an emperor? This is no idle question. It is one to which the American people must give an answer.

"Archbishop Ireland for Sunday Enforcement" American Sentinel 15, 16 , p. 242.

THE following from this noted Catholic prelate is quoted in "Lord's Day Papers," a monthly publication issued by the Wisconsin Sabbath Association:–

"I have noticed with much regret that in movements of citizens to enforce the Sunday laws of the country, Catholics are not in large numbers among the foremost combatants. This may rise from some singular political ideas held by them, but no political ideas must prevail against such obligations as those binding us to the observance of the Sunday."

And the "obligations binding us to the observance of the Sunday," as the archbishop and all Catholics see them, are that the day has been set apart by the Catholic Church as a religious day, resting upon precisely the same authority as do other feast and fast days of the Catholic Church, and no more binding than these in its obligation. This is why Archbishop Ireland wants the Sunday laws enforced upon Protestants in this country. Another noted Catholic writer has said that the observance of Sunday by Protestants is "an homage they pay in spite of themselves, to the Catholic Church;" and Archbishop Ireland, the Wisconsin Sabbath Association (professedly Protestant), and all others working for the enforcement of Sunday laws, want Protestants in the United States forced to pay homage "in spite of themselves, to the Catholic Church."

But we don't want anything of this kind.

"Archbishop Martinelli on the 'Lord's Day'" American Sentinel 15, 16 , pp. 244, 245.

IN the Catholic Mirror, Archbishop Martinelli, "Delegate Apostolic to the United States," considers the question "Shall Sunday be 'Lord's Day?'" and states the doctrine by which the question is answered for Roman Catholics. According to his statements, as will be noticed, Protestants in applying the term "Lord's day" to Sunday, have been following an example set by Rome from very early times. The archbishop says:–

"The Latin races have used the word 'Dominico,' or day of the Lord, to designate the first day of the week since the reign of Pope Sylvester I, who ruled the church from A. D. 312 to 337.

"From the beginning we find that all those people who derive their language from the Latin–the Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese, do not honor a heathen god in the specific title which they give to the day which we call holy, but they call it, as we do in ecclesiastical Latin–Lord's day–'Dominico'–in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, and 'Dimanche' in French.

"The change which the Christian church made from the Sabbath to Sunday is too well known to need discussion. The early followers of Christ chose the first day of the week as the day of prayer rather than the last mainly to commemorate his glorious resurrection.

"The teachings of the early fathers tell us that the Holy Ghost descended upon the disciples on Whit Sunday or Pentecost, and this constitutes another reason for the change. The observance of the Sunday or day of rest does not emanate from the natural law, which would indeed require us to worship the author of nature during parts of every day rather than during a whole day of every week.

"There is no divine law which commands us to commemorate Sunday. The observance is purely of ecclesiastical origin, dating, however, from the time of the apostles. But as we have no trace of the Sabbath being observed among the Hebrews before the time of Moses we need not question the authority of the apostles to sanctify Sunday and set it apart as the day on which we honor the resurrection of the Son of God.

"The Anglo-Saxon word Sunday is the name given to honor the sun, the divinity considered the most powerful in heathen mythology. The names of the other days of the week are chosen to honor some other divinity, as Monday, Luna, the moon; Tuesday, Mardi, Mars, the God of war; Wednesday, Woden, or Mercury; Thursday, or Thorday, the day which Jupiter was remembered; Friday was dedicated to Venus and Saturday to Saturn, the father of Jupiter and Neptune.

"I believe that all Christian people should proclaim their belief in the Son of God by honoring his name in the day which they have chosen to consecrate to him. This great country is a Christian country, and by adopting the word 'Lord's day' or 'Sonday' to honor the Word Incarnate, it will bear witness of the truth. In the Latin we used to say 'Dies de Dominus,' but this

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was considered too cumbersome for ordinary use, so the name has become simply Dominico.

