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Enforcing the Ten Commandments

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 5, 1913

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 90, No. 23.

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Enforcing the Ten Commandments

By W. F. MARTIN

THE Rev. Dr. Mark A. Matthews, of Seattle, Wash., former moderator of the Presbyterian synod, is to be one of the principal speakers at the coming Second World's Christian Citizenship Conference. In the course of a recent sermon in his great church, he made the following significant statement:—
“The law of ten commandments as given to Moses by God at Mt. Sinai is the fundamental element which governs and protects this nation in its exercise of religion. This is a Christian nation. These ten commandments should be interwoven in the federal Constitution without the tiniest variation and without a single amendment, and they should be enforced.”
Dr. Matthews will be a dominant figure in the coming conference, and it is safe to say the above voices the prevailing sentiment of the leading men of the meeting. To enforce the ten commandments would require a religious tribunal, and that means a union of church and state. It is better to leave the matter of religion to the individual, and let the state confine itself to the management of civil affairs. “Keep the church and the state forever separate.”
W. F. MARTIN.