Numbers Do Not Affect the Truth.
By Editor
All the world save one may hold to a doctrine or a theory, but that does not make the theory true. The one regarded by all the world as wrong may be right. He certainly is if he is on the side of God and His truth. This is the standard. Let us be careful to know, not what men say of the truth, but what the truth says; not what men say God means, but what He says, "rightly dividing the word of truth." One of our watchful readers refers to a mistake in the SIGNS of January 23, which was corrected in the most of the edition. It was the line of poetry under the first illustration, "Christ or Diana." It should have read this way: "Steadfast she looks to heaven, and breathes the sacred Name,
Unmoved by lover's plea, or sword, or rack, or flame.
O holy hope of God! O fearless faith divine!
Undimmed by death, or time, or tears, immortal and sublime." The Hearing at Sacramento.
As intimated in our last, the hearing before the Assembly Committee on Constitutional Amendments was held in Sacramento, Cal., Monday afternoon, February 4, on the proposed Sunday-law amendment to the constitution. That committee was composed of the following gentlemen: H. W. A. Weske, chairman, Miguel Estudillo, Chas. P. Cutten, A. M. Drew, E. W. Forbes, J. J. Wyatt, John M. Eshelman. But four members of the committee were present. Chairman Weske was very courteous, stating that the time had been divided between the proponents and opponents of the measure. Bishop Moreland was the chairman of the committee of Sacramento ministers who had the matter in charge advocating the measure, and C. M. Dunn, Esq., the framer of the measure, led out and took charge of the ministers who appeared in its behalf. One hour was given the proponents of the measure, one and one-fourth hours to those who opposed it, and one-fourth hour to the advocates of the measure in which to close. We had hoped to be able in this issue to lay before our readers some of the more important arguments on either side. This we shall have to postpone until our next. We have the verbatim notes, however, of the speeches on both sides. Suffice to say the advocates of the measure made their strongest appeal over two points; first, that it is not a religious measure, simply advocating a day of rest, which every one ought to have to do what he pleases with; and secondly, that thousands among the poor working-men were deprived of their liberty for lack of just such a law. It was also contended that the history of Sunday laws shows that they had been beneficial; that the Eastern and older States had them, and a higher degree of civilization existed in them; that California and Idaho are not yet emerged into that degree of civilization characteristic of the East. The attitude of these advocates indicates that they were glad to get anything if it could be called a Sunday law, seemingly, contending that it ought to be presented to the people so that they could have an opportunity to pass upon the Amendment to the Constitution. On the other hand, it was held that it is not a proper subject of legislation, and should not be legislated upon, according to American principles. We will deal with this more fully in the future, and we will present some of the strong, cogent arguments that were given in opposition to this un-American measure. An Alameda, Cal., correspondent, Mr. Milton Hess, writes us a kind letter, correcting an item in the SIGNS OF THE TIMES of February 6, concerning Hon. Charles Curtis, of the Senate of the United States. The SIGNS stated that he was the first full-blooded Indian to sit in the Senate, but our correspondent, who seems to be well acquainted with the facts, tells us that he has very little Indian blood, that his father was a white man and his mother a quarter Indian. But he does tell us that Mr. Curtis began life a poor boy and worked himself into a self-made man. We are thankful for this correction, glad that we have critical readers. We took the item from current news despatches. "The only proper objects of civil government are the happiness and protection of men in the present state of existence; the security of the life, liberty, and property of the citizen; and to restrain and encourage the virtuous by wholesome laws equally extended to every individual; but the duty that we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can only be directed by reason and conviction, and is nowhere cognizable but at the tribunal of the universal Judge. To judge for ourselves, and to engage in the exercise of religion agreeably to THE DICTATES OF OUR OWN CONSCIENCE, is an inalienable right, which, upon the principles on which the Gospel was first propagated, and the Reformation from popery carried on, can never be transferred to another." Liberty of conscience requires liberty of worship as its manifestation. To grant the former and to deny the latter, is to imprison conscience and to promote hypocrisy and infidelity. Religion is in its nature voluntary, and ceases to be religion in proportion as it is forced. God wants free worshipers, and no others. Report has it that a strong effort is being put forth in Idaho to secure a Sunday law, and that a great majority of the citizens of that State are in favor of it. That same argument is