"There will be some means of simplifying the English word to meet the popular requirements. We follow the New Testament as our guide and we will find therein many reasons for calling the first day of the week the 'Lord's day.' Thus, there is but one passage in the New Testament in which we find the first day mentioned specifically as the Lord's day, namely, in the Apoc. 1:10. In Acts 20:7, we are told that St. Paul abode seven days at Troas, and that on the first day of the week the disciples came together to break bread. We have every reason, both from revelation and from tradition, to consecrate the first day of the week to the Son of God, and to name it for him is consistently and religiously to put in practise the discussion, and I hope that it will bear good fruits among the believers in Christ in this country."

Observe that the archbishop says: "This great country is a Christian country, and by adopting the word 'Lord's day' or 'Sonday' to honor the Word Incarnate, it will bear witness of the truth." By making Sunday the "Lord's day," then, this country will proclaim that it is "Christian." But with the archbishop, the term "Christian" means Catholic and not Protestant. The country can proclaim itself "Christian" as a Catholic, but not as a Protestant, country; and it will do this by making Sunday the "Lord's day." This is perfectly in harmony with the Catholic claim that the Sabbath was changed by authority of the (Catholic) church, and that the change of the day stands as the sign of the church's spiritual power and authority. It is perfectly true therefore that in making Sunday the "Lord's day" this nation will proclaim itself "Christian" in the Roman Catholic sense, which will be simply to proclaim itself a Catholic nation.

It is amusing to note the archbishop's further statement that in "Apoc. 1:10," "we find the first day of the week specifically mentioned as the Lord's day." The idea that the "Lord's day" of Rev. 1:10 refers specifically or in any way to Sunday was specifically controverted in the Catholic Mirror some years ago by a prominent Catholic writer, and seems to be better "Protestant" doctrine than Catholic; but the archbishop's statement well illustrates the assumption that goes with the attempt to find Bible proof for Sunday. The text in question says nothing whatever about the first day of the week. The conclusion that it does refer to the first day of the week is reached by "arguing in a circle." The first day of the week is "proved" from Scripture, first, to be the Lord's day; and then the term "Lord's day" in Scripture is taken as proof that the text refers to the first day of the week. It is like two persons trying to hold each other up in the air: each depends on the other, but as neither has any support, they must fall to the ground together.

"A 'Remarkable Situation'" American Sentinel 15, 16 , pp. 245, 246.

THE New York Sun, in discussing the effect of the "higher criticism" upon the Protestant Church, points out that the Protestant bodies have in practise abandoned the ground of Scriptural infallibility upon which Protestantism stood when the separation was made from Rome; leaving Rome as the "sole champion" of the doctrine that the Bible contains no error. In this it sees, and quite truly, a "remarkable situation":–

"The pope, in his encyclical on Scripture in 1893, declared that 'all the books which the church receives as sacred and canonical are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost,' and 'that inspiration is not only incompatible with error, but also excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God himself, the Supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true.' The sacred and canonical books referred to include all the Bible as accepted by Protestants and accordingly the papal definition of the dogma of the Scripture attributes to the Protestant Bible entire and absolute infallibility. That is the question in controversy and the position of Rome as to it is unequivocal. So also is that of Protestantism, so far as concerns its formal and authoritative standards of faith; but while Roman Catholicism commands the layman Dr. Mivart to render obedience to its dogma under pain of excommunication and eternal damnation, Protestantism retains in its ministry and as teachers of theology many men whose teachings openly contradict its standards.

"Does not this, then, leave the Roman Catholic Church the sole champion of Scriptural infallibility? Of course, a law amounts to nothing, becomes a mere dead letter, unless it is enforced. And is it not a very remarkable situation? Protestantism, the great distinguishing feature of which is reliance on the authority of the Bible above and without any other, surrenders the keeping of the infallibility of that authority to the church against which it protested and from which it separated in the sixteenth century, as a fountain of religious error."

