Centralization and Religious Persecution

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 30, 1906

Centralization and Religious Persecution

IN a recent address Justice Brewer of the United States Supreme Court dwelt upon the present tendency to centralize the power of the government in the hands of a few men in Washington. Commenting upon this address, the Washington Post said:—

Let us be frank about it: the day the people of the North responded to Abraham Lincoln’s call for troops to coerce sovereign States, the republic died, and the nation was born. Now the nation is dead, and the empire is born. Justice Brewer is very eloquent, but the warning comes too late; the regret is vain.

There is plenty of food for serious thought in this brief paragraph. It is plain, even to those who do not view current history in the light of prophecy, that a new order of things has set in. An apostate church will soon unite with a state which has repudiated its original principles of government of the people, by the people, and for the people, and persecution for conscience’ sake will be the inevitable result of such a combination of power. There will never be so favorable a time as the present for giving to the world the message against the beast and his image.