The American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 39
WE have often said that the great underlying motive of the Sunday-law agitatorsPage 1
WE have often said that the great underlying motive of the Sunday-law agitators is a desire to secure the co-operation of the State in making men religious. Mr. Crafts, the founder of the American Sabbath Union, denies this; but Rev. D. C. Knowles, D. D. says that that is the whole “problem in a nutshell.” In an article in the New York Christian Advocate, of September 4, Mr. Knowles says:— This Nation needs to cultivate a profound respect for law by showing its true relations to individual and public good. This is especially applicable to Sunday legislation. Multitudes are indifferent to laws relating to secular business on Sunday, because they think men are not made good by law. They feel that moral agencies alone are to be trusted; but how can moral agencies have their fullest influence on the public conscience unless law shall lay its prohibitory hand on the whirring wheels of business, and command, “Peace, be still?” Human cupidity will destroy that Sabbath calm which is so peculiar to our American Sabbath unless we arrest its action by law. When that religious calm has departed, how can our moral agencies reach the masses? This is the problem we have before us. The soul needs quiet if it would apprehend God and duty, and this quiet is the product of law. Discard the law and the quiet goes with it, and ere long all forms of industry will be in full blast. It is our duty to have conditions most favorable to the saving influences of the Gospel, and this is the Sabbath problem in a nutshell.
This is a plain confession of just that which we have always asserted, namely, that Sunday laws are directly in the interests of religion, and that they are designed to be so. Those Non-Sectarian Sects.
By Alonzo T. Jones
On the subject of the appropriation by Congress of public money to church schools, we have already given the history and the facts. We have also noticed the protest that was entered after it was discovered by the Protestant churches involved, that the Roman Catholic Church was getting an increase when they could get none. But, as already shown, there was nothing heard of the protest by any of the Protestant churches so long as they, with the Catholic Church, got their proportionate share of the public plunder. It was only when they discovered that the Catholic Church was getting something that they could not get, that a protest was raised. This illustrates the beauties of that idea of non-sectarian religion, that is made so much of nowadays, and which is demanded shall be taught by the State and the Nation in the public schools. By this it is seen that the theory of the non-sectarian religion is apparently a very nice thing, and seems to work very well so long as each sect gets its proportion of the public plunder; but just as soon as one denomination gets a little advantage over the other, then the jealousy of all the others is aroused; that denomination instantly becomes “sectarian,” and whatever appropriation is made to it becomes an appropriation for “sectarian” uses. All the other non-sectarian sects then stand up nobly, and in righteous indignation virtuously “defend American institutions” from the encroachments of sectarianism. In this we speak from the Record. Among the protests that were made in Congress on this subject when it was under consideration, was one from that so-called League for the Protection of American Institutions, which has its headquarters in this city. From all that we can gather, it appears that the chief protest was raised and carried on by this League, and the following is a part, if not all, of the protest that was made. It was read by Senator Jones, of Arkansas, as a statement which had been sent to him by an “eminent man, a minister, resident of New York:” — Last year there was given to the Roman Catholics, for Indian education, $356,000. They demanded from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs $44,000 more, making a total of over $400,000. The request was denied, and the Commissioner announced that he would not extend the contract system, and would make no contracts with new schools. On this the Catholics endeavored to defeat his confirmations, but did not succeed. Foiled in this raid upon the public treasury, they then attempted to accomplish their ends through Congress. In the Indian Appropriation bill as introduced into the House of Representatives there are two items, one appropriating $8,330 for a Roman Catholic school at Rensselaer, Indiana, and the other appropriating $12,500 for a Roman Catholic school to be opened among the Mission Indians in California. The special appropriations for the Roman Catholics in the Indian bill for last year were, for St. Ignatius school in Montana $45,000, and for Roman Catholic schools in Minnesota $30,000. This made a total last year of $75,000. The total amount this year is $95,830. In addition to this large sum they will demand of the Commissioner, doubtless, the same amount granted them last year. It should be remembered that in 1886 the amount of money secured from the Government by the Roman Catholics was $184,000, and in 1890 it had reached the large sum of $356,000. Is it not time that this perversion of public money to sectarian uses should cease? Now that would be an excellent protest306if it were an honest one. It would be a strong one if it were only fair. From this statement alone, nobody would ever get the idea that any church but the Catholic was engaged in this “raid upon the public treasury,” or had been a beneficiary of “this perversion of public money to sectarian uses.” Yet this statement was written and distributed to United States senators by a minister—clearly a Protestant minister. Was that minister Rev. James M. King, D. D., General Secretary of the National League for the Protection of American Institutions? It was written by a minister