p. 79 | WILLIAM PENNIMAN by William Penniman

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 4, 1875

WILLIAM PENNIMAN

By William Penniman

The Amendment Question. “Which God? What Bible?”

At the recent convention in favor of a religious amendment in the Federal Constitution, Mr. Mc Allister, one of the upholders of this movement, said, “Unless we acknowledge God as our ruler, and the Bible as our guide, there is great danger ahead.”

In reply to this remark, Rev. Dr. Sonnenschein, a Jewish Rabbi of the Temple Shaare Emith, St. Louis, is represented in the St. Louis Daily Globe, of Jan. 30, as saying: “There are in this country prevailing two widely different conceptions of God and of the Bible. One God is worshiped as a unit by the Jews and their first cousins; the Unitarians, and the other God, not the same God at all, is worshiped as a trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

There is one Bible, wherein every letter is considered as given from Heaven, to be rejected at the risk of eternal damnation; and the other is respected because it was written thousands of years ago by unselfish men who have given us teachings and advice that tend to virtue and piety in harmony with their time, but which teachings and statutes we have the right to amend or repeal, according to the requirements of modern civilization.

“These ‘reformers’ would quarrel and fight, setting parent against child and child against parent. They would drive us headlong into the fierce and bloody wars which were witnessed in the Middle Ages in the old countries—France, England, and Germany. In addition to ecclesiastical rivalry and religious fanaticism, they would arouse the unrelenting hatred of political antagonism. Suppose the Catholic clergy in France, where there is a greater Catholic majority than there is Protestant majority here, were to go into council to amend the French Constitution according to their views, what would their Protestant brethren think of it?”

“In the national Constitution we have an anchor which points us safely to the ground of independence, and we predict that if this amendment (proposed) is adopted, the Jew and infidel will in twenty-five years be placed on a footing far below the equal rights of American citizens.”

The foregoing words of the Jewish Rabbi show that the Jews think that there is “danger ahead” as well as the Protestants. It is evident that the machinery is set in motion which is to bring about the amendment. Let the people once be convinced that there is “danger ahead” unless they adopt these measures, and they will be sure to vote for them. Apparently their cause is a good one, and their reasoning plausible. Truly it is right to “acknowledge God as our ruler, and the Bible as our guide;” but should this be compulsory, thereby enforcing Christianity, or a national religion, upon the people?

WILLIAM PENNIMAN

Woodburn, Ill.