Under the Veil by B. A. Smith

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 10, 1889

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 24.

Under the Veil.

By B. A. Smith

[Should anyone be inclined to think the following article too severe on the popular churches, we would remind them that the writer, to use his own words in an article in a late number of the SENTINEL, “for the last eighteen years has been a minister of a church which adheres strictly to the observance of the first day of the week.” So we take it for granted that he knows whereof he speaks.—Ed.]

In connection with the question of religious legislation, it may not be amiss to pull aside the gauze that veils those “orthodox” churches which have arrayed themselves against the freedom of conscience guaranteed by the Constitution of our country.

Talk about the “noisy Sabbath-breakers;” I have witnessed in the festivals, or bacchanalian feasts, of some churches, proceedings that assumed the attitude of reveling and abominable idolatry, which was a great deal worse than Sabbath-breaking, because it was done in the name of religion. It is all right in their estimation to place brass rings (passed for gold) in cakes, and sell chances; to put up young ladies for sale at auction; run lotteries; raffle for wax dolls and other foolish things, in the churches. But if it is done anywhere else, especially on Sunday, away they go to Cæsar and petition him for a law to stop the “desecration.”

I have seen these very Christians go from saloon to saloon begging for money to pay the pastor. So long as they continue such God-dishonoring practices they will make slow work of reforming others. Give me a million dollars, and if I were so inclined, I could run a saloon and gambling-den, race horses, swear, drink whisky, move in the most fashionable society, belong to the most popular church in the land, and be greeted as one “sound in the faith.”

I know that some of those churches that are striving to have their dogmas sustained by the Government are doing more harm in the world than downright infidelity. There are things practiced in some of the churches that are asking for the aid of human legislation, which would make the angels of perdition shout for joy. But because the world is cursed by the continual encroachments of the seven-headed beast and his numerous images, it will not do to arraign the religion of Jesus Christ as being in any way responsible for the counterfeit. Mr. Ingersoll may truthfully expose the vagaries of much of the sectarian folly, but I protest against his charging

the meek and lowly Nazarene with being the author of the popular religion that is being palmed off upon the people.

The fact that the head of the Catholic Church in this country is in favor of the Blair measure, is sufficient of itself to show that there is something yet behind the screen even more to be dreaded. There is plenty of work for preachers within the confines of their legitimate calling, without seeking to control the affairs of the Government. Political preachers are of no benefit to the church or politics either. False religion has always opposed free government, and the self-styled orthodox churches of to-day are no exception to the rule. They want to be supported by the civil law, because they fear that in no other way can their future maintenance be assured.

Rome succeeded in wielding the scepter of ecclesiasticism over the political powers. The Dark Ages followed. Then the Church of England followed in the same wake as far as she could. And with little exception the churches of America are trying to do the same thing, as a means of propping up their tottering spiritual power by a union with the secular power of the State.

Many are becoming tired of the corruptions practiced in the churches, and are retiring from all church relationship. I wonder if the law-seeking religionists, who wage such warfare upon all who will not go with them, ever think of the good men and women driven away into the barren fields of the world, on account of false teaching and idol worship. Men of God will never hide behind the civil law; they will never shrink from going boldly before the world upon the merits of what they teach. And I believe they will receive the aid and encouragement of all those who have viewed with sorrow the declining state of the church. When a man fails to carry his point by reason, argument, and testimony, he ought to retire from the field. Knowing the weakness of many of these Blair-bill churches, I am not surprised at their skulking behind the civil law to get out of the light of honest investigation, but deliver me from the day when they shall have gained the power to rule this Nation.

It has been over a century since the establishment of this Government; and during all that time the stand, the press, and the pulpit have vied with each other in lauding the grandeur, simplicity, and purity of its institutions. For all these years the Nation has prospered in a manner unparalleled in all the annals of history. The fathers were satisfied to live and die in it. How is it, then, that men and women rise up in this, the zenith of its greatness, and ask for religious legislation,—that the church may dictate to the State,—something that would not have received a second thought by the framers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. The Blair bills offer an insult to all the wise, great, and good men who have lived and died in the past as sons of American freedom.

Repeatedly have the Roman Catholic dignitaries virtually said, “Give us secular power, and religious liberty will be at an end in this country.” They had that power once, and such a reign of terror and despotism never was known before or since. In substance, decaying Protestantism makes the same demand with a similar promise. There is as much to be feared from apostate Protestantism as from Rome itself. An “image” to anything must bear an exact likeness to the thing itself. The two-horned beast of the prophecy is a second beast, not a second rising of the first beast; but it is to cause the people to make an image to the first beast.

The leading Protestant churches have united under the specious pretext of “National Reform,” for the purpose of securing a religious amendment to the Constitution. They say they want to get God in the Constitution; but the truth is, it is their church dogmas they want to get in, so they may be enforced by law. If they would try to get the Spirit of God in their churches, it would be more to their credit, and more beneficial to the country at large. Then they would be disposed to respect the rights of their neighbors, whether Christians or infidels.

If this Nation is not a Christian Nation, all the human law possible in the world cannot make it so. It is the business of the church to make Christians, through the truth, and not the business of the civil law. The National Reform idea is, to catch every man and brand him, “This is a Christian.” If they should get into Heaven, they would want to have inserted in the statute-books, “This is a Christian Nation,” and if they finally get to the other destination, they will probably make the same demand there.

B. A. SMITH.