Immoral Religion by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 13, 1882

Immoral Religion.

By Editor

THE "spiritual advisers" of condemned murderers seem to be a reprehensible set of beings. "Dr." Hicks, the clerical companion of the assassin of President Garfield, is one of the worst of the lot. In his prayer on the scaffold he insulted Heaven by speaking of the murderer as "this, Thy servant." The criminal was an impenitent murderer, boasting of a crime which put a nation of fifty millions of people in mourning. The fact that he manifested great disappointment, and for a time was much cast down because certain politicians and political papers did not indorse his action, was sufficient proof of his guilt and depravity. Could Dr. Hicks inform us in what sense this impenitent assassin and vile blasphemer was a servant of God? His prayer was shocking to the moral sense of all right-minded people. Under such a clerical teacher, it is no wonder that the condemned was confirmed in his impenitence, and his blasphemous assertion that he has done the will of God. And with such teachings passing for Christianity, it is no wonder that irreligious people look upon the Christian religion as countenancing immorality, and are confirmed in their skepticism.