who knew the facts; and he knew that last year while the Roman Catholics received $356,967, the Protestants received $204,993. He knew that while the Roman Catholics asked an increase of $44,000, the Protestants also requested the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to increase the appropriation to them. He knew that in 1886 although the Roman Catholics received $118,343, the Protestants at the same time from the same source received $109,916; and he knew that although in 1890 the appropriation to the Roman Catholic Church had “reached the large sum of $356,967,” the amount secured by the Protestants in the same time, and from the same source, had also reached the large sum of $204,993. Yet in the face of these figures showing the large amount of money received by Protestant denominations from the public treasury for church uses, he says not a word about it, and lays against the Roman Catholics only, as though they were the only guilty parties in the whole transaction, the charge of that “raid upon the public treasury,” and protests against and denounces this “perversion of public money to sectarian uses.” Now if the Roman Catholics’ securing from the national Government $118,343 was a “raid upon the public treasury,” the securing by Protestants from the same source $109,016 is just as certainly a raid upon the public treasury; and if the continuation and increase of the appropriation to the Roman Catholics up to the amount of $356,967 was a continuous raid upon the public treasury, then the continuation and the increase of the appropriation from the same source to Protestants up to the amount of $204,993 was just as certainly a continuous raid upon the public treasury; the only difference being that the raid of the Protestants was not quite so successful as the raid of the Catholics. Nor is it exactly correct to put it in this way. The raid was not made by the party in two distinct divisions. They were united in solid phalanx in the raid, each division supporting the other. It was only when the Protestants found that the Catholics were securing a little more plunder than they could seize, that there was any division at all among the invading host, or that there was among them any idea that their action was a raid upon the public treasury. As soon as this was discovered, however, the invading hosts separated in two divisions—the “sectarian” and the “non-sectarian,”—and the Protestants, the “non-sectarian” division, suddenly discovered that there was a “raid being made upon the public treasury,” and that there was being carried on a “serious perversion of public money to sectarian uses.” This is a hint, but a powerful one, of what would come of the non-sectarian religion which the National League for the Protection of American Institutions demands shall be taught in the public schools, and established by constitutional amendment. It would soon end in the total destruction of the whole public school system. And that is just what this League means. Instead of the protection of American institutions, it means the destruction of the most sacred of these institutions. REFORMS are not to come from political organizations, but from your own individual work and mine. In order to make that example effective we must be on the side of right and justice.—Col. R. W. Thompson, Terre Haute, Ind. AFTER speaking of the adherence of Seventh-day Adventists to the secular theory of government, the Christian Statesman says:— Many other Christian people, including many ministers of religion, are intelligent and thorough-going secularists in their political beliefs. Certainly they are; and their numbers are rapidly increasing. Nor is this strange, since the attention of thousands is now being called to this question who never before gave it a serious thought. The Sunday Question.
By W. A. Colcord
REV. W. F. CRAFTS makes this statement:— To put most men where they must choose between losing their position or their rest day, is to “force them into Sunday work.” This, we think, is by no means a necessary conclusion, nor even a logical one. To put men where they must choose between two things is not to force them to choose a particular one of the two, but simply to make a choice. Otherwise there is no choosing about the matter. Many of the early Christians were forced to choose between losing their lives and denying their faith by paying homage to idols in accordance with Roman law. They were forced to make a choice, and the nature of their choice determined their fidelity or infidelity to the cause they professed to love. The same is true of choosing between losing a position, and a day of rest. The choice made would simply determine which had the stronger hold upon the person choosing; and to say that most men, if forced to make a choice between the two, would give up the day, is equivalent to saying that most men would not do what they believe to be right, or that they have very little regard for the day. The former is not very complimentary to the man, nor the latter to the day. What is needed, is conscience, and not law in the matter. No man is forced to work on Sunday. There is no law compelling him to labor on that day. He can rest if he chooses, though in some instances he might thereby lose his position, which would be a sacrifice he would make to his religious convictions, showing his fidelity to principle. Some man in search of an honest employe would hire him the next day. If all men conscientiously believed in keeping Sunday, and would adhere to their conscientious belief, the forcing would be on the other side. Factories, mills, and railroads would be forced to stop on Sunday for lack of hands to run them. There are two sides to this question. Let the battle on the Sabbath question be fought out on the line of conscience and moral suasion, and not on the battle-field of a compulsory ecclesiastical law. Such laws come to us with a bloody record.—W. A. Colcord, in Washington Post. The State and Parochial Schools.
