A Vital Error by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · May 24, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 21.

A Vital Error.

By Editor

As soon as force is brought to bear upon any individual for religious reasons, there is an invasion of human rights for which there is no warrant in the Word of God—an invasion as repugnant to elemental justice as the invasion of a home by the despoiler of morals or the prowling thief. Morality that goes no deeper than outward observance of a law against immorality is worth nothing to the individual who practises it; and conformity to the forms and ceremonies and observances of a law-made religion is of no more value to the soul than the chaff of the wheat is to the future harvest. Such religion is but an empty shell, and can not preserve the life of the soul. Backing a divine ordinance by a human law is like propping a mountain with a reed. Worship must be as spontaneous as love, for it is but the expression of love and adoration. You can not make a flower bloom by opening its petals with fingers ever so delicate, you can not lift a soul to God on the point of a bayonet, nor scourge one thither by flame or knout. Religion must be from the heart or it is only mockery; religion that is forced is never from the heart; religious observances enforced by law are always and everywhere a mockery and a disaster, a stumbling-block to vital religion. Of such a character are all the Sunday laws that are now being enacted and enforced throughout the world.