WE do not charge the National Reformers with the intention to follow the example
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The American Sentinel
September 3, 1891
Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · September 3, 1891
WE do not charge the National Reformers with the intention to follow the example of the Papacy, nor with any purpose to oppose themselves to the truth of God by usurping his prerogatives; far from it; but we do charge that their zeal for God and for his law is not according to knowledge. Their purpose is to honor God by requiring all to acknowledge him as the rightful ruler of this Nation, and of all nations; but the effect of their proposed amendment would be to put the Government in the place of God, to substitute for the divine law human interpretation of that law, and so to destroy allegiance to God.
How Are the Powers That Be Ordained?
By Alonzo T. Jones
The Scripture says that “the powers that be are ordained of God.” How is it done? Is it direct and miraculous, or providential? Jer. 27:1-8 shows that the power of Nebuchadnezzar as king of Babylon was ordained of God. Did God send a prophet or a priest to anoint him king? or did he send a heavenly messenger, as to Moses and Gideon? Not at all. Nebuchadnezzar was king because he was the son of his father, who was king. How did his father become king? Thus: In 625 B. C. Babylonia was but a province of the empire of Assyria, and Media was another. Both revolted at once. The king of Assyria gave Nabopolassar command of a large force, sent him to Babylonia to quell the revolt, while he himself led other forces into Media, and put down the insurrection there. Nabopolassar did his work so well in Babylonia that the king of Assyria rewarded him with the command of that province, with the title, king of Babylon. Thus we see Nabopolassar received his power from the king of Assyria. The king of Assyria received his power from his father, Asshurbanipal. Asshurbanipal received his from his father, Esarhaddon. Esarhaddon received his from his father, Sennacherib. Sennacherib, from his father, Sargon, and Sargon received his from the troops in the field, otherwise from the people. Thus we see that the power of the kingdom of Babylon and of Nebuchadnezzar, the king, or of his son, or of his son's son, was simply providential, and sprung ultimately from the people.
Take, for instance, Queen Victoria, queen of Great Britain. How did she become so? Simply by the fact that she was the first in the line of succession when William the Fourth died. Through one line she traces her royal lineage to William the Conqueror? But who was William the Conqueror? He was a Norman chief who led his forces into England in 1066, and established his power there. How did he become a chief of the Normans? The Normans made him their chief, so that in that line it is clear that the power of Queen Victoria sprung from the people.
Take the other line. The house that now rules Britain, represented in Victoria, is the House of Hanover. Hanover is a province of Germany. How did the House of Hanover get into England? When Queen Anne died, the line of succession was George of Hanover, who became king of England under the title of George the First. How did he receive his princely dignity? Through his lineage, from Henry the Lion, son of Henry the Proud, who received the Duchy of Saxony from Frederick Barbarossa, in 1156. Henry the Lion, son of Henry the Proud, was a prince of the House of Guelph, of Suabia. The father of the House of Guelph was a prince of the Allemanni, who invaded the Roman Empire and established their power in what is now Southern Germany, and were the origin of what is now the German nation and empire. But who made this man prince? The savage tribes of Germany. So that in this line also the royal dignity of Queen Victoria springs from the people.
Besides this the imperial power of Queen Victoria as she now reigns is circumscribed, limited by the people. It has been related, and we have seen it in print, although the story may not be true, yet it will serve to illustrate the point, that on one occasion Gladstone, while Prime Minister and head of the House of Commons, took a certain paper to the queen to be signed. She did not exactly approve of it, and said she would not sign it. Gladstone spoke of the merit of the act, but the queen declared she would not sign it. Gladstone replied, “Your majesty must sign it.” “Must sign it!” exclaimed the queen, “Must sign it! Do you know who I am? I am the queen of England!” Gladstone calmly replied, “Yes, your majesty, but I am ‘the people of England.’” And she had to sign it. The people of England can command the queen of England. The power of the people of England is above that of the queen of England. She, as queen, is simply the representative of their power,274
They are not personal sovereigns in themselves who are referred to in the words, “The powers that be are ordained of God.” It is the governmental power, of which the sovereign is the representative, and that sovereign receives his power from the people. Outside of the theocracy of Israel there never has been a ruler who has justly ruled on earth, whose dignity was not derived from the people, either express, or permissive. It is not any particular sovereign whose power is ordained of God, nor any particular form of government. It is the genius of government itself. The absence of government is anarchy. Anarchy is only governmental confusion. But the Scriptures say, “God is not the author of confusion.” God is the God of order. He has ordained order, and he has put within man himself that idea of government, of self-protection, which is the first law of nature, which organizes itself into forms of one kind or another, wherever men dwell on the face of the earth; and it is for men themselves to say what shall be the form of government under which they shall dwell. One people has one form; another has another. This genius of civil order springs from God; its exercise within its legitimate sphere is ordained of God, and the Declaration of Independence simply asserted the eternal truth of God when it said, “Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Whether it be exercised in one form of government or another, it matters not. The governmental power and order thus ordained is of God.
