The Religious Amendment.
By Uriah Smith
Seventh-day Adventists have reason to take more interest than any other class of people in the land in the religious amendment movement, now in progress in this country, inasmuch as if it accomplishes what is proposed, it will set the seal to the truthfulness of our position on one of the most important prophecies of the Bible—a prophecy which constitutes the very burden of our message. Rev. 13: 11–17; 14: 9–12. It is a matter of interest to us, therefore, to become familiar with its history and progress. The following particulars in regard to it, we gather from the report of the proceedings of the late Convention, published in the Pittsburgh Commercial of Feb. 6, 1874:— “The present movement to secure the religious amendment of the Constitution, originated at Xenia, Ohio, in February 1863, in a convention composed of eleven different religious denominations, who assembled for prayer and conference, not in regard to the amendment of the Constitution, but the state of religion. Meetings—small in numbers—were held shortly after in Pittsburgh and elsewhere. At first, the association was called a ‘Religious Council;’ now it is known as the ‘National Association to Secure the Religious Amendment of the Constitution of the United States,’ and is becoming more popular and increasing largely in numbers. “The first National Convention of the Association was held in the First United Presbyterian church, Allegheny, Jan. 27, 1864, at which a large delegation was appointed to present the matter to the consideration of Hon. Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States. An adjourned meeting was held in the Eighth street Methodist Episcopal church, Philadelphia, on the 7th and 8th of July of the same year; and another in the same city, in the West Arch street Presbyterian church, Nov. 29, 1864. “Conventions were held in New York in 1868, Columbus, February, 1869, and Monmouth, Ill., April, 1871. “National Conventions were held in Pittsburgh, 1870; Philadelphia, 1871; Cincinnati, 1872; and New York, 1873. The National Convention which meets this afternoon [Feb. 4, 1874] in Library Hall, is, we believe, the fifth in order.” In his opening address, the President of the National Association, and Chairman of this fifth Convention, Hon. Felix R. Brunot, said that their “cause had made the progress of twenty years in five;” and the General Secretary, D. McAllister, said of the past year that it had “numbered a larger array of accessions to our rank, than any two, or three, or perhaps five preceding years.” The Index of Feb. 12, 1874, speaking of the inevitable and irrepressible agitation that is approaching on this subject, says:— “Yet in this one point the Christianizers show an unerring instinct. The great battle between the ideas of the State and the ideas of the church will indeed be fought out in the organic law of the nation. The long and bitter conflict of chattel-slavery with free industry began in the world of ideas, passed to the arena of politics, burst into the hell of war, and expired in the peaceful sufferings by which Freedom was enthroned in the Constitution. The old story will be repeated, for it is the same old conflict in a new guise,—though we hope and would fain believe that the dreaded possibility of another civil war is in fact an impossibility. But that the agitation now begun can find no end until either Christianity or Freedom shall have molded the Constitution wholly into its own likeness, is one of the fatalities to be read in the very nature of the conflicting principles. The battle of the Amendments is at hand; a thousand minor issues hide it from sight; but none the less it approaches year by year, month by month, day by day. Cowardice to the rear—courage to the front!” The sentiment here expressed, that “the agitation now begun can find no end until either Christianity or Freedom [by which the Index means infidelity] shall have molded the Constitution wholly into its own likeness,” is becoming the settled conviction of many minds. It is not difficult to foresee the result. Infidel, the Constitution can never become; hence, it will become wholly the instrument of that type of Christianity which the Amendmentists are now seeking.