"The Survival of the Fittest"
By Editor
LAWS for the protection of human rights are necessary; but class institutions, among which are all religious days and dogmas, must depend for their existence and promotion on the loyalty, devotion, and zeal of their adherents. If they are worthy to live, if they are of benefit to the human race, if there is back of them real intrinsic worth, their value will be recognized, and they will be perpetuated in the hearts and lives of their constant and multiplying constituency. But if these institutions can not be thus maintained by their inherent worth, they deserve to die. And above all other classes, Christians should recognize this fact and endorse this sentiment. Jesus Christ declares, "Every plant, which My heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." Matt. 15: 13. Men may bolster up Sunday by tradition and false teaching, they may put behind it all the combined power of civil government; but if it is not of God, it will surely perish, and may include in its destruction those who thus identify themselves with it. But if it be of God, let its religious friends look to Him with the calm faith of an Elijah. The Rock, and all built upon it, will endure. All the storms of infidelity may break upon it, but the waves and winds will prove to be but spray, which will whiten, harden, and polish the Rock. We leave these queries with those of our readers who hold to the Sunday institution: Is not the appeal to civil law a tacit confession that they know that the Sunday is not of Christ, that it is not of God's planting? Or if they believe it to be of God, does not their appeal to civil law show that they have lost faith in the "all power" of the Gospel?