p. 312, para. 1 | Untitled article

Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · October 2, 1890

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 39

Dr. JOHN HALL, writing from England, to the New York Mail and Express, devotes considerable space in his letter to the consideration of the agitation of the question of the relations of Church and State, now going on in the Old World. Dr. Hall says:—

To an extraordinary degree the questions of the relations of the Church and State are now occupying the European mind. Not in Great Britain only, but in Germany and other sections in which intellectual activity is found, there is, on many grounds, deep dissent from the view of Milton that the Church of Christ is not strong enough to stand unless buttressed by temporal power and civil resources. In some cases the stir is on the ground of taxation without benefit; in some it is on the ground of taxation without representation; in some it is based on direct dislike to the cause of religion, and in some it is unhappily the outcome of religious discussion. “The Welsh Nonconformist ministers are becoming political preachers,” say the clergy who are for establishment. “Well” they reply, “the bishops and rectors have always been political nominees; they have no right to criticise us.”

Dr. Hall continues for a third of a column to describe the agitation and recrimination upon Church and State questions now going on in England. At the present rate of increase in the general attention paid to this subject, how long will it be before the relations of religion and government will be the all-absorbing political issue of the world?