What Ought to Be

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 30, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 25.

THE Constitution of the United States declares that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

The same Federal Constitution declares of the Federal Government that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It is, therefore, evident that the power to establish religion is reserved to the states and to the people; but as religion is a personal matter between the individual and God, the matter of its establishment or prohibition ought forever to be prohibited to the states by the people, and be reserved forever to the people as individuals. We wish it could be, for it is a right which ought to be recognized. But will the people do this? Will the people have sufficient regard for their own rights, for others’ rights, to demand this recognition?