Some Thanksgiving Utterances.—
According to reports of San Francisco papers we note the following from prominent religious teachers:— “If the country continued as it was going now he was afraid the thickening sands of evil would bury it. The country had lived only 120 years, yet all the evils of which the prophets spoke were apparent.”—Rabbi Voorsanger. True; a very definite prophecy of our country is found in Rev. 13:11–17. “With our inheritance came hither, driven from Europe, God’s people, bringing God’s day, God’s church, and God’s book—the three pillars on which, as Professor Schaff said, our republic is built.”—Rev. C. O. Brown (Congregationalist). “But to shout for liberty will not protect it, any more than in the days of the French Revolution, when Paris ran red with the blood of tyranny while men were shouting liberty. If we would protect liberty, we must love our American sabbath and protect that; for without it liberty can not live.”—Id. “The American sabbath must be maintained against all foes, for the fourth commandment is one of the foundation stones of our government, and if that stone be removed, our nation must perish. Foreigners who come here to obey our laws, and not to violate them, are welcome, but to all others we recommend a speedy return to the land where the laws suit them better. This country belongs to God and not to Satan. Rum, Romanism and ignorance are not to rule us.”—W. R. Godwin, D.D. (Methodist Episcopal). These are illustrative of others, showing that the Sabbath question is the great religio-political question. But it might be worth while in view of such statements as the above to ask several questions: (1) According to the plain English of God’s word what day of the week is God’s day? Read Ex. 20: 8-11; Mark 16: 1, 2. (2) How will protecting a religious institution protect men, especially the men who may be conscientiously and righteously opposed to it? The answer may be read in the history of the Dark Ages. (3) If men are privileged to interpret by church dogma and civil law the fourth commandment to mean the first day when it says expressly the seventh day, why may not other men interpret it to mean the sixth day or no day at all? (4) Does not every country belong to God as much as this? (5) And is all this gospel of force the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Finally, it is truly said, “To shout for liberty will not protect it,” and to call Sunday the Sabbath of the Lord or America Christian will not make them so. Putting error for truth and truth for error will not change the character of evil either; and a fabric built upon such a false foundation will fall. But that is just the foundation that is furnished us in this whole Sunday-sabbath law issue. Would to God that its promoters might see it.