RELIGIO-POLITICAL CLUBS.
By Editor
AND so it goes. The Christian Cynosure of the 3d inst. gives an account of a convention held at Worcester, Mass., at which the New England Christian Association was organized. The object of this association is to proclaim and publish pure Christianity, Bible holiness, and sound morality. So says article 2 of their constitution. And this is all good. But the same convention adopted a constitution for local organizations, the objects of which are, "the advancing of the Redeemer's kingdom and the overthrow of those evils which block the way,—the lodge, the saloon, the tobacco habit, the Sunday newspaper, debasing literature,—Romish aggressions on the divine right of liberty of conscience, or any other thing which is contrary to the word of God," or the New England Christian Association, for that is what it means. To the proclamation of "pure Christianity" we have no objection; we will rejoice in it. We believe these associations have the right to publish their counter-blasts against tobacco, or against secret societies, or Sunday newspapers, or Romish aggressions, or the divine right of liberty of conscience, and if these things can be overthrown by preaching or publishing, let them go by all means; for these have been in operation for years; and these things are "not fully accomplished by existing agencies," says the preamble to this constitution. What are the means to be used? We can learn this by the resolution "against Sabbath [Sunday] desecration," and the "hearty approval," by this convention, "of the constitutional amendment proposed by Senator Blair, of New Hampshire." This reveals the true inwardness of this "Christian" Association, as also of others similarly called. It is but a National Reform ally, as is the Christian Cynosure. The local organizations are but religio-political clubs, not to overthrow "aggression on the divine right of liberty of conscience," but to establish an ecclesiastical tyranny which will bind in bands of steel the man who dares to think aloud things contrary to this so-called Christian Association. Christian forsooth; that system which would compel religious observances in any form—right or wrong—is stamped by the divine word as antichrist.