SENTIMENT VERSUS PRINCIPLE.
SENTIMENT is a very good thing when it is backed by principle, but without principle it is most dangerous, swayed by, and subject to, every demagogue who possesses the skill to play upon the varied emotions of unthinking humanity. Many a mob swayed by sentiment has put to death innocent men. Many a time have assemblies decided against their own best good by yielding to the emotion of the moment. And the majority of human beings are deciding their eternal destiny in the same way. It is easy to be moved by sentiment. As a general thing it is with the current of humanity. One rarely, if ever, finds himself alone. But principle often costs the sacrifice of self, of sentiment, of emotion, of expediency, of everything but truth and right. All this is manifest in the religio-political drift at the present time. Every intelligent, genuine American who is not bound by religious creed or blinded by bigotry, will say on general principles, imbibed from his forefathers, that every kind of religious legislation is wrong in principle, unjust in its execution, and contrary to the principles of equality and liberty on which this government was founded. On general principles every intelligent Christian will say that religious legislation is contrary to the very nature of Christianity, contrary to the golden rule, contrary to the teachings and life of Christ. As far and as long as these principles have borne sway, America has been the land of the free. Jew and heathen, Christian and infidel, Protestant and Catholic, have, each and all, worshiped God according to the dictates of their own conscience; and if these principles were always to remain a moulding power, religious liberty would always be assured to every class, religious, unreligious, and irreligious. But these principles have ceased to mould men and public life. America has had a time of unexampled peace and prosperity. Her principles of liberty are held as beautiful legends and traditions, to be sung and recited on great memorial days. Her great so-called orthodox churches have prospered, and with their riches have come pride, ambition, and love of power. In their earlier days they were content to bear the warnings of God's word to the sinner, or to him of contrary creed, and beseech him to turn from his evil way and live. Now in their pride they utter the decrees of their own creed-bound conventions, and threaten the sinner with civil penalties, tradesmen with boycott, and the office seeker with retirement from office if they dare disobey the mandates of the church. In no one thing is this yielding of principle seen more than in the matter of Sunday laws. The passing of Sunday laws is religious legislation, it matters not by what term it may be called. It is in the interests of a religious class who observe that day. It is in the interests of a religious institution exalted by this class. It thereby exalts this class and this institution above those who do not believe in Sunday laws, and is therefore class legislation, and unjust legislation, inasmuch as it militates directly against the equality of man as taught by Christ and claimed by the founders of this government. It makes a perfectly legitimate and praiseworthy deed on other days, as, for instance, honest work for the support of one's family, criminal if done on Sunday, simply and solely to suit the sentiments of a religious class, which profess the golden rule but will not keep it. It deprives the laboring man, who has kept the seventh day, of one-sixth of his time or income, simply because of the religious views of his neighbors who are in the majority. And the sad thing is that "Christians" are at the head and front of this antichristian movement. The reason why they stand there may be learned from the word of God and demonstrated by the history of the past eighteen hundred years. Christ sums it all up in the expression, "These things they will do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor Me." John 16: 3. If men knew the754Spirit of Christ, they would never dream of coercing others, for they would know by experience that only the Spirit of God could be effectual in converting men. If they knew the truth of Christ, they would know that only by the truth could men be sanctified, and that it was absolutely impossible to define or confine God's truth by creeds, or to enforce it by human law. If men knew the power of Christ, they would know that no earthly power could accomplish aught for him in the characters of men or in enforcing his truth among men, and for an earthly power to attempt it would be to usurp his authority, and become antichrist. History teaches that the first step in apostasy was always departure from the truth. The next step was the making of a creed in which the departure from the truth was included. The third step was asking for civil power to enforce the errors of the creed. For it is always error that is enforced by law. Never in all the history of the church has civil law been asked to enforce a Bible truth. It has always been some error, or some perversion of Bible truth. This is the case to-day in connection with Sunday laws. Sunday has not only no foundation as a Sabbath, or holy day, in God's sacred word, but it appears as a usurper, that which can be established only by the overthrow of an express command of God. It is not only extra-biblical but antibiblical, not only extra-christian, but antichristian. There goes with it the spirit of antichrist, which is the spirit of self-exaltation, oppression, and persecution. It is sentiment, sentiment for a hoary tradition, but not the principles of truth and justice, which is behind this religio-political movement. Sentiment goes with the masses, swings with the tide, panders to the perversity of the people, holds more sacred the erroneous practice of a good but ignorantly erring parent or church than it does the truth of God. Principle will stand for right and justice though the heavens fall. It will espouse the cause of the weak, the oppressed, the wronged. It will stand for God, though it stand alone with a maddened world before it. Reader, where do you stand in this great struggle? on the side of unholy sentiment and selfish interest? or on the side of God and his truth?