It is of course only in theory that the church of Rome maintains the infallibility of Scripture. The doctrine has no practical importance for any true Catholic. For it is not the Scripture in itself that is the infallible guide of the Catholic into all truth, but the Scripture as interpreted by the church "fathers," the councils, the popes, and Catholic theologians in general. The Scripture is divine and unerring, but the interpretation is human and fallible. Such an interpretation does not explain the Bible, but the Bible is made to support the interpretation. This opens wide the door to error in its worst form. And by this means error has come into the Catholic Church, through centuries of time, until to-day that church, while still maintaining the doctrine of Scriptural infallibility, has not use for the Bible at all, never encourages its reading in the most enlightened lands, and in Catholic countries prohibits it as a

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dangerous and heretical book, to be destroyed as an enemy of mankind.

The "higher criticism" is only another form of this human interpretation which has destroyed the Bible for the millions of the Catholic Church. It is a scheme aiming at a like result for the Protestant churches, but suited to the conditions of present-day Protestantism. The papal interpretation of the Scriptures puts error in the place of truth without denying the inaccuracy of the Scripture itself; the "higher criticism" puts error in the place of truth by simply declaring that certain portions of the Scriptures themselves are error. The one is as human and as fallible as the other, and they represent only opposite sides of a scheme to defeat salvation by putting the human in the place of the divine.

The Omniscient never designed that infallible words should be interpreted by a fallible authority. If he had he would not have provided the Holy Spirit as a guide into all truth. If any man lack wisdom, he is not to ask of the pope or the priest, the pastor or the higher critics, but "of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." If men will follow the counsel of the Omniscient and adhere to the plan he has provided for the spiritual enlightenment of mankind, they will find no difficulty in accepting the Scriptures as infallible, without the necessity of submitting their minds to the authority of a pope.

"Back Page" American Sentinel 15, 16 , p. 256.

PROTESTANTS separated from Rome because they looked upon Rome as antichrist. Yet they continued to observe the same day as the Sabbath which Rome observed. But the Lord says of the Sabbath that it is his "sign" (Eze. 20:12, 20)–that those keeping it may know they are worshipers of the true God. Rome also sets forth the Sabbath–that of the Catholic Church–as the sign of her spiritual authority. The Sabbath thus holding this crucial place in the Christian system and in that which claims to be such, it should be evident to Protestants that if the church of Rome is antichrist, she must be wrong on the point of Sabbath observance, and the distinction between Protestants and Catholics should certainly be as marked on this point as on any point of religious belief and practise. Nor would they need to search the Scripture long to discover wherein this distinction should be made. Protestants were logically bound to repudiate Sunday observance when they separated from Rome; and by their failure to do so they are logically drawn toward reunion with the papal church.

April 26, 1900

"Front Page" American Sentinel 15, 17 , p. 257.

HOW CAN the state be religious without maintaining a state religion?

UNION of church and state leads surely to disunion, discord and strife between church and state.

GOVERNMENT support of church institutions is only an indirect form of government support of the church.

IT is the right of every person to be in the wrong, in every matter that does not involve the rights of others.

A SUNDAY law represents an effort to conform the world to the church; but such conformity always makes the church more like the world.

THE Omniscient made only one kind of Sabbath. It was left for human wisdom to discover the "necessity" for both a religious and a "civil" day.

THE purpose of civil law is not to force all people into uniformity of action; for such uniformity is both against liberty and against unity. Diversity, within proper limits, is much more desirable than uniformity.

THE physical needs of mankind do not demand rest upon Sunday more than upon any other day of the week; and the moral needs of mankind demand freedom of choice in the selection of the day.

THERE is as much reason for a civil law enforcing the first or the tenth precept of the Decalogue, as for one enforcing the fourth precept. One part of the divine law does not differ in character from another part.

THERE is nothing gained for the cause of religion by forcing men to pay a hypocritical homage to one of its institutions. Every religious law is against Christianity, because it creates hypocrisy, which is an antichristian thing.

"The 'Two Arms' of 'Sabbath' Reform" American Sentinel 15, 17 , pp. 257, 258.

