“PROTESTANT” DANGERS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 23, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 29.

“PROTESTANT” DANGERS.

In a recent address before the American Protective Association at Metropolitan Temple, San Francisco, Ray Palmer, a Baptist clergyman of repute, is reported to have said:—

“I would not willingly turn this country over to any Protestant denomination, not even to the Baptists, of whom I am a member; for I fear human nature. Unlimited ecclesiastical power is dangerous in the hands of any man or any set of men. But that power is not sought by Protestantism or by any other religious body except the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church.”

With the first sentence we have no fault to find; it is true. With the second we agree also if by unlimited ecclesiastical power Mr. Palmer means a hierarchy clothed with civil power, or authorized by state authority; in other words, a power which comes by a union of church and state.

But Mr. Palmer’s last sentence is a gross mistake. There are as many Protestants working for this very thing in this land to-day as there are Roman Catholics. What means the National Reform Association and its work for the last thirty years? Its sole object is to make this a religious government, a so-called “Christian” government in its fundamental law, a government which will result in the disfranchisement—according to its representatives’ own words—of every logically consistent infidel. This means every one who will not indorse its regime. But the National Reform Association names itself Protestant.

What means the indorsement of this association and its principles by the W. C. T. U.? What means the organization of the American Sabbath Union working for a legal religious sabbath, anathematizing those legislators who will not work for it?

What means this vast movement of Christian Endeavorers in connection with the Good Citizenship or Christian Citizenship agitation embodying the principles of church and state and National Reformism? And all are “Protestant.”

What means the decision of the Supreme Court that “this is a Christian nation,” hailed with such joy by many of our religious papers?

What means the decision of Congress, forced by “Protestant” petitions, that Sunday is the sabbath of the Lord and is a proper thing to legislate upon, declared in 1892? This was signed by a “Protestant” President.

If the A. P. A. are truly ambitious to protect American freedom, there is as much need that they should watch Protestants as Catholics; for the latter are but running their train of the centuries over the track laid by the former.

There are true “Protestants;” thank God for that. And they need to be awake. Dangers menace on every side. The only safe place is absolute, unswerving, unflinching fidelity to the principles of Gospel and religious liberty. And even that is too late; liberty, to maintain her existence now, must reverse the actions of the Supreme Court and of Congress.