PRESENT TRUTH by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 11, 1900

PRESENT TRUTH

By Editor

In the REVIEW AND HERALD of July 17 last, we said what was true then, what has been true ever since, what is true now, and what will always be true. What we then said is as follows:—

“Some have thought, in the things which we have had occasion to say concerning the apostasy of this republic, that we have been attacking the present administration; but this is a mistake. We have had nothing at all to do with the present administration as such, nor has any mention of it been made because it is the present administration. All that we have done is to call attention to the facts, and to the nature and the bearing of those facts, with respect to the making of the Image of the Beast. This we shall be obliged to continue to do, because events will continue to occur, bearing the same meaning, and to which it will be necessary to call attention, as elements which mark the fulfillment of the prophecy. And this will be so, whatever administration may be in power. If the present administration were to cease to-day, and another one were to take its place, we should be obliged to call attention to facts that would just as certainly be elements in the making of the Image of the Beast as any that have so far occurred.

“This being the year of a presidential campaign, there are just now multitudes of people who hope, and are deliberately working to bring about a change of administration. We do not pretend to any knowledge as to whether there will be, nor as to whether there should be, a change of administration. But we know that, even though a change of administration may be accomplished, there will be no check in the progress of the elements that go to the making of the Image of the Beast. If there should be a change in administration, much would be expected in the way of checking the present tide of imperialism. And, in such event, something might be done to check the present particular phase of it. But where this particular phase might be checked, others would be established, and would progress just as swiftly toward that goal as the present course has been, or will be, progressing.

“This thing consists not in administrations. It in no wise depends upon administrations, nor change of administrations. Neither change nor no change of administration can effect it; except, perhaps, to check some, while hastening other, features of the general apostasy of the republic. The evil is in the whole nation. The nation has lost the principle and the spirit of a republic: it has lost the faculty of self-government. And the force or effect of a change of administration, whether this year or later, can be fitly expressed in the words of Cicero, at the death of Cæsar (which death, indeed, was accomplished to effect a change of administration, and so to save the Roman Republic from imperialism), when he exclaimed: ‘We have killed the king, but the kingdom is with us still. We have taken away the tyrant; the tyranny survives.’”

“The Roman Republic did not reach the confirmed imperial despotism of a one-man power, in a straight, uninterrupted course. There were many changes of administration. There were many political reforms accomplished in the many changes of administration. But not one of these changes nor one of these ‘reforms’ checked the general tide. Not one of these reforms was in any sense a true reform: it was merely political reform, selfishness and imperialism in one phase being supplanted by selfishness and imperialism in another phase.”

Some of our readers, not having given to this statement proper attention, have misconstrued some

things that the REVIEW has had to say, from time to time, of the course of the United States. They have thought that we were opposed to the present administration, and to the election of the present administration. But, from these plain words, published before the late campaign began, it is clear that any such thought is a misconstruction. We have printed it now again.

Therefore, let us say, again, that we have not, and never shall have, anything at all to do or say for or against the present or any other administration in the government of the United States. We have not, and never shall have, anything to do or say about what the present or any other administration should or should not do. But when the present, or any other administration while we live, shall have done those things which are in fulfillment of prophecy concerning the nation, we have had, and shall ever expect to have, to call attention to it as an element in the fulfillment of prophecy. And when attention is thus called to those facts,—to those things which have been done,—it is only as facts that they are mentioned, and not at all with any thought of reflection or blame upon the persons in power, who, in their place and degree, and simply because they are in place, have to do with the facts—with that which has been done.

Let us say again: The apostasy of this nation is not in administrations: it is in the whole nation. The apostasy of this republic from the principles of its Constitution is not simply in the administration that happens to be at the capital of the nation: it is in the whole people that compose the republic.

The nation is a republic, a government of the people. Therefore, the only way that there could be an apostasy of the nation, an apostasy of the republic, is by there being an apostasy of the people. The individual men who happen to be in administrative office at the capital of the nation are but the representatives of the people; and what they do they do in their representative capacity. And if they do what is unconstitutional; if they do what is unrepublican; if they take a course that is the reverse of the fundamental national principle,—they do it only as the representatives of the people, and the people are responsible. And when the individuals in administrative place do unconstitutional or unrepublican things, and the people let it go so, still it is true that those things are done by those individuals strictly as the representatives of the people: in the doing of it they do represent the people.

Imperialism is not found alone, and should not be expected to be found alone, in a few men in representative place, at the capital of the nation. It is in the whole people of the nation. It is manifest on every hand. Nor is it a new thing which has sprung into existence within only the last two years. For years back of that it has been steadily growing, and steadily strengthening itself; and all that was needed was only occasion for it to show itself.

The United States is a government only of the people. And the great reason why Rome is the standard of comparison for the course of things in this nation, is that Rome is the only nation of former times that was a republic—whose government was of the people. And, bear in mind, it is always true—so universally true that it is a principle—that, in representative governments, governments of the people, whosoever occupies administrative place is the representative of the people: whatever he is, he is the representative of the people.

Does not everybody know that Julius Cæsar was the pride and choice of the people? That Augustus Cæsar, likewise, was lauded of the people, was officially chosen by representatives of the people, and was officially entitled “the father of the people”? That it was so with Tiberius also? Does not everybody know that Caligula was not only the pride and joy, but also the pet, of the people? that “prodigious crowds of people everywhere attending him, in transports of joy, calling him, besides other auspicious names, by those of ‘their star,’ ‘their chick,’ ‘their pretty puppet,’ and ‘bantling’”? And everybody knows, too, that Caligula, Tiberius, and Augustus, and others before and afterward, were fairly monsters of vice and deadly cruelty. Yet, for all this, they were the representatives of the people: and they did represent the people.

And the main thing which causes it to be difficult for many of our readers to see the true bearing of what we have said and do say of the present course of things in this “government of the people,” is that they have not studied as they ought to study the actual course of things in that other great “government of the people.” Yet, nine years ago, the whole story was written out in full, and published, and so made easily accessible to all, in a book for the present time; that is, “The Two Republics, or Rome and the United States of America.” That book was the truth when it was published; and if all the REVIEW family, if all the Seventh-day Adventists, had truly studied that book through the seven years, up to 1898, they would have had no kind of difficulty whatever in seeing the true and full meaning of all these things which have come to pass, and which are steadily going on, and more of which are surely and swiftly to come to pass. But, having neglected all that, and so not knowing any of that story, nor of the principles involved, it is difficult now for these to see any meaning whatever in these occurrences—and, of all things, in the REVIEW AND HERALD’s having anything to say on the subject.

The truth is that we are now saying, upon FACTS of daily occurrence, only that which, years ago, we said only upon PRINCIPLE and PROPHECY. We now say that the Beast is imperialism in religion; and that the Image of the Beast is imperialism in religion. We also say, now, that before there can be imperialism in religion, there must be imperialism in the State; and that therefore before there can be, and in order that there shall be, the Image of the Beast in its true working form in this nation, there must be imperialism in the State. And this is only what we said in but slightly different words, nine years, six months, and twenty-nine days ago. The exact words in which we so long ago said it are the following:—

This paper “exists for the sole purpose of exposing to the American people the movement for the establishment of a religious despotism here, after the model of the papacy.

“But no religious despotism can ever be established over a free people. It were literally impossible to establish a religious despotism over the royal freemen who made the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution.

“This gradual but steady perversion and subversion of the genuine principles of this government as established by our forefathers, this steady inculcation of the principles of paternalism, is but sowing the seeds of a despotism,—whether of the many, of the few, or of one, it matters not,—which at the opportune moment will be joined by the political preachers; and out of the wicked alliance thus formed there will come the religious despotism in the perfect likeness of the one which was before.”

Thus it is as plain as anything can possibly be that what we are saying on these things in the REVIEW is simply and exactly what in all the past years we said everywhere. In those times these things were acknowledged to be of the Third Angel’s Message. And who that loves the Third Angel’s Message; who that hates the Beast and his Image; who that wishes to know the process and the progress of the making of the Image of the Beast; who that wants the world to be warned against the making and the worship of the Image of the Beast?—who of these would have it that these things should not now be said in the REVIEW AND HERALD?

Please study these things; for other events are to come, other facts are to occur.