Untitled article by Editor

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

Sounds the Warning.

By Editor

[This article is from the Coming Age, a religious paper published in Los Angeles, Cal., by Rev. Thomas Haskins, D.D., of the Protestant Episcopal Church.]

AGAIN WE GIVE much space to extracts from the AMERICAN SENTINEL. That journal is set for the defense of our civil and religious liberties, and its warning voice at this time deserves to be heeded. It is possible that this country is passing through, if it has not already passed, a crisis in its destiny, which is to determine its fortunes for the future. Taken up, as its people are, with the little affairs of every day life, they do not realize that it has been drifting away from the principles upon which it was founded, and that its Government has fallen under a divine sentence as inexorable as that of Babylon under Belshazzer, or of Jerusalem when the Saviour went out of the Temple.

The question hinges on religion. Strange as it may seem, if the position taken by the SENTINEL be the correct one, and we confess we think it is, the efforts which a misguided and blinded religious public have been making to save the nation, are to be its destruction. It was founded by the children of men who had come out of the fires of persecution, amid the ashes of governments consumed by God's punitive justice for interfering in his spiritual government of the heart and conscience; and intended by them to be forever a civil government distinct from religion, but it has now, by a singular combination of events, been declared to be, by the three co-ordinate branches of government, judicial, legislative and executive, a religious power, with authority to legislate on religious matters, and, of course, to execute penalties.

One would suppose with the open book of history before a nation not much over a century old, such an event would have stirred the people to the highest pitch of excitement and have rekindled fires from the stuff of which martyrs are made, but the most singular circumstance is that the great mass of the people do not know that the Constitution of our country has been subverted, and what is worse, they do not care. The SENTINEL has pointed out how this has been brought about, and the SENTINEL

deserves to be heard, because to our certain knowledge it pointed out years before the event took place that this country would in some way, and in due time,—the SENTINEL not knowing how or when,—declare itself to be a religious power, and so fulfill prophecy. It has come about through a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, unanimously concurred in, in the case of the Church of the Holy Trinity, New York City, and in the Sunday closing of the World's Fair, passed by both houses of the legislative branch of government and signed by the chief executive.

The people do not know the ultimate effect of this joint action; if they did they would not submit to it; but they are either on the one hand utterly indifferent to religion, do not believe in prophecy, nor in the Lord's government of nations; or else they are blind leaders of the blind and think they are doing God service in securing a declaration that this is a Christian Nation and should execute Christian laws.

What will be the ultimate outcome of all this; how long the long-suffering of God will give a misguided people and government to see the error of their ways and repent, before he executes his wrath upon them both, he only knows. But that we are in the midst of the greatest crisis that the world has seen for many a generation, and at the turning point of the favoring fortunes of the government of this people we have no manner of doubt, and we shall watch, and advise our readers to watch, the signs of the times with the most critical eye, and to search the Scriptures to ascertain the purposes of God foretold long before with regard to this, as well as every other nation which presumes to meddle with his moral and spiritual government of his people.