By A. T. J.
Another most important phase of State interference with church schools is that in which it is advocated that the State must prohibit the Roman Catholic Church from excommunicating members of that church who persist in sending their children to the public school. And of all phases of the question this most betrays the silly blindness and unreasoning dullness of those who advocate the measure. The facts upon which this claim is based are these: Where there is not a sufficient number of Roman Catholic children to form a school of their own, the parents are allowed to send them to the public school; but where there is a sufficient number a church school is to be established, and Roman Catholics are required, by the church, to send their children to that school. They are required to do this under penalty of church discipline. For instance, if there is a church school, and a Roman Catholic parent sends his child to the public school instead, the bishop or the priest will command him to send his child to the church school. If he disobeys, then the eucharist will be withheld from him. If he persists in sending his child to the public school, the next step will be excommunication, that is, turning him out of the church entirely, and if he should die he would not be buried in consecrated ground. The claim that is made on these facts is, that in so doing the Catholic Church is making war upon the public schools, and in that is making war upon the State. Therefore the State in self-defense must prohibit the Roman Catholic Church from exercising church discipline upon any of its members who send their children to the public school in disobedience to church orders. This claim is made up of a whole bundle of absurdities, and is composed of nothing else. First, it is a confession that the public school, and therefore the State, is dependent upon the Roman Catholic children for its existence; and that it is so weak that it cannot bear the effect of Roman Catholic excommunication in opposition. If this be so, neither the Roman Catholics, nor anybody else, can reasonably be blamed for not wanting to send their children to the public school. But such is not the case. The public school is not dependent upon the Roman Catholic children for its existence, and neither307the public school nor the State is in the slightest danger from all the Roman Catholic excommunications that could be pronounced in a thousand years. Further, this claim demands that the State shall assume control over the discipline of the Catholic Church in this particular thing. But that involves a union of the Roman Catholic Church and the State, and if the State may assume jurisdiction over the discipline of that church it may exercise it also over the discipline of every other church; and if the State may assume jurisdiction over the Roman Catholic Church in this one thing, it may exercise jurisdiction in that church in everything that it chooses; and if in that church, it may do so in every other church, so that a union of Church and State is unavoidable in any attempt to enforce the claim that is made in behalf of it. Again, this claim is made by those who profess to be Protestants, or at least, if not Protestants in faith, strong opponents of the whole Roman Catholic system. Yet their position is, that the power and authority of the State shall be exercised in prohibiting the Roman Catholic Church from excommunicating any of its members. Therefore the proper thing for them to do, would be to put forth their utmost efforts to make the public school as nearly perfect as possible, so that every Roman Catholic parent would choose to send his child there instead of to the parochial school, and thus get himself excommunicated. This would soon make the Roman Catholic Church so small that even the danger which these parties dread would be utterly dispelled. As for THE AMERICAN SENTINEL, we believe in the public school, and support it heartily; and we are opposed to the whole Roman Catholic system from beginning to end. But we shall never sanction for an instant, any proposition for the enactment of a law, either constitutional or statutory, to prohibit the Roman Catholic Church, or any other church, from exercising to the fullest extent all the provisions of its discipline upon any church member who chooses to send his children to the public school instead of to the church school, or for anything else. The discipline of the Roman Catholic Church is its own affair. That church has the right to establish, and to exercise upon its members, its own form of discipline; and to excommunicate any member of the church for any offense to which that church wishes to attach the penalty of excommunication. And we should be heartily glad if the Roman Catholic Church would excommunicate every person that belongs to it in the United States. We think that one of the best things that could ever happen to a Roman Catholic would be, to be turned out of that church so far that he could never get back. Therefore we say let the public school be made so good, that every parent in the Roman Catholic Church will choose to send his children there instead of to the parochial school, and that he will be so persistent in doing so, that the church will inflict its impotent penalty of excommunication. But it is gravely argued that the Roman Catholic Church compels its members to