OUR NATIONAL BRIBE by C. M. S.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 17, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 16.

OUR NATIONAL BRIBE.

By C. M. S.

It is not a bribe to be wicked that we are speaking of, but a bribe to be good, or at least to play we are good.

When the great international exposition was held in Chicago, Congress voted a great appropriation in its support on condition that the exposition should keep Sunday. The exposition was not a model Sunday-keeper, notwithstanding the appropriation. But the government does not seem discouraged in the poor bargain it made with the Chicago exposition; for on February 23 the Senate passed the bill which had previously passed the House, making a $5,000,000 appropriation for the St. Louis exposition of 1903, and a $250,000 appropriation for the Charleston exposition, on condition that they also should keep Sunday.

It certainly is a good thing that men should keep Sabbath. It is essential that they keep the day which they believe to be the Sabbath; and happy is that people or that individual that is found so doing. But that the national government should bribe men to keep any day whatever is as wrong as sin itself. Such an attempt at Sabbath-keeping is a perversion of all that Sabbath-keeping was designed to be. It is belittling to religion, a biting reproach to the cause whose interests it is supposed to advance. We know there are men who try to appear religious for the money there is in such pretension for them. We know there are persons who try to appear religious that they may be thought well of by some class whose approbation they desire; and, sad to say, there are preachers who make merchandise of their pulpits by tickling the ears of their congregation at the expense of their souls, or by seeking out the church which pays the highest salary. All this is cause for deepest regret; but that the national government should boldly and deliberately bribe the people to appear more religious than they are, to appear to give to an institution of the church an honor which they do not feel—this is enough to bring the blush of shame to the cheek of every true man and woman in the country. Surely the government that will take the people's money to hire the people to appear religious has forgotten the cause for which it exists. To hire mourners at a funeral is no more incongruous or unnatural.

But Congress did not do this without importunity and pressure, and, more's the pity, that pressure and that importunity came from bodies that have taken upon themselves the name of Christ. Real Christianity could not have received a more humiliating blow in the house of its worst enemy. Indeed, the blow was inspired by that enemy, tho delivered by the hand of its friends. Satan's question to the Lord, “Doth Job fear God for naught?” could rightfully be asked concerning the closed doors of these expositions: “Are these doors closed on Sunday for naught?” It is known to all that, were it not for the glittering bribe, the doors would not be shut on that day nor on any day as a matter of conscience; and the religious bodies who hold up such an act as Sabbath-keeping are as unable to distinguish between the sacred and profane as were Nadab and Abihu. Were such in the latters' place, we might logically expect them to do as they did, and with results equally disastrous to themselves.

God wants loyal men. He wants men who will be true to Him no matter what others do or refuse to do. He wants men who will say as Job did, “Tho He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” If men will take such a loyal position as that, certainly nothing less than death will ever turn them aside from doing what God demands. Alongside of such service, how worthless appear the ceremonies and forms that are purchased with gold. It is time for professing Christians to study what real Christianity is and means; and when they have learned that, they will never again influence a government to hire its citizens to appear more religious than they are, or hold out to its people any bribe whatever for the performance of religious ceremonies. True Christianity never hires or advises men to be hypocrites. Let us not belittle the cause of Christ by clamoring for such a course on the part of the government.

C. M. S.