p. 4 | Untitled article by R. C. PORTER

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · January 7, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 1

Quite Significant and Very Appropriate.

By R. C. PORTER

In the Christian Statesman of May 14, is given a copy of a petition that was to be presented to the representatives of a political party in convention assembled, which reads as follows:—

As American citizens we respectfully ask you to place in your platform a clear full recognition of these two great truths, namely: that our Lord Jesus Christ is the sovereign Ruler of our Nation, and that the moral law is the rule of all our conduct in civil and political affairs.

We do not ask this as a mere sentiment, or as a religious creed, but as the greatest of political principles.

As the natural application of these principles to present issues in our national life, we ask you to declare also for

The American Sabbath.
A uniform Christian marriage law.
The right of the Bible in the public schools, and to declare against
The American saloon.

We ask you to make your nominations and conduct the election in harmony with these great truths.

In His name.

It is stated in the comment accompanying the petition that “There should have been in the above petition after ‘religious creed,’ this additional statement, ‘nor as seeking a union of Church and State, which we abhor.’”

When I had finished reading the above, my eye fell on the following words at the foot of the column: “The devil never asks anybody to go farther than the next corner to begin with.” To me this statement was quite significant, and very appropriate, in connection with such a petition.

The petition asks that the State remove the one great corner-stone upon which depends the whole structure that separates between the Church and the State, by demanding religious legislation, and then fearing lest some cool, practical observer, seeing them thus endeavoring to undermine this God-given barrier that divides them, should think that they were trying to unite the two, they cry out almost indignantly “we abhor a union of Church and State.”

The zealous demand for Sunday laws, that the laboring man may have opportunity to attend Church, is the same old trick which Satan played when, during the early centuries, he was working for a union of Church and State. He never asked them then “to go farther than the next corner to begin with.” Just to make Sunday laws to stop the theatres, and public shows and games on that day, so that the laboring men could attend to things divine. Is it not the same to-day with the so-called National Reform movement?

R. C. PORTER.