obey. For instance, Rev. E. H. Ashmun, of the Boulevard Congregational Church, of North Denver, soberly presents the following:— It is claimed that the parent has the sole authority over the child in education, but it is difficult not to charge Cardinal Manning and Bishop Keene with insincerity when they make this claim, for no Catholic parent is free to choose the education of his child. The church dictates and he must obey. But why must he obey? What force or what power is there at the command of the church by which he is compelled to obey? The answer must be that there is no force nor power at all except such as exists in the belief of the individual himself. Therefore if the State is to interfere with the exercise of the authority of the Roman Catholic Church over its membership, it must necessarily enter into the realm of doctrine and belief of the church and its membership. And thus again it is found that a union of the State and the Roman Catholic Church is inevitably involved in any attempt on the part of the State to exercise jurisdiction over the discipline of the church. Neither Cardinal Manning, nor Bishop Keene, nor any other Roman Catholic prelate or priest, can be charged with insincerity, when he says that in this country at least, the parent has the sole authority over the child in education, and that the Roman Catholic parent is free to choose the education of his child. This is the truth. He is just as free as any other person to do so. If there be any limit to his freedom in this connection it is simply because of his own belief, and this is simply a matter of his own free choice. And therefore we say again that if the State is going to interfere with the exercise of the authority of the Roman Catholic Church upon its membership, then the State will necessarily have to exercise its authority over the doctrines and beliefs of that church and its membership; because in the doctrines and beliefs is where the whole difficulty lies. If the Roman Catholic did not believe that the threatened excommunication is a real and forcible thing, he would not be restrained by it from sending his children to the public school. And as his belief is solely a matter of his own free will it is certain that there is where the difficulty lies; and therefore it is also certain that no effort of the State can ever reach the difficulty without sweeping away every safeguard to the free exercise of thought and religious belief. Yet more absurd than all, it is actually argued by professed Protestant ministers that there is real merit, force, and power in a Roman Catholic excommunication. For instance, a Congregational minister in Milwaukee (we have lost his name but think it is Caldwell), in a sermon last spring on “The Bennett Law, and American Liberty,” discussed the comparative force of the Bennett law and the Roman Catholic opposition to the public schools. After stating the penalty of the Bennett law, which is “not less than three dollars nor more then twenty dollars,” he said:— Bishop Hennessy, of Iowa, issued an edict compelling the people to take their children out of the public schools and put them in parochial schools. The penalty affixed was excommunication which to a Catholic means damnation. Which is the greater penalty? Well we should say so, too. Which is the greater penalty, indeed! a three dollar fine or a Roman Catholic damnation? Why, a three dollar fine is a heavier penalty in a minute, than ten thousand times ten thousand Roman Catholic damnations would be in all eternity! But what shall be thought of this professed Protestant preacher in his magnifying the merits of Roman Catholic damnation? For this is precisely what he did in his argument. A fine of from three to twenty dollars is a real, tangible thing, and therefore when he compared to this the force of the Roman Catholic damnation he did thereby distinctly argue that that also is a real, tangible thing and the greater penalty. Yet this is no more than is argued in this whole theory from which comes the claim that the State shall prohibit the Catholic Church from excommunicating its members for sending their children to the public school. This argues that membership in the Roman Catholic Church is a thing of real, tangible worth, at least equal to that of attendance upon the public school; and the demand that the State shall by law, prohibit that church from excommunicating its members for sending their children to the public school, is a demand that the State shall set its sanction to the idea that there is real, tangible worth and value in membership in that church, and that there is actual force and virtue in the excommunication pronounced by that church. Of all the wild ideas that are connected with this subject of State interference with church schools, this certainly takes the lead; and yet such laws are gravely demanded in Massachusetts; and in New Jersey even a constitutional amendment is advocated. The proper thing is for the people of every State to keep the statutes and the Constitution entirely clear of any interference, to the slightest extent, with any private or parochial school. Let them put their attention upon the public school and keep it there. Let them make the public school what it ought to be. Then there need be no fear from308schools of the Catholic Church, nor the Lutheran Church, nor any other, nor all of them together.
