What Strange Contradictions!

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 21, 1911

What Strange Contradictions!

I HAVE been much interested in the attitude of many Protestant leaders toward the various movements of the Catholic Church. Any sign whatever of an effort on the part of Catholics to secure legislation in favor of that church is enough to arouse Protestant leaders to a frenzy over what they regard as a step toward uniting church and state. More than once in the Federal Council committee meeting held at Washington did a noted bishop raise the cry of alarm because the Catholics were trying to get a bill through Congress appropriating lands in the far West to their use.

I hear his positive and outspoken warnings yet, as he pleaded for steps to be taken to head off any effort that looked like bringing about a union of church and state. He felt that all legislative bodies should be watched closely by Protestants in order to guard against the passing of laws tending to establish religion. In denominational and religious matters legislators should keep hands off.

Why is it so heinous for Catholic Christians to besiege Congress in behalf of church legislation, while it is regarded as commendable for Protestant Christians to crowd legislative halls for the same purpose? Why is it a dangerous step in regard to religious freedom for the Catholic people to seek favorable laws to sustain them in their belief, and yet a commendable step for Protestants to petition Congress to compel men to keep Sunday? Why is not the latter a step toward union of church and state as well as the former?

I know very well that the bishop referred to would be in the front ranks of those who urge Congress to pass Sunday laws, if such a measure were, at any time, pending before that body.

One other strange contradiction always impresses me. That the very ones among Protestants who can see no good in the Catholic Church, who protest strongly against everything belonging to Catholicism, should at the same time accept as a sabbath the very day the Catholics claim to have put in place of the Sabbath of Jehovah, and so help them in the enthronement of error, makes a contradiction hard to understand. Here are Protestant followers of the Christ—the Christ who kept the Sabbath of the fourth commandment—rejecting his holy day, and accepting in its stead the Catholic Sunday of Constantine, pagan in its origin, for which no word of Bible authority can be found!

No wonder that men whose practise is so squarely against the commandments of Jehovah, and who are put to their wit's end to harmonize Sunday-keeping with the Bible, should now desire to “revise the ten commandments”!—Sabbath Recorder.