A Regular Hodgepodge by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 24, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 59.

A Regular Hodgepodge

By Editor

A Regular Hodgepodge.—This is the way Sam P. Jones, in a recent letter to the Chattanooga Times, puts the present Church and State mixture:—

"The very fundamental laws of our government forbid the union of Church and State. But, to my mind, politics have gotten into the churches, and the churches into politics, until to-day we have partisan saints, partisan Democratic saints, and partisan Republican saints, and partisan saints mixed with red-nosed bums and political rascals, until Church and State, devil and all, are so tangled up together you can hardly tell which is t'other, and all seem to be on their journey home, with your finger pointing downward. Let the preacher teach his people that they can go to hell through politics as well as they can go through a gambling hell, a bawdy house, or penitentiary."

Is not this a good picture of Babylon? God says: "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, . . . and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you." "Babylon the great is fallen. . . . Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."

The Signs of the Times is published for the purpose of teaching the word of God as it is in Christ Jesus. That will be its aim and object for the year to come. Without fear or favor its conductors will proclaim the gospel of Christ, with all its precious warnings, instructions, precepts, and promises. They expect to do better work, give clearer explanations of Bible truth, teach with more power in 1895 than in any year in the past; for the necessities of the times demand it; the cause is God's, and he is able to supply all our needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Shall we not have the earnest coöperation of our friends everywhere?