A. T. J. The “Loyal American” against Facts.
By C. P. B.
As an illustration of careless reading, and an utter disregard of facts, an article in the Loyal American, of September 17, surpasses anything that we have seen recently. The first paragraph of the article runs thus:— A. J. J. in THE AMERICAN SENTINEL says it is all wrong for the State to dictate what language shall be taught in the schools, public or private. He bases his dictum upon the private rights of parents, and like the religious bigots, forgets that the State and child have rights. In the first place, no such person as “A. J. J.” writes for THE AMERICAN SENTINEL. The initials are “A. T. J.” in plain Roman type. In the second place, neither “A. T. J.” nor any other writer for THE AMERICAN SENTINEL, has ever denied the right of the State to dictate what language shall be taught in the public schools. The very article from which the Loyal American quotes, in making its criticism, has in the first and second paragraphs these plain words:— We have not yet seen it denied that the public has the right to teach English solely, in the public schools. That which is denied is that the public has a right to say what shall be taught in the private schools; and this is not a denial of the right of the State to say that English shall be taught in the public schools. It is not opposition to the teaching of English; but this opposition is to the assumption that if the State can say that English shall be taught in the public schools, that concedes the right of the State to say that whatever it pleases shall be taught in the private schools, and that consequently there is no such thing as a private school; that the State arbitrarily turns the private school into a public school at private expense. How anybody can say, as the Loyal American does say, that this is a denial of the right of the State to say what language shall be taught in the public schools, is more than we can understand. The State has clearly the right to say that English and English only shall be taught in the schools supported by the State; but we deny the right of the State to say what shall be taught in the private schools. If the Loyal American wishes to do us justice let it quote all we said about the right of the State to require the teaching of English, and not make garbled quotations, merely. But again, the Loyal American says:— It is evident that A. J. J. is under a misapprehension as to what the State really is, he forgets that the American State is a majority of the citizens; that when it undertakes to protect all citizens in certain rights, it cannot be hampered in doing so by cranks, bigots, self-elected censors, or men who fancy that God should resign and call on them to run the universe. The State must first protect itself, this done, it can turn its protecting arms toward men, women, and children. And while the American State is permitting the oppressed of all climes to come here for refuge from tyranny, and to enjoy greater freedom and opportunities, it must take care that the oppressed do not become our oppressors, as is the fact here in Chicago. “A. J. J.” is under no such misapprehension. The editors of THE SENTINEL are all native-born Americans, as were also their fathers before them, and know as much about what constitutes the American State as does the editor of the Loyal American, or any other naturalized foreigner. They know, too, that the whole people, and not merely a majority of the people, constitute the State. But this fact does not make justice out of injustice, nor warrant the majority in meddling with the private affairs of the minority. John Stuart Mill never wrote a truer thing than when he said that such “power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it.” The idea that whatever the majority decrees is right is no more true now than it was when the majority demanded the crucifixion of Christ, or when the majority demanded the hanging of witches in Massachusetts, or when, as in our own day, the commune of a Russian village decrees the exiling of innocent men and women to Siberia. It is possible for majority rule to be just as tyrannical and just as wicked as the rule of a single man. The vaporings of the Loyal American about private schools that “teach children to beg, to steal, to burglarize houses, to perpetrate highway robbery,” are unworthy of an answer. There may be “schools” of that kind in Chicago, but they are not under the management of German Lutherans, nor even of German Catholics. We know Chicago did once have an Anarchist Sunday-school, but anarchy can be taught quite as well in English as in German, and we believe as a matter of fact English was the language employed in that “school.” We fear that the real animus of the Loyal American is religious intolerance. It wants to force its language and its religion, and probably its own cut of collar, and style of cravat, upon everybody else; and it wants the power of the State to enable it to do it. We regard the Lutherans and the Romanists as in error upon many very important points; and not only so, but we deplore the Roman Catholic influence in politics in this country; but it is no more dangerous to our liberties than are the paternal tendencies, and theory advocated by the Loyal American.