WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING?
By C. M. Snow
Never has there been a time in the history of this world when great events were rushing in upon one another with such accelerated speed as at the present time. Never was there a time when crises ripened so rapidly as they are ripening now. We have hardly time to-day to take the revelations of God by faith before we are compelled to view them in the light of past events. And this country, the cradle of liberty, this country, which has outrun all others in the inventions which its subjects have sought out, is now outrunning them also in the preparations which she is making for co-operation in the last great act of plunging the whole world into its eternal ruin. She is forging the weapons for this last great contest with an alacrity never before seen and never anticipated. The present war with Spain has added energy to a zeal already unsurpassed, and opened avenues for the accomplishment of the designs of papal conspirators and their false Protestant coadjutors. It was a long step in advance of anything heretofore recorded when Archbishop Ireland presented his credentials from the papal Secretary of State to the Secretary of State of the United States, and was received by him as the official representative of the papal power. It was another long step in advance of former conditions when the American fleet passed Corregidore Island, and launched America on the sea of international politics. There has been considerable joking among the newspapers over what is termed America’s poor shooting in this war, she having, as it is expressed by them, “aimed at Cuba and hit the Philippines.” But however poor a shot America has been in this thing, she has made a center shot in the target of her own undoing. Not but what America’s moral aim was good enough in freeing the Cubans, in liberating the Porto Ricans from their oppressive rulers, or in breaking the fetters of the Philippines, if that is what her object is in the Orient; for I am not criticising, nor have I any disposition to do so. But in “blowing Spain out of the water” in Manila Bay, on May 1, America has blown herself into the vortex of that great international catastrophe which the student of God’s Word expects so soon to see. In striking that blow, Admiral Dewey solved the problem of how America could become entangled with the powers of the Old World. Such an event was not foreseen—it could not have been—but the shot struck home, and the trap was sprung which threw around the “great republic” the interminable meshes of foreign complications—and not simply complications with the regularly recognized powers of the Old World, but also with that intriguing foreign power which, sitting a prisoner in the Vatican, has imprisoned in a greater or less degree under the bolts and bars of ignorance and superstition the subjects of every nation under heaven. That battle afforded the opportunity for the presentation of those papal credentials by a papal minister plenipotentiary. The door was opened, and Rome stepped in—into the inner council chambers of this republic, that she might there wield the scepter of her invisible power. So it has come to be a fact that Rome has a hand in influencing the affairs of this nation. In connection with this achievement, which forms a precedent for future acts of similar import, the work of the Lord’s Day Defense Committee becomes an interesting study. A combination of all the elements which have hitherto been favorable to religious legislation, is the slogan of its hosts. The education of the masses in harmony with its aims is the preliminary work cut out for its promoters; and the most startling and far-reaching of its plans of work is an image of the inquisitorial work of Rome. I quote section 7 of its constitution:— The Investigating Committee [which should have been named the Inquisitorial Committee], appointed by the secretary and known only to himself, may consist of four or eight. The first (or first two) shall on the first Monday of each month, the second on the second, and so on, report in writing and in detail to the secretary from careful personal observation made the previous day whatever Sunday work or dissipation was discovered. Or the whole city may be divided into small districts, and one or two be appointed in each district to investigate every Sunday and report every Monday. These facts the secretary shall report early in the week to the proper civil officer, usually requiring him to secure his own evidence through the police or otherwise. The secretary shall also report these facts at the general monthly committee meeting, as the diagnosis through which cures of these evils may be wisely applied. The press committee shall report these facts, so far as it is wise, in the press once a month, showing progress or decline. As of old an unjust judge was aroused to justice by importunity, so many an executive officer may be driven from habitual perjury to the observance of his oath, if the record of his neglect is persistently set before him and the public month after month. Thus we have in this Sunday Defense Committee532, in rejuvenated form, the unholy and unpatriotic Spanish Inquisition. Its secret servants, “known only to” the secretary, are to busy themselves in the minutest details of their neighbors’ Sunday doings; and the civil officers to whom reports of Sunday work or amusement are made are to go through the form of securing their own evidence, in order that a religious society may not be looked upon as the instigator of the prosecution which it has instigated. Section 14 of its constitution requires the boycotting of creameries and cheese factories which will not close on Sunday. Now, with such an organization as this, established and beginning its active operations for religious legislation and religious persecution, and with a papal plenipotentiary in the council chambers of the government to assist in Romanizing the republic; with an inquisition established among us to hunt out and turn over to the uncivil civil power those who refuse to yield obedience in matters of faith to man-made institutions; with our country entangled with that inharmonious concert of the powers,—have we not a right to believe and know that we are now dealing with the events which immediately precede the personal appearing of the Son of God? We are farther along in these things than many of us are aware.