A Sign of Weakness by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 26, 1889

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 22.

A Sign of Weakness.

By Editor

THE above is the heading of a short communication to a journal recently started in Minneapolis, called Reason. Our readers will agree with us, we think, that the article, which we herewith give, is well worthy of a place in a paper bearing that name:—

“My main objection to the ‘Blair bills’ is that they look in the direction of that union of the secular and spiritual power which has always proved so disastrous in the past. If these bills become law, the legislation necessary to carry them out and enforce them must inevitably work injustice to a large class of our citizens. The Jew or the atheist who gives his allegiance to our Constitution, who pays his taxes for the support of the Government, has the same right to protection and immunity from coercion that the most orthodox Christian has. The wide diversity of views upon the Sabbath, and the question of religious instruction in schools, is itself sufficient to show that any legislation to secure uniformity must result in hardship to many. For the State to take any action upon religious grounds, that is, upon the assumption that such action is required by the law of God, establishes the principle that legislative bodies are the proper tribunals to determine what are the laws of God. This is the principle upon which union of Church and State is based. It is the principle that has been at the bottom of all religious persecution. If the State has a right to determine what are the laws of God, it has a right to enforce them, if need be, with the sword.

“In the present agitation upon the subject covered by these Blair bills, I see, not a sign of strength, but of weakness and degeneracy in the Christian church. Just as soon as Christianity begins to cry out for the aid of the secular power, so soon does it confess that it is beginning to sink. As long as it is strong and vital it needs no such assistance. The great thing for the church to do is to throw away all such amendments as the ones proposed, burn their petitions, abolish their mass-meetings, and fling themselves into a moral and spiritual campaign—using the power of truth, of genuine Christian living, and putting into their lives, instead of into the statutes of the Nation, the principles of Jesus Christ. If all the Christians of this country should for one day show an earnest disposition to live by the golden rule, carrying it out in all their relations to their fellow-men, it would do more towards converting unbelievers to Christianity than all the laws that have been enacted from the days of Constantine to the days of President Harrison.”