IN a treatise on the "civil Sabbath," the author, Rev. W. F. Crafts, sets up the claim that two different Sabbaths are essential in the work of Sabbath reform. He says:–

"The right arm, the most important part, of the Sabbath reform, is the promotion of the religious Sabbath; its left arm, the preservation of the civil Sabbath. These two things–the Christian Sabbath on the one hand, and the American Sabbath on the other–are as distinct as my two arms, that resemble and co-operate, and yet are by no means the same."

This illustration does not fit the case. The religious Sabbath and the "civil" Sabbath, as Mr. Crafts views them, both fall on Sunday. Sunday is his religious Sabbath, and the same day is also the "civil" Sabbath. There are not two Sabbaths here, any more than there can be two arms consisting of the same piece.

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"This distinction," Mr. Crafts says, "is itself an answer to most of the objections to Sabbath laws, which rest chiefly upon the false assumption that they are enforcements of a duty to God, punishments of a sin against God." The truth is that this "distinction" was discovered under the necessity of finding some answer to the objections to Sabbath laws, which would disguise the fact that such laws enforce a religious observance. The "distinction" has no existence in fact, and therefore no force against the objections at which it is aimed.

Sunday-law advocates say that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath. Sunday is therefore, in their view, a religious day. If Sunday is a religious day, it cannot be a secular day, for "religious" and "secular" are opposite terms. If the character of Sunday has been fixed by the Lord, then no act or law of man can change its character. If on the other hand Sunday is not a religious Sabbath, then it is not the true Sabbath, and Christians of all people should be the last to desire its establishment in the place of the rightful day.

"It is admitted," says Mr. Crafts, "that it is the province of civil law to enforce man's duties to man, and especially to punish crimes against man. It is exactly on this ground that Sabbath laws forbid Sunday work and Sunday dissipation, namely, as crimes against man." Assumption has usually to be supported by assumption, and this is an example,–the assumption of a "civil" Sabbath supported by the assumption that working on Sunday is a crime against humanity. If it were true that the rights of people were invaded by Sunday labor, it would of course be proper to forbid such labor by law, and there would be some ground for a "civil" Sabbath. But it is not true that Sunday labor interferes with any person's rights. It is not true that such labor constitutes a "crime against man." No labor that is not compulsory can invade personal rights.

The Constitution of the United States forbids involuntary servitude, save as a punishment for crime; and any person other than a criminal held in involuntary servitude in this country can appeal to the Constitution for relief. Involuntary servitude is recognized as an invasion of personal rights; but the person who works voluntarily cannot claim that his rights are infringed. He has the right to work, and the right to stop work, and that is as much as any man can have or desire in this respect.

As therefore Sunday labor in the United States is not involuntary, but is performed only by those having the full privilege of stopping work whenever they may choose, no rights are invaded by it; and no rights being invaded, no action is called for from the civil power which is established to preserve rights. Hence there is no ground for a civil decree commanding Sunday rest, and therefore no ground for the establishment of a "civil Sabbath."

"Back Page" American Sentinel 15, 17 , p. 272.

THE trouble with workingmen in reference to Sunday work is not that they do not have the right to rest, but that they do not use the right. If they have the right and do not use it, the blame for their failure to enjoy the right falls on themselves. Where no right is invaded, no law to preserve rights is needed. There can be no just ground for Sunday laws while Sunday work remains a voluntary act.

Of course, many people are working on Sunday who would much prefer to rest on that day. But mere preferences do not constitute good ground for a law. The law can recognize rights, and distinguish between justice and injustice; but it cannot accommodate itself to people's preferences. Preferences are not rights. A right represents justice; a preference often represents only mental or moral weakness. A preference not to work may represent only business. In the matter of Sunday labor it represents in some cases–perhaps in many–a conviction that Sunday work is morally wrong. But the law cannot undertake to carry out people's conviction of right. Convictions are for the convicted person to carry out himself. The person who believes he ought to rest on Sunday in obedience to the will of God, should not require any further reason than the will of God for observing that day. God has spoken plainly on the subject of Sabbath observance; and to disobey God until the state speaks on the subject, is to set the state above God. For one who does this to plead conscientious convictions against Sunday labor, is not very consistent, to say the least.

