ALWAYS DANGEROUS by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 30, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 31.

“ALWAYS DANGEROUS.”

By Editor

In 1829 there came before the Congress of the United States a demand from religious bodies that post-offices and post-roads should be closed on Sundays. The proposition and petitions were laid before a committee of which the Hon. Richard M. Johnson was chairman. In that committee’s report to the Senate are these virile and true American utterances:—

It is not the legitimate province of the Legislature determine what religion is true, or what false. It should be kept in mind that the proper object of government is to protect all persons in the enjoyment of their religious as well as civil rights, and not to determine for any whether they shall esteem one day above another, or esteem all days alike holy.

If the principle is once established that religion or religious observances shall be interwoven with our legislative acts, we must pursue it to its ultimatum.

Let the national Legislature once perform an act which involves a religious controversy, and it will have passed its legitimate bounds. The precedent will then be established, and the foundation laid, for that usurpation of the divine prerogative in this country which has been the desolating scourge of the fairest portions of the Old World.

To prevent a similar train of evils in this country, the Constitution has wisely withheld from our government the power of defining the divine law. It is a right reserved to each citizen, and while he respects the rights of others, he can not be held amenable to any human tribunal for his conclusions. Extensive religious combinations to effect a political object are . . . always dangerous. This first effort of the kind calls for the establishment of a principle which . . . would lay the foundation for dangerous innovation upon the spirit of the Constitution and upon the religious rights of the citizens. If admitted, it may be justly apprehended that the future measures of the government will be strongly marked, if not eventually controlled, by the same influence. All religious despotism commences by combination and influence; and when that influence begins to operate upon the political institutions of a country, the civil power soon bends under it, and the catastrophe of other nations furnishes an awful warning of the consequences.

Before the House of Representatives came the same subject of Sunday legislation in 1830. The House accepted the adverse report as did the Senate, and rejected such legislation as utterly opposed to free government. And here is one of the golden sentences of that report:—

If a solemn act of legislation shall, in one point, define the law of God, or point out to the citizen one religious duty, it may with equal propriety, proceed to define every part of divine revelation, and enforce every religious obligation, even to the forms and ceremonies of worship, the endowment of the church, and the support of the clergy.

In 1893 the closing of the Chicago Exposition came before Congress in an effort to make the appropriation from the Federal Government dependent upon the closing of the exposition on Sunday. Congressmen were cajoled, importuned, threatened, and intimidated by religious combinations to effect a political purpose till they yielded. There were strong protests. The principle of righteous legislation was not yielded without a struggle. Yet through the influence of Christians, who profess Christ’s name but so lack His power that they feel it must be supplemented by human legislation, the right and truth were compromised; Sunday was decided to be the Sabbath, and the government (woe worth the day!) committed itself to the principle of religious legislation.

Subsequent steps of a similar character have been taken since with scarcely a protest, and now we find the officers of the Federal Government insisting that such provisions of the government must be strictly carried out. This has been particularly manifest in connection with the World’s Fair at St. Louis in 1904. The government appropriated $5,000,000 on condition that “the directors shall contract to close the gates to visitors on Sundays during the whole duration of the Fair.”

The Secretary of the treasury, the Hon. Leslie M. Shaw, in writing to the president of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company, under date of May 27, says that

This department is of the opinion that the contract referred to should be executed and filed in the Treasury Department before any further vouchers are paid.

President David R. Francis, of the exposition, replies under date of June 3, and calls attention to rules and regulations adopted by the fair management, in which the intention of the management to close the fair is set forth specifically.

Secretary Shaw replies that this is not sufficient; a specific contract must be executed by the fair directors. The directors, therefore, June 10, executed a contract that

In consideration of the payment to said Exposition Company of the sum of five million dollars, appropriated by Congress in aid of said exposition, or so much thereof as may be found due, it is hereby covenanted and agreed by the directors of the said Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company that the gates to the exposition grounds shall be closed to visitors on Sundays during the whole duration of the fair.

Church organizations in particular have requested that these matters be made public, and the information is therefore given to the public by Mr. Mark Bennett, of the Exposition Press Bureau.

Now we are not condemning the directors of the exposition for closing the fair on Sunday. As a private concern they should have been allowed the right to do as they would. It may be better to close the exposition on Sunday; that is a matter of opinion. But what we do contend is that Congress had no right whatsoever in conditioning its appropriation on Sunday closing, any more than it would to condition it on a requirement that the directors should all be baptized and partake of the communion monthly as evidence of sincerity of Christian profession.

The government ship has been steered within the dangerous Sea of Death, the civil power is bending under the influence of religious combinations to effect a political purpose, and the catastrophe of other nations furnishes the awful warning of the sad consequences which will ensue. The government has committed itself; it would be a marvelous miracle, wholly unprecedented, for it to retrace its path under the sycophancy of politics and the strength of religio-political combinations. God has foretold the end in “the more sure Word of prophecy.” We can do no other than lift a warning voice.