THE NATIONAL CHRISTIANITY QUESTION.
By W. N. Glenn
A NEW quarterly publication, entitled Sunday Reform Leaflets, has been started in Columbus, Ohio, by Rev. Dr. Edward Thomson, formerly Pacific Coast secretary of the American Sabbath Union, now general manager of the Sunday League of America, another member of the "National Reform" combination. This initial number of the Leaflets is entitled "Is This a Christian Nation?" In this particular document the utmost imagination seems to have been strained to sustain the delusive Christian-nation theory. It is the purpose of this article to note a few of the more extravagant assertions. Of the men who composed the Constitutional Convention the editor says:— The Constitution which these great and good men made at that time is a distinctively Christian document. The reader should bear in mind that the author of that expression has been for several years a prominent factor in the American Sabbath Union, which is a close ally if not, indeed, a direct offspring of the National Reform Association, which for about thirty years has been combating the unchristian character of the Constitution, because it does not recognize God. This association arose from the ranks of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, one of whose prominent tenets is to refrain from voting until the godless character of the Constitution has been changed. So we see that the testimony of these yoke-fellows in political Christianity fails to agree on this prominent point in their Christian doctrine. Following is another paragraph, which contains a number of absurdities:— In the first article of our Constitution we find a Sunday law: The President of the United States "shall have ten days, SUNDAYS EXCEPTED, in which to consider each bill" that comes before him from Congress. Our fathers expected the President to be a Christian man, and the White House a Christian home—where Sunday would be a day of rest and worship, and they proposed to protect the Chief Executive in the enjoyment of this privilege. Yes, that Sunday law, if you choose to call it such, was designed to protect the President in his right to observe Sunday if he wanted to do so, but there is no intimation of a compulsory observance. He can sign bills all day Sunday if he so desires, and the bills are not thereby invalidated. So the Constitution, "Sunday law" and all, protects the President in his right to keep Sunday or not to keep it, just as he pleases. If "our fathers expected the President to be a Christian man," why did they insert in the Constitution the provision that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States"? See Article VI, paragraph 3. Again we quote from the Leaflets, as follows:— They [our fathers] plainly intended this should be a Christian nation of the best type, as is evident from an examination into the various departments of our government. We can better learn what our fathers "plainly intended" by reference to some of their own utterances. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison were the first four Presidents under the Constitution. Washington, Jefferson, and Madison were leading members of the convention that framed the Constitution, Washington being chairman. Adams was at the time doing important diplomatic service in Europe; however, he was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and the first Vice President under the new Constitution. The actions or expressions of these men would naturally be deemed better evidence of what was "plainly intended" by themselves and associates than any assumption on the part of Church-and-State enthusiasts of the present day. During the last year of Washington's second term as President he had executed and signed a "treaty of peace and friendship" with the government of Tripoli, in which it was expressly stated that "the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." By the time the treaty had been forwarded to Tripoli and returned, Washington's term of office had expired, and John Adams was President. By President Adams the treaty was promptly presented to the Senate and ratified. So that these two prominent "fathers" showed by this act that it was "plainly intended" by them that this should "not, in any sense," be regarded as a Christian nation. Now, as to the political force of a treaty entered into by the United States, we submit paragraph 2 of Article VI of the Constitution: "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges of every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." The editor of Sunday Reform Leaflets says that "George Washington stood before the people with one hand upon the Bible and the other lifted to heaven, and, in this most solemn manner, he was sworn as first President of the United States." Well, suppose he was; he was not obliged to be thus sworn. The Constitution provides the following form of "oath or affirmation:" "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Suppose George Washington to have been a Christian in the strictest sense, it does not follow that he expected to make every other citizen acknowledge Christianity as the true religion. Washington evidently had sense enough to know that no action of a civil government could make individuals Christians, and therefore no such action could make a nation Christian. Washington had no doubt read the history of Rome, and knew just what kind of a Christian nation that was after it had been so declared by the Emperor Constantine and the Senate. The more of a Christian Washington was, the more he would know that civil laws and civil court decisions could not produce Christianity, either in individuals or nations. Thomas Jefferson has left on record very emphatic declarations showing what the fathers "plainly intended" when they laid the foundation of the government. In a letter dated January 23, 1808, during his second term as President, he said: "I consider the Government of the United States interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises." In harmony with this principle he refused to proclaim either fasts or festivals. He declined to even recommend a day of fasting and prayer. In the letter above quoted he says: "I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies, that the general government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting and prayer are religious exercises; the enjoining them, an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, and the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the Constitution has deposited it." James Madison has left documentary evidence of what was "plainly intended" by the Constitution so far as he was concerned. In a convention in his native State (Virginia) he uttered the following sentiment: "There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion; its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation." And in a memorial to the General Assembly of the State in 1785, against a bill proposing a general tax for teaching the Christian religion, we find the following expression of his views on religious liberty: "Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess, and to observe the religion which we believe to be of divine origin,213we cannot deny an equal freedom to them whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offense against God, not against man. To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it be rendered." "In a letter on this subject to General Lafayette, Mr. Madison said: "The memorial was so extensively signed by the various religious sects, including a considerable portion of the old hierarchy, that the projected innovation was crushed."