THE right of one person to rest on Sunday does not demand for its preservation the loss of another person's equal right to labor on that day. Every person is free to rest on Sunday, and there is no invasion of rights until there is introduced the compulsion of the law. It is compulsion that interferes with personal liberty, and the right denied is not the right of rest but the right of labor. This is a sacred right, and only tyranny will interfere with its enjoyment.

May 10, 1900

"What is Liberty?" American Sentinel 15, 18 , pp. 276, 277.

IT is true that in the name of liberty many and grievous crimes have been committed. Yet many and grievous as they may have been, this in no wise lessens the fact that liberty is a true and genuine principle in human experience.

It is only because men do not know what liberty is, that they can ever possibly commit crime, oppression, or wrong of any kind, in the name of liberty. Men mistake power for liberty, and then use their power despotically and call it the exercise, and the bestowal of liberty.

No man knows true liberty who has it not in himself. And whoever has it in himself, recognizes it as belonging to every other man equally with himself; and he will willingly make himself the servant of all, that if by any means they may attain to the liberty which he knows and enjoys. Therefore no one who knows true liberty, will ever wilfully do any injustice or wrong to anybody.

In the nature of things there is no true liberty but Christian liberty. It is only those whom the Son of God makes free, that are free indeed. This, because all men are in bondage to sin; and only Christ can break that bondage. "I am carnal, sold under sin. . . . I find then a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God, after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ." Rom. 7:11-25.

Christ came into the world to "proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of prison to them that are bound." Luke 4:18-21. He sent his disciples into the world to proclaim this liberty to every creature. The Roman Empire then covered the civilized world; and Roman freedom–the freedom of Roman citizenship–was exalted as the sum of all good. This, however, being the lot of a very few, the next best thing for mankind was held to be such measure of liberty as Rome considered them capable of enjoying, and therefore such as she was willing to bestow. Yet every Roman citizen was a subject, and every Roman subject was a slave; which is but to say that Roman liberty was only despotism–Roman freedom was only the greater bondage.

Into that world of the despotism and bondage of worldly power, in addition to the despotism of sin and the bondage of iniquity, the Lord Jesus sent his little band of disciples to preach the gospel to the poor, to bind up the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. First becoming acquainted with the liberty of Christ themselves, they went forth carrying hope to the despairing, joy to the sorrowing, comfort to the afflicted, relief to the distressed, peace to the perplexed, and to all a message of merciful forgiveness of sins, of the gift of the righteousness of God, and of a purity and power which would cleanse the soul from all unrighteousness of heart and life, and plant instead the perfect purity of the Son of God and the courage of an everlasting joy.

And Rome that boasted of her freedom, Rome that prided herself on being the conservator of liberty for the world, was so utterly blind to what liberty is, that by all her power, exerted in dreadful persecutions, she antagonized this true liberty as the most dangerous

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thing both to the individual and to the state. But, as has been well said, "How is it possible to arrest the spread of a faith which can make the broken heart leap for joy?"

This is the liberty that is, and that is to be, proclaimed, watched over, and guarded, by The Sentinel of Liberty. And there is need of it now, just as there was in the beginning. Here is another mighty nation that lays serious claims to being the conservator of liberty for the world, but which is fast losing sight of what liberty is; and which, continuing as it has even already begun, will yet become so blind to what liberty is, that she will actually oppose by all the power at her command the true liberty–Christian liberty–as the most dangerous thing to the individual and to the state.

For this cause in particular, as well as for other causes in general, it is essential that now, as at the beginning, the everlasting gospel shall be preached with a loud voice to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, calling men everywhere to the worship of Him alone who made the heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of waters. This is the work of The Sentinel of Liberty.

