GOVERNMENTAL RECOGNITION OF GOD.
By W. N. G.
A contributor to the Melbourne Herald, discussing the merits of the proposed religious phase of the new Federal Constitution of Australia, asks: "Was not Nebuchadnezzar deposed from his kingly throne because he did not recognize God?" It is pertinent to ask, Did not God raise Nebuchadnezzar to the secular rule of the whole earth when he was yet a pagan idolater? Did he not take the secular kingdom away from his own chosen people because they utterly failed in its administration, and give it to their enemies, on more than one occasion? Did he not overturn the kingdom of Israel three times from one pagan power to another, and declare that "it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him"? Did not Israel formally recognize God in their government, and did he not directly give many of their laws? No kingdom ever made a more dismal failure in the matter of glorifying God than did the kingdom of Israel, altho that kingdom is continually held up as an example by the advocates of State rule in the name of religion. "Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen, whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel." 2 Chron. 33:9. W. N. G.