A BACKWARD MOVEMENT by W. E. Gerald

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 4, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 40.

A BACKWARD MOVEMENT.

By W. E. Gerald

BY W. E. GERALD.

THE truly wonderful always attracts attention and excites admiration. What has been more wonderful than the rise and progress of the nation now recognized among the powers of the earth, as the United States of America.

Across the sea they have watched her marvelous strides in astonishment. Tho but an infant yesterday, to-day they see her, a giantess in her strength, occupying a position of exaltation. She possesses everything requisite to make a nation great,—an extensive territory, unlimited natural resources, and a geographical situation that is unrivalled. The toiling thousands of the Old World have poured in swarms across the ocean to our shores. Now what is the magnet, the secret of attraction, here in America?—It is to be found in the great underlying principles of our government: “We hold that all men are created equal;” “The United States shall guarantee to every state a Republican form of government;” and “Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It is this guarantee of liberty, both civil and religious, that has distinguished our nation.

But there is one question which concerns deeply the interests of every citizen of America and demands his careful consideration. A force is at work which is aiming a blow at the very fundamental principles of the Constitution; a force which, if allowed to gain its ends, will precipitate ruin and disgrace upon this nation, so surely as the faithful index finger of the history of the past points to such a result. An association formed for the alleged purpose of reforming the morals of the people, is trying to secure legislation to enforce the strict observance of a “civil” sabbath. There is a principle involved in this which we must not overlook. When we attempt to legislate morality into a man we attempt that which is impossible, because it is beyond the power of civil law to implant morality in the heart, and the state is entirely out of its sphere when it attempts to regulate conscience. That attempt made the Dark Ages.

That the church should so far forget herself as to seek the aid of the civil arm to protect and promulgate her doctrines is a sure sign that her influence is declining. But the policy of coercion rather than persuasion never has succeeded in winning souls, and it never can, because men’s hearts can be won from motives of love and not from fear; and when the strong arm of the law is called in to enforce religious creeds and dogmas, then a long step is taken toward a union of church and state. Do Americans want such a union here? A thousand times, No. The enforcement of religious practises by the church through the agency of the state was the beginning of those awful persecutions which have blackened the historical annals of Europe. Nor has America herself been free from its blighting effects.

In a lecture by Mr. A. F. Ballenger, of Chicago, on the history of these persecutions, the following striking and truthful indictment of that system is made:

I bring them all, martyred Protestant, Puritan, and Quaker, and lay them at the door, not of Christianity as taught and practiced by its Author (for I challenge the world to prove that by word or act the great Author of the Christian religion ever sanctioned the propagation or defense of his teachings by means of the civil arm). No, I lay them at the door of the civil and ecclesiastical union, and charge them, not upon the religion of the meek and lowly Nazarene, but upon that engine of tyranny which has written the pages of ecclesiastical history in blood. Look at the countries where the Church of Rome rules to-day. Visit Mexico. It is there you may see the fruit—dry, bitter fruit, of three hundred years’ allegiance to that system.

And now what has Rome to do with this movement for religious legislation? She is a participant by invitation of these so-called “reformers,” and by backslidden Protestants who are aiding and abetting the movement. They have asked Rome to join hands with them in this great issue; and she is a willing assistant. Yesterday they were wrangling with her over the question of sectarian schools; to-day they are stretching hands across the gulf that has divided them so long. The object of this concerted action will be a blow at the very heart of religious liberty in America; for they seek such amendments to the Constitution as will make it possible for the church to sit in judgment on men’s religious opinions, with the state waiting at her back to carry out whatever sentence she may pronounce.

How gladly would we see the American people at this time of threatening danger rallying to the defense of those principles which have made this country what it is, instead of taking a course which must end in the same sad intolerance and persecution that characterized the Dark Ages.