Therefore let The Sentinel of Liberty be circulated everywhere. It advocates the only true liberty–Christian liberty–liberty that can never be used as an occasion of the flesh, but which by love will gladly serve others. For truest liberty is ever found, not in ruling, but in serving.
A. T. JONES.

May 17, 1900

"Christianity Separate from the State" The Sentinel of Liberty 15, 19 , pp. 291-293.

JESUS Christ came into the world to bring to men the true knowledge of God; for "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." 2 Cor. 5:19. He came to reveal to men the kingdom of God–to enunciate its principles, to manifest its spirit, to reveal its character. Of it He said: "My kingdom is not of this world." John 18:26. "Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God." John 3:3. And His apostles declared, "The kingdom of God is * * * righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." Rom. 14:17.

"My kingdom is not of this world." Every kingdom, every state, every government of men, is altogether of this world and of this world alone. How then can anybody be of any earthly kingdom or state and of the kingdom of God at the same time? Those who are of the church are of the kingdom of God, because the church is the church of God, and not of this world–it is composed of those who are "chosen out of the world." Those who are of the state are of this world, because the state is altogether and only of this world.

And, indeed, were not "all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them" offered to Jesus for His very own? Why did he not take them and rule over them and convert them and thus save them? He could not, because to have taken them would have been to recognize "the god of this world," by whom they were offered. Luke 4:5-8. And so it is ever, the kingdom of this world is offered ever only by Satan; and all who are Christ's will refuse it, as did our Example, and as did Moses, His chosen forerunner and type.

Christ was and is the embodiment of the church and of all Christianity. Therefore, and thus, in the Word of Christ, in the very principles of the cause of Christ, there is taught the separation between God and this world.

Accordingly, Christ says in another place, "Render therefore unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." Matt. 22:21. In that time of the head of the Roman Empire, the personification of the world's power was Cesar. And in that Roman system it was claimed that whatever was Cesar's was God's; because to all the people of that world-system Cesar was God. He was set before the people as God; the people were required to worship him as God; incense was offered to his image as to God. In that system the state was divine, and Cesar was the state. Therefore that system was essentially a union of religion and the state.

THE STATE NOT DIVINE

In view of this, when Jesus said, "Render therefore unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's' and unto God the things that are God's," he denied to Cesar, and so to the state, every attribute, or even claim, of divinity. He showed that another than Cesar is God. He entirely separated between the things which are due to Cesar and those which are due to God. The things which are due to Cesar are not to be rendered to God. The things due to God are not to be rendered to Cesar. These are two distinct realms, two distinct personages, and two distinct fields of duty. Therefore in these words Jesus taught as plainly as it is possible to do, the complete separation of religion and the state; that no state can ever rightly require anything that is due to God; and that when it is required by the state, it is not to be rendered.

Again: Jesus is the Example whom God has set to be the Guide to every person in this world in every step that can be taken in the right way. Any step taken by anybody in a way in which the Lord Jesus did not go is taken in the wrong way. He hath left us "an example, that ye should follow in his steps." 1 Pet. 2:21. And Jesus never, in any manner nor to any degree, took any part in political matters nor in any affairs of the state. Jesus was then, and is forever, the embodiment of true religion. Therefore, in His whole life's conduct of absolute separation from everything political, from all affairs of the state, there is taught to all the world, and especially to all believers in Him, the complete separation of the religion of Christ, and of all who hold it, from everything political and from all affairs of the state.

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So faithfully did He hold to that principle that when a man asked Him only, "Speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me," He refused, with the word, "Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?" and then said to them all, "Take heed and beware of covetousness; for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." Luke 12:13-15. Oh, if only all who have professed to be His followers had held aloof from all affairs of politics and the state, how vastly different would have been the history of the Christian era! What a blessing it would have been to the world! What floods of misery and woe mankind would have been spred!

