p. 56, para. 1 | Untitled article

Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · February 12, 1891

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 6, No. 7

Of the American Sabbath Union and its Philadelphia meeting, the Sabbath Recorder says:—

While we have believed, and do still believe, that the Union is working from a wrong basis, and for an object which cannot in the end be any help to the spread of the true Christian religion, we cannot look upon this wrangling among Christian men without pain and regret. Why should we leave the word of God and appeal to courts in order “to have the Sabbath generally observed as a day of rest and worship,” any more than we should adopt the same methods to secure any other religious observance? For the declared object of the Union effectually sweeps away the fiction of “a civil Sabbath merely,” about which we have heard so much of late. Let us have all religious observances based upon the consciences of men, enlightened by the word of God and quickened by his Spirit. All else is but empty form so far as any religious character is concerned, and such disgraceful, political wrangles as were witnessed at Philadelphia, are but the legitimate results of the appeal to the civil laws, which appeal carries with it political methods.

Another thought suggests itself to us in this connection; it is this: When men grow so bitter toward each other over only a question of management, what may we not expect their feelings to be toward those who oppose their principles and methods? And does it not go without saying that it would be unsafe to entrust them with the power to coerce their fellows?