A Great Conspiracy by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Feb 16, 1911

A Great Conspiracy

By C. M. S.

We are now a nation of a hundred million people. The returns of the census enumerator make many an American instinctively ask himself, “What is there that a progressive nation of a hundred million souls can not do?”

When Americans have asked themselves that question, and no one has risen to dispute their greatness, contest their possessions, or question their progress, the questioners settle down at ease, feeling that the battle of liberty has been fought, the necessity of vigilance is past, the danger of foreign aggression is gone by forever, and all they need now to do is to look out for their own interests.

Right there is America’s danger. The founders of the nation saw it, and warned us against it. The prophecy of Thomas Jefferson is ringing in our ears to-day. Said he:—

The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecution, and better men be his victims. . . . From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down-hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights.—Notes on Virginia.

On every hand are demonstrations of the truthfulness of Jefferson’s forecast. Vast multitudes of the people have forgotten what struggles our liberties cost; have forgotten what were the principles for which the nation’s founders contended; and have thrown themselves body and soul into the great maelstrom of commercialism, as if in the amassing of wealth lay the assurance of peace and prosperity and all that the heart of man could wish.

The moment of full assurance is always the moment of greatest danger. Then the walls are undefended, and the sentries asleep; and that is the enemy’s moment to attack.

The vast majority of the people of the United States seem to feel that there is no danger now of the loss of their liberties. It is a vain assurance. A gigantic campaign to destroy the very groundwork of our freedom has been already inaugurated; the plans of operation have been definitely laid; the forces now mobilizing for the attack are numbered by the millions. The object of the attack is to destroy the guaranties of our liberties, as expressed in the Constitution of the United States. Were the people awake to the danger, there would be no assurance of the success of their undertaking. But they are not awake. They take it for granted that no harm can come, not realizing that the same feeling of settled security has come also into the hearts of legislators that has come into their own hearts, and that the principles which “made and preserved us a nation” are little known and little appreciated by many a sworn representative of the people. Men in high position have declared those principles to be nothing more than a mass of glittering generalities, and a “jingle” of words. In the hands of such persons the liberties based upon those principles are not safe. To them the clamor of an unthinking multitude is more authoritative than the voice of an angel from heaven.

At such a time, when the sense of danger is not present in the minds of the vast majority of the people, there enters the arena a powerful organization, a confederation of influential forces, which has set for itself no less a task than the complete transformation of the foundation upon which American law and liberty rest.

The beginning of that movement as an organization dates from the year 1863; but the movement has greatly outgrown the body in which it had its birth. It has become one of the actuating principles of the greatest religious organization in the country.

The National Reform Association came into being at Xenia, Ohio, in July, 1863, and began at once an earnest effort to have incorporated into our fundamental law the principles of the church-and-state governments of the Old World and of the old colonial governments of the New World—in a word, to transform the government from a purely civil institution to a religious institution. In furtherance of that aim, it was proposed so to amend the national Constitution as to recognize God as the source of all power and authority in government, Jesus Christ as the ruler of nations, and his revealed will as of supreme authority. In that way, say they, the nation would declare its faith as a Christian nation. But a Christian nation must have Christian officials; so the association is working for the elimination from the Constitution of the declaration that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” They propose that the Constitution shall provide for a religious test for all who seek employment in any branch of the public service.

The Constitution now guards against the union of church and state by declaring that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” They propose to accomplish what that forbids by joining religion and the state, and having the government authoritatively declare that this is a Christian nation, and “lay its hand on” any religion that does not conform” to the “standard which they erect. With the nation legally declared Christian, there is no question about what religion they would seek to join to the state. It would be the Christian religion; but the government would have to determine what denominational expression of Christianity it would adopt. That would necessitate the settlement of numerous religious controversies by human law, and result, as of old, in selecting one branch of the Christian church, and outlawing all others. The result of that in the early centuries of the Christian church gave us the Dark Ages. Is America ready for such an epoch in her history?

The Constitution guarantees freedom to worship God as one’s conscience may dictate. The National Reform Association declares that “uniformity is essential both to peace and progress. The opinion of the majority must be decisive. Even in the matter of men’s consciences, a degree of uniformity is necessary.”—Rev. S. F. Scovel, president National Reform Association. If that be true, then all the oppression of conscience this world has ever seen has been necessary; the attempts of all church-and-state governments in all epochs of this world’s history to compel men to think alike or suffer the penalty, have been right, and the cruel means taken to bring this about were necessary, and ought to be in force at the present moment. Are Americans ready to welcome that condition in which men must think in accordance with established law, or suffer in purse, in personal liberty, or in the loss of life itself? If conformity is essential, and is made a matter of law, then the ultimate penalty is certainly involved. Uniformity in matters of conscience demands law to bring it about. Law is compulsion; the compulsion is obtained by penalty; and the ultimate penalty takes hold on life. Uniformity in matters of conscience, therefore, involves the taking of life; and that would bring the world again into the distressing experiences of medievalism and of the days of the colonial theocracies. Are Americans ready for this?

The National Reform Association is opposed to the principle of majority rule in civil matters. Said the national superintendent of the organization, at a public institute held at Winona Lake, Ind., in August, 1910:—

This association proposes that there shall be a recognition made in our nation’s fundamental law that the law of God, as revealed through Jesus Christ, and not the will of the majority of the people, is the supreme law of the land.

That would put an end to the rule of the people, and put the nation at once

under ecclesiastical control. No law could then be enacted except such as was authorized by the clergy, who style themselves the “spokesmen” of God. It is high time for Americans to awake to the great conspiracy against their liberties. From a government of the people we would then be transformed into a government by the ecclesiastical overlords of the people, who would utter their desires as the decrees of the Almighty, enforceable without pity or compassion, as in days of old. And are Americans ready for this also?

Multitudes scoff at the idea that such propositions would ever be entertained by the majority of the American people. It is not necessary that they should be. The people do not make the laws. The legislators do that; and they are very sensitive to political pressure from influential organizations. Such organizations are now formed, and ready to exert the necessary pressure. The great Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, representing eighteen million communicants, has already declared its purpose to create a force that lawbreakers and lawmakers will respect and heed. That indicates a purpose to bend legislatures into harmony with their designs. It was in view of just such contingencies, and against just such a combination, that the Congress of the United States warned the people in 1829. Said that body then, by its acceptance of a report of one of its committees:—

Extensive religious combinations to effect a political object are, in the opinion of the committee, always dangerous. . . . All religious despotism commences by combination and influence; and when that influence begins to operate upon the political institutions of a country, the civil power soon bends under it; and the catastrophe of other nations furnishes an awful warning of the consequences.—Report of the Committee on Post-offices and Post-roads, communicated to the Senate, Jan. 19, 1829.

The Federal Council of Churches is the most “extensive religious combination” ever effected in America, and its avowed object is to cause the civil power to “bend” under its influence. The power of its mighty influence is now being exerted in the interest of National Reform objects,—the securing of religious legislation in States and nation. That influence is even now operating upon the political institutions of our country; the civil power is bending under it; and our representatives refuse to see in the “catastrophe of other nations” any lesson we need to heed. Are we not a nation of a hundred million souls? Can we not do as we please?

The increasing willingness of legislators to yield to the demands of this element for religious legislation, and the increasing power and influence of the hosts who are making the demands, show that the people are careless of the lessons of history, careless even of their own liberties. They have placed their priceless heritage in an open boat, and cut the painter that held it to the shore. It is high time for Americans to awake to the great conspiracy against their liberties.

C. M. S.