WHY JESUS KEPT ALOOF FROM POLITICS

And why was it that Jesus thus persistently kept aloof from all affairs of politics and the state? Was it because all things political, judicial, and governmental were conducted with such perfect propriety, and with such evident justice, that there was no place for anything better, no room for improvement such as even He might suggest? Not by any means. Never was there more political corruption, greater perversion of justice, and essential all-pervasive evil of administration, than at that time. Why, then, did not Jesus call for "municipal reform?" Why did He not organize a "Law and Order League?" Why did He not disguise himself and make tours of the dives and the gambling dens, and entrap victims into violation of the law? And why did he not employ other spies to do the same, in order to get against the representatives of the law evidence of maladministration by which to arraign them and to compel them to enforce the law, and thus reform the city, regenerate society, and save the state, and so establish the kingdom of God? Why? The people were ready to do anything of that kind that might be suggested. They were ready to cooperate with him in any such work of "reform." Indeed, the people were so forward and so earnest in the matter that they would have actually taken Him by force and made Him King, had He not withdrawn Himself from them. John 6:15. Why, then, did he refuse?

The answer to all this is, Because He was Christ, the Savior of the world, and had come to help men, not to oppress them; had come to save men, not to destroy them. "The government under which Jesus lived was corrupt and oppressive; on every hand were crying abuses,–extortion, intolerance, and grinding cruelty. Yet the Savior attempted no civil reforms. He attacked no national abuses, nor condemned the national enemies. He did not interfere with the authority or administration of those in power. He who was our Example kept aloof from earthly governments–not because He was indifferent to the woes of men, but because the remedy did not lie in merely human and external measures. To be efficient, the cure must reach men individually and must regenerate the heart.

"Not by the decisions of courts, or councils, or legislative assemblies, not by the patronage of worldly great men, is the kingdom of Christ established; but by the implanting of Christ's nature in humanity through the work of the Holy Spirit. 'As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.' Here is the only power that can work the uplifting of mankind. And the human agency for the accomplishment of this work if the teaching and the practicing of the Word of God."–Desire of Ages, chap. 55.

CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE

Now Christ is the true Example set by God for every soul in this world to follow. The conduct of Christ is Christianity. Conformity to that Example in the conduct of the individual believer–this and this alone, is Christianity in the world. The conduct of Christ, the Example, was totally separate in all things from politics and the affairs of the state. Christianity, therefore, is the total separation of the believer in Christ from politics and all the affairs of the state, the total separation of religion and the state in the individual believer.

Accordingly, Jesus said to His disciples forever, "Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world." John 5:19. And to His Father He said of His disciples forever, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. As He is, so are we in this world." 1 John 4:17. "It is enough for the disciple that he be as his Master."

The following passage from a sermon by the late Thomas Hewlings Stockton presents an infinity of truth, and is worthy to stand forever in letters ablaze with eternal glory:

"There was one sacrifice too great for Christ to make. He was willing to leave the throne of the universe for the manger of Bethlehem; willing to grow up as the son of a poor carpenter; willing to be called the friend of publicans and sinners; willing to be watched with jealous eyes, and slandered by lying tongues, and hated by murderous hearts, and betrayed by friendly hands, and denied by pledged lips, and rejected by apostate priests and a deluded populace and cowardly princes; willing to be sentenced to the cross, and be nailed to the cross, and bleed and groan and thirst and die on the cross. But he was not willing to wear an earthly crown or robe, or wield an earthly scepter, or exercise earthly rule. That would have been too great a sacrifice. He did, indeed, endure the crown of thorns and the cast-off purple and the reed, and the cry, 'Hail, King of the Jews!' But this was merely because he preferred the mockery to the reality; so pouring infinite contempt on the one, not only by rejecting it in the beginning of his ministry, but also by accepting the other at its close."

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This is the Christianity of Jesus Christ, as respects the great question of religion and the state. And, as in all the instruction from God from the beginning of creation down, it calls always for the complete separation of religion and the state in all things and in all people, in order that the Christian may enjoy infinitely higher things.
A. T. JONES.