Untitled article by J. G. Clark

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · June 12, 1890

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 24

Selfish and Tyrannical.

By J. G. Clark

The proposed religious legislation as embodied in the Blair-Crafts-Breckinridge Sunday bigotry, is “not dead but sleeping,” and will no doubt bob up serenely at the beginning of every new session of Congress. It is really an indirect confession on the part of its advocates that they are losing faith in the invincible power of love in the conquest of the world.

But it is not “religion, pure and undefiled before the Father,” but ecclesiasticism which is foremost and uppermost in this Sunday-law crusade. The former is always tolerant—“not puffed up”—and is ever ready to fulfill the golden rule, while the latter is always selfish and tyrannical, according to power and opportunity, and disposed to control the human conscience by force.

It is strange that professed followers of Christ should forget the lines defined and ordered by the Founder of our religion, and appeal to the State to aid them with its fines and prisons in the spread of religious truths, when the facts are ever before us to prove that in this country, where Church and State have thus far been divorced, Christianity is on a better and more promising footing than it is in any other country on the globe.—J. G. Clark, in Oregonian.