put forth there as in California, that Idaho stands practically alone with a lower degree of civilization than the East, that the civilization there will be greatly elevated by placing a Sunday law upon their statute books. We wonder what the friends of religious liberty are doing in that State to enlighten the people, and show them just what a Sunday law means; to let them know what every good citizen ought to know, that the Sunday law will in no wise help civilize or lift the morals of the State to any higher plane. Religious laws of every kind have invariably and inevitably pressed the country adopting them back toward the age of cruelty, intolerance, and barbarism, unless it be that the sin of the people has been such that the laws themselves have proved dead letters, and then the laws themselves are a farce. The Hon. Grove L. Johnson, who introduced the Sunday amendment in the Legislature of California, seems somehow wedded to the strange idea that the particular time at which a deed is done affects its criminality. He has introduced a bill which declares that a robbery between the hours of sunset and sunrise, or by means of a deadly weapon or any other means likely to do great injury, is robbery of the first degree. Of course the violence and assaults with deadly weapons should be dealt with; but any kind of robbery between sunset and sunrise is no worse than the same kind of robbery between sunrise and sunset. The proposed act provides that a man convicted of robbery in the first degree shall suffer death or confinement in the State prison for life. Just think of it! There might be robbery of very mild form, almost justified, considering the dire need of family necessities, with no intention to wrong any one on the part of the criminal, but simply the saving of the life of loved ones in mind, yet being performed between sunset and sunrise, it is robbery in the first degree and subject to death. It is a fit parallel to some of the Sunday laws in existence. A despatch from Boston, of January 12, declares that the old Sunday laws have been revived with a rigor hitherto unknown, and that the police have been told to most rigidly enforce them. The first day after this order, one thousand arrests were made by the police. People of every sort and kind of trade were held up. Men having to do with the street-car tracks, oiling the switches, sanding the tracks, waiters in restaurants, boot-blacks, a Chinaman who was restoring to a man a collar that had been lost from the laundry bundle, men washing windows, a man driving an undertaker's wagon with a casket inside was held up, a young man driving a motor car,—in all about a thousand persons were called to account for doing some harmless thing that somebody else thought they ought not to do. And that is the character of the Sunday laws generally. Older states are enforcing them with bigoted religious zeal; new states are following after, yet claiming that they want no religious rest day. It is difficult to understand our fiery contemporary, the Western Watchman, of St. Louis. Not long ago it advocated the absolute separation of Church and State. In its issue of January 10, it declares, "The union of Church and State, each being superior in its own legitimate sphere, is the ideal relation. All good men should be united in a good thing. Our Church and State should be distinct, but not separate, any more than the body and soul should be separate." But the trouble is that the church calls itself the soul, and that it is the duty of the body to absolutely submit to that soul, practically leaving it without any independence at all, and that is the Roman Catholic idea of Church-and-State relationship. A correspondent sends us a report of the new Jewish synagog in New York, called the Free Synagog, of which a Rabbi Wise is in charge. He holds very lax ideas in regard to the Sabbath, and seems really to prefer Sunday, because he can get at all of his people at that time. Our correspondent writes us that he did not know that the Jews had so far departed from the Sabbath as that. We would say in reply that they have been departing for a good many years. Infidelity has simply honeycombed Jewish religion and traditions, as in the days of Christ, and has made void the law of God. A number of papers have been sent us containing extracts or reports of sermons of Dr. Algernon S. Crapsey, recently separated from the Episcopal Church. He may be expected to say startling things, heretical things, and all sorts of things. It affects not the truth of God either way whatever he may say. Just now he seems to be preaching Dr. Crapsey and not the Gospel. The Bible is nothing to him, unless it agrees with his own views. It is not a spasmodic faith or submission which develops Christian character; it is the constant, abiding trust in God. The one may bring forgiveness, for God is ever merciful; but the other puts Christ into the character. Let the prayer be, "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a constant spirit within me." Ps. 51:10, margin. Loyalty to God and the unchangeable principles of His truth is demanded now as never at any other age of the world. Men can never be helped by compromise of truth, or integrity. Let God and truth be first, and then they are our helpers.