Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · August 11, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 31

THE first century of national existence saw that governmental error expiated in blood and fire. But parallel with it had existed another error, as fundamental and even more deeply entrenched in human prejudice, and appealing with greater subtlety to the popular mind for support. That was the fallacy of the support of religion and the enforcement of religious forms and doctrines by the civil law. This found its expression in legislative decrees maintaining previously existing laws, drawn from old English statutes enacted under Church and State rule, for the enforcement of Sunday observance, the punishment of blasphemy, etc., the public maintenance of chaplains for the army, legislative assemblies, and State institutions, the exemption of church property from taxation, and other less prominent legislation respecting religion.