If the people choose to change their form of government, it is the same power still, and is to be respected still. The power is still ordained of God in its legitimate exercise, in things pertaining to men and their relation to their fellow-men; but no power, whether exercised through one form or another, is ordained of God in things pertaining to God, nor has it anything whatever to do with men's relations toward God.
We have before shown that the Constitution of the United States is the only form of government that has ever been on earth that is in harmony with the principle announced by Christ, demanding of men only that which is Cæsar's and refusing to enter in any way into the field of man's relationship to God. This Constitution sprung from the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and on this point simply asserts the truth of God.
The American people do not appreciate to the one-hundredth part, the value of the Constitution under which they live. They do not honor in any fair degree the noble men who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, that these principles might be our heritage. All honor to those noble men. All integrity to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. All allegiance to the Constitution as it now is, under which we live, which gives to Cæsar all his due, and leaves men to render to God all that they, instructed by the word of God, guided by their own conscience enlightened by the Spirit of God, may see that he requires of them. May the sweet face of Heaven shine in infinite pity upon the poor deluded souls who think they are doing God service in their efforts to subvert the Constitution, and men's liberties under it, by a religious amendment. And may Heaven's twice blessed mercy be on and about the poor people who have respect for Jesus Christ and their right to worship God, when these people shall have accomplished their purpose.
A. T. J.
The nearest formula, as to human conduct, to the teachings of Jesus is found in the Declaration of Independence; and the Constitution of the United States is the embodiment, as near as may be, of those principles in the management of organized society.
THESE liberal principles are the outgrowth of the doctrines taught by Christ, and put into our national political system by the joint efforts of liberal Christian ministers, and philosophical statesmen, and the good done to religion and humanity will be an everlasting monument to those noble men whose efforts were not put forth in vain.
“It is strange that professed followers of Christ should forget the lines defined and ordered by the Founder of our religion, and appeal to the State to aid them with its fines and prisons in the spread of religious truths, when the facts are ever before us to prove that in this country, where Church and State have thus far been divorced, Christianity is on a better and more promising footing than it is in any other country on the globe.”
The Massachusetts Sunday Law.
By George E. Fifield
Here, in New England, when the Arkansas persecutions, and the celebrated King case are referred to, it is often urged that these things are made possible in the United States, only by the ignorance, and consequent bigotry of the poorer classes in the South. They still fondly fancy that in enlightened New England, their Sunday laws, whatever their origin, would be enforced, if at all, only by kind hearted philanthropists, and for the benefit of the over-weary and hard-pressed toilers. Such forget the fact that law, when once on the statute book, is open to enforcement by every citizen, the most ignorant and bigoted, as well as the most enlightened and philanthropic. The courts can make no distinctions. The judge and the jury may know that the motive of the complainant is one of petty spite, or narrow persecution, and that the complainant himself breaks the law he tries to enforce, and yet if the law has been broken, they must decide against the defendant. They can not even bring their judgment as to the justice or injustice of the law, into consideration at all, for this would be for the judiciary to exceed the proper limits of its authority, and take upon itself the functions of the Legislature. Already there have been some as genuine cases of persecution here in Massachusetts, as any recorded in Tennessee or Arkansas.
Some six years ago, Mr. Albert Weare and a friend, both Seventh-day Adventists, having religiously observed the day previous, were quietly working in a barn in the rear of their house, in the city of Worcester. On that same day, several hundred men, who had not observed the day previous, were noisily working on a street railroad in one of the principal streets of the city; and some two thousand of the citizens were out on a gala-day at a popular pleasure resort near by. None of these were disturbed, but an officer, induced to act as a spy, walked down that very street past the men who were working on the railroad, and watched and listened outside the barn, till sufficient evidence was secured; then arrested those men, and prosecuted them, compelling them to pay a fine.
This in enlightened Massachusetts, shows that some of the people