We have found that God taught his people the truth in order that they might teach it to the nations. When they shut up the truth to themselves, they were scattered among the nations, and then and thus the nations received the truth. The first thing that the nations received where Israel went, was the knowledge of God. The next thing, as outlined in the book of Daniel, in the third chapter, Nebuchadnezzar set up his great image, and required that it should be worshiped. This brought in the thought of religious liberty, and the duty of the people to worship God, regardless of the will of the king. “The king’s word” must “change.” In the sixth chapter comes up again the duty of the children of God to worship God, even though the law be made for the definite purpose of interfering with the worship of those who fear God. We need not go into the detail of those chapters about the present situation.
From the days of Abraham, God gave to Israel plain instruction upon all the subject of religious liberty—true separation of religion and the state. But Israel did not hold it fast; they would not believe it. Instead of holding fast the truth as they were taught, they went the way the nations went, and united church and state. And now, in her captivity, the Lord would teach to the heathen, by Israel when she was scattered among them, the very things that he gave to Israel to teach to the heathen, but which Israel rejected, and as a consequence became like the heathen.
Now the book of Daniel is a last-day book. And religious liberty, the separation of religion and the state, is one of the great subjects of the last days. When Christianity was started in the world, it was started with the truth on this point, as on all others. This truth of God was revived in Christianity, and was given to the nations,—the separation of religion and the state. The apostasy from God stepped in, and swung off, not Christianity, but that which passed for Christianity, and joined church and state again. The Reformation came in with Christianity again, the separation of religion and the state. Protestantism apostatized, and went in the same direction, uniting church and state. And so the book of Revelation tells what would thus come in the world—in the Dark Ages, it was the beast; and in the present day, it is the image to the beast.
Now all these years—fifty years—this has been studied by this people. It is a subject professedly known by this people. It is a truth given to this people to give to all the world. And yet, just now, in the very crisis of that thing, just before the last step is taken in which life shall be given to the image of the beast that he “should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed,”—just in this very crisis, one of the hardest things in the world is to get this people who profess to be in this time to see this truth, to acknowledge it, and give it to the world.
Let me call your attention to the situation as it is to-day outside the Third Angel’s Message,—the other side of the message. It is a surprise to the people of the world,—to the people of the United States, and the people outside of the United States, the people of the world, I mean,—the nations of the world, how swiftly the present movement of the nation in repudiation of its fundamental principles has been accepted by the people of this nation. Yet to those who have been here these years, and have really studied during these years, there is nothing at all mysterious, nor wonderful, nor strange about it.
Let me call your attention to something that you know. You know that for thirty-seven years there has been an organization in this United States whose set purpose was to turn this government “into a government of some other form.” It began in 1863—the National Reform Association.
These thirty-seven years that association has been working, and you know that one of the fundamental principles of the association of the National Reformers always has been, and is to-day, that “governments do not derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
It has been preached by the National Reformers always, and there is nothing else in their theory. These thirty-seven years these men have been sowing that seed through all this land. Is it strange that the seed should grow? Is there anything strange that fruit should begin to appear from that sowing of thirty-seven years?
Another thing: It is remarked especially by the public writers of the present time, the newspaper correspondents of the daily papers, that it is “the younger generation of public men,” not the older generation, who have taken this up so readily, and who are pushing this movement forward so strongly.
The older generation of men, who have been in the halls of Congress for a generation, are the ones who say No. They say, That is dangerous ground; that is a road we can not travel, and continue to exist as a republic. It means ruin to go that way.
But the younger generation who have come in,—who are they? Listen! These National Reformers have had open doors, free access, these thirty-seven years, in the churches, in the colleges, in the academies of all this land. All these years they have taught these evil precepts to the young men in the colleges, in the academies, and in the religious and literary assemblies. And now these young men are the very ones who are coming upon the stage of public action to-day. To-day these young men are taking their places in the halls of Congress—some of them only thirty-seven years old, and yet the very leaders in this movement. These are the young men in whose minds were sown, by these National Reformers a generation ago and onward, the evil seed that “governments do not derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” And now when they step into places of power in national affairs, they simply carry out the principles that they imbibed when they were in school, from the persistent and industrious teaching of the National Reformers through all these years.
That is the philosophy of this sudden rush away from the principles of this nation, away from the principles that made it the model nation of the earth, by which it enlightened the world, and the abandonment of which causes it to become the very image of the beast.
Now the National Reformers are still here, and are still preaching that same doctrine, that “governments do not derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” And their supporters, their doctrinal children, are now in the halls of Congress and in the halls of legislation throughout the nation. And now we are upon the very verge of the last movement that will be made, in which this nation will give life unto the image of the beast, that it should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the beast should be killed.
And just now, when we are standing face to face with this dreadfully dangerous and imminent issue, instead of all this people who have been here all these years, to whom God has given the truth to pass on to all these, and to give to all the nations—just now, when this people should arise as one man, with the might of God upon them, and sound the alarm and give the warning, instead of doing so, thousands of this people have not a word to say except it be to denounce those who would give that warning to the world! I am wondering, wondering every day, how long this can continue before this people shall have to be scattered among all these nations, in poverty, in distress, and amid confusion among the nations, in order that they shall give to all people and nations that which God gave us all these years to give, and for exactly such a time as this.
From ten to fifteen years ago, this people were especially told, by the Spirit of Prophecy, that the National Reform movement was working in secrecy, was making its way silently underneath the surface, and that its results and its mighty movement would be sprung upon the nation unawares; and we are in the time when it is now being sprung upon the nation. We are now past the time when it is working in secrecy; for its own agents, whom it has raised up, are its agents now in the halls of Congress and the halls of legislation throughout the land. So they have the whole machinery in their hands,—the machinery that they themselves have created. They created it for this very purpose, and they will use it for the purpose for which they created it, and that speedily.
And that is why it is that this Missionary Reading Circle work means a missionary work to which this people have now been called; and it calls for a missionary spirit, and an awakening such as has never been among this people. And if this crisis and work are not seen—then what? That is the important question: Then what?