A Forcible Address

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 9, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 15.

A Forcible Address.

For years the National Reform Association has been endeavoring to have the Constitution of the United States amended. In harmony with the efforts of past years they succeeded in introducing before both Houses of Congress the following amendment:—

“We, the people of the United States (acknowledging Almighty God as the source of all power and authority in civil government, the Lord Jesus Christ as the ruler of nations, and his revealed will as of supreme authority in civil affairs), in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

A “hearing” was had on this proposed amendment before the House Committee, March 11. There were present representatives of the National Reform Association, the Secular League, Spiritualists, Unitarians, Hebrews, Seventh-day Adventists, and Seventh-day Baptists. For the advocates of the measure a half hour was given at the beginning and close, and for the opponents an intermediate hour. The general opinion, except from the ultra friends of the measure, is that the hearing was an utter defeat, so far as the House Committee was concerned, of the amendment. For the Seventh-day Christians, Dr. A. H. Lewis, editor of the Evangel and Sabbath Outlook, spoke, and from that paper of March 26 we reprint his speech. It is a happy tho brief setting forth of these just principles. It is as follows:—

“I know that this committee will not be affected by the issue of mere debate, neither do I wish to waste time in following the remarks of the affirmative, in detail. I can not, however, refrain from noting two or three points before I discuss the fundamental objection to the amendment proposed.

“We are told by the first speaker that the nation has reached a high plane as a ‘Christian nation’ under the present Constitution; under a tendency which has carried us steadily away from the early colonial theocracy, which this amendment proposes to repeat. If this be true, I venture to ask, ‘Why not let well enough alone?’ If, under a ‘Godless and Christless Constitution,’ we have become such an excellent ‘Christian nation,’ and since we know that much may be lost by attempting amendment, why not rest content? If we are a Christian nation now, every plea made for the amendment is nugatory.

“Again, we are told that this is a most wicked and conscienceless nation. The pictures drawn by the affirmative are contradictory and self-destructive. But in so far as we are conscienceless, the main reason lies in just such methods as are here proposed; methods which put the low human standard of civil law between man and God; methods which create standards that push God and divine authority out of sight and mind, and leave no ground for conscience.

“Again, to say that this amendment does not propose a union of church and state is an unworthy ‘play on words.’ It does propose to make the Bible, the source and foundation of every Christian church, in theory at least, a part of the constitutional law of the nation. Under such a constitution, any question of religion, and the relation of that question to the Bible, and the teachings of the Bible upon the point in question, might become an issue for the courts. The end would be that the Supreme Court of the United States would become the final arbiter and interpreter of the Bible. But more: Christianity exists and must exist in organic form. It is not an unreal something which drifts about like the airy shadows of a dream. The nation must recognize it in some organic embodiment. What shall that be, Romanist or Protestant? Presbyterian or Baptist? This is union of church and state in the worst sense; a sense too nearly allied to the Middle Ages to find recognition by you, gentlemen, in these last years of the century.

“But I hasten to the fundamental objection against the amendment. I am here, not as a ‘secularist,’ but as a devout Christian, orthodox and unyielding. I make objection for the sake of Christianity and the Bible. I oppose the amendment on the broad ground that I do not wish the question of religion brought into politics, to be kicked about as a football from ward primaries to national conventions. Principles in history never lose their essential character, nor fail to produce their legitimate fruitage. The fundamental principle which underlies this amendment is not Christian. Christ said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ When the decaying pagan empire of Rome saw that Christianity promised to become a vigorous ally of the state, it adopted it as one of the state religions. To the pagan Roman, religion was only a department of the state. It was a civil affair. The emperor was ‘chief priest’ ex officio. Under Constantine the Great, 312 A.D. and forward, this pagan principle attacked Christianity, enfolded it, poisoned it, paganized it. He was the first great religious censor of Christianity. In 324 A.D., while his hands were red with the blood of his brother-in-law, whom he murdered, he presided over the Council of Nice, which settled certain questions about the nature of Christ, the keeping of Easter, etc. The results of this iniquitous union are written on every page of subsequent history. Christianity ascended the throne of the Caesars, it is true, but she left her sweetness and purity, her divine loveliness and power for good, behind. The centuries grew heavy with the burden, and dim with the darkness which followed. Protestantism has done something to retrieve the lost ground, and the religious liberty on which our Constitution is founded has done more. The Old World has clung to the church and state idea, which has weighed down Christianity and strangled it like the ‘old man of the sea.’ It found a place in the theocracy of our early colonies, wherein only an ‘orthodox’ church member might be a citizen. We left this behind 200 years ago, and now these men, strangely blind to the lessons of history, come here and ask you, gentlemen of the committee, to turn the hands of progress back to a point which would bring again the evils of the past with the added power of national sanction.

“As a lover of the Bible and of Christianity, I protest against such a prostitution of their divine mission and character. I plead for such religious freedom from all human or legal restraints as leaves every soul alone with God, and face to face with the eternal. Christianity is more life than creed. Put no human standard between man and God. Let men stand heart to heart with him, understand him as they can, and learn to obey him because he is the only, and the supreme, authority in all matters religious. Keep the Bible out of politics, out of the unseemly scramble which would follow its introduction into the constitutional law of the nation. Teach its truths, and let them flow abroad, uplifting the lives and purifying the souls of men, and trust the event with God.”

The Evangel and Sabbath Outlook has the following notes on the amendment:—

“In the cross-questioning, which was put upon the speakers who closed the debate for the affirmative, various members of the committee, able lawyers, brought out the weak points in overwhelming confusion. One speaker, who will neither vote nor hold office under the present ‘wicked constitution,’ gave way under the fire, and another took his place. This part of the hearing developed the fact that the Sabbath question is a prominent feature of this movement. The logic of the situation was set forth by a member of the committee, when, by questioning, he showed that under the amendment, if a case of ‘Sabbath-breaking’ were carried to the Supreme Court, the advocates of the amendment would be compelled to abandon Sunday and keep the Sabbath. He showed that no ‘interpretation’ could permit any other decision under the text of the Bible. That episode alone was worth a volume of arguments in favor of the Sabbath.”

“The amendment will undoubtedly ‘die’ in the committee or be reported ‘adversely.’ Whatever the purpose of the advocates of this amendment, the results would create an actual union of church and state, or of Christianity and the state, which could not fail to work great evil.”