A Timely Warning | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 31, 1889

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 27.

A Timely Warning.

While so many of the ministers of the various churches are using voice and pen to further the interests of National Reform, it is refreshing to find occasionally one who has the independence to denounce the attempt which is being made to unite Church and State, and the manhood to declare for religious liberty as at present guaranteed in our National Constitution. Rev. Mr. Mitchelmore, of Central City, Nebraska, is one of the few ministers who do not believe in the Blair bills, nor indeed in any such legislation. In a discourse preached Sunday, June 23, and published in the Merrick County Republic of June 28, this gentleman took for his text Ex. 20:8, “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy,” and, after remarking that the Sabbath was made for man and that the man who does not rest one day each week suffers loss, he said:—

“My religion is made up of the ten commandments. Upon the first four there can never be any human legislation. I am responsible to God alone for the observance of these. And so I say as a Christian, as a citizen, as an American, you must not touch these. There can never properly be any union of Church and State; it is an unholy and unnatural alliance. If you will look back in American history you will see our forefathers leaving the mother country because of this very unholy alliance.

“Bunyan, you will remember, lay for twelve years in Bedford jail because he preached differently than the tenets of the Church of England required and because he would not give money to its support.

“So I might cite numerous examples. I know it is claimed that our forefathers persecuted others when they got to this country, but in this connection I believe they have been too harshly criticised. Alas! when they got here they found the same power ready to persecute that they were fleeing from. And they were persecuted and persecuted, and I want to say that the same spirit of intolerance is not dead. It exists to-day and only wants an excuse—the law to back it—to cause as much suffering as in the dark days of the past.

“I can cite you a case that occurred in the State of Arkansas in the year 1887, where a young man was thrown into jail for worshipping God, according to the dictates of his conscience, on Saturday. While he languished in confinement his wife and child died and his little property wasted. His suffering was none the less terrible because it occurred in this enlightened day and age. I could refer you, alas, to other similar cases, but I forbear. It shows you that old intolerance is not dead. As a further evidence of this there are a class of people trying to enact a Sunday law in free America, and if they succeed in doing so you need have no doubts but that they will enforce it. And the bill which is now before Congress, and to which I am opposed, always was opposed and always will be opposed, is called the Blair bill.

“I cannot begin to do this subject justice in the time allotted to me this morning. The Saviour said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world, else my servants would fight.’ It is apparent that the people who are pushing this bill through so quietly, so religiously, are not of his kingdom. See to it that the time never comes when there is a union of Church and State in this country. Fight against it not only yourselves, but teach your children to loathe and war against this monster evil which has filled the past with woe and tears.”

Such warnings are none too frequent, nor have they begun to come too soon. The danger is a grave one, and everyone who loves liberty and true Christianity should help to sound the alarm.