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Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · January 19, 1893

WRITING two weeks ago of the ordinance of civil government, we said:—

But this in no way supersedes the divine government; it does not in any measure release the individual from obligation to obey the divine law. It simply provides a way whereby men may compel their fellows to yield to them that which is their due. Notwithstanding the ordinance of civil government, God is still the great moral Governor; to him every soul is responsible; to him every free moral agent must give account.

Some, to us unknown, individual in Ohio, marked this paragraph, and after writing upon the margin the following questions, evidently designed to be a “stumper,” returned the paper with a one-cent stamp, in violation of the United States postal laws:—

If the individual is not released from this obligation, as such, can any corporate body of individuals release him as a member of such corporation? and is not the corporation bound by the same law? Can the corporation be of any other character than that of the individual membership?

No corporation has any power to release any individual from obligation to obey the divine law; and for this very reason, no corporation can, as such, have any thing to do with the divine law. The members of every corporation should be governed as individuals by the divine law; and if so governed they will be honest in all things; but they have no right either as individuals or as a corporation to attempt to enforce that law upon others.

As for a corporation having or not having “any other character than that of the individual membership,” the simple truth is, that a corporation has no character at all, of any kind. A corporation can not even violate the postal laws of the United States by sending for one cent a written communication which requires two cents, as this individual has done. Let individuals be honest, and corporations will not wrong anybody.