Untitled article by Editor

Untitled article

Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · July 31, 1890

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 30

ONE of our exchanges, the Orleans Herald, is a little mixed on the proper functions of the State. Some time since we said that “the manufacture, transportation, and sale of intoxicating liquors, so far as the authority of Congress or the police power of the State is concerned, has nothing to do with morals, but is solely a matter of the jurisdiction of the municipal law.”

To this the Herald takes exception, and asserts that the State has something to do with morals. We imagine, however, that the only difference between us is on the use of the word “moral.” The State certainly forbids some things that are immoral just as it forbids some things that are sinful; but it does not, or at least should not, forbid anything simply because it is immoral, or sinful. If the State does forbid things because they are immoral, or sinful, which is the same thing, it must forbid and undertake to punish all sin; this the State cannot do; it follows that it can properly forbid only those things that are uncivil, and that it can forbid them only because they are uncivil. We use the word “moral” only in the sense of pertaining to or being in harmony with the divine law. The Herald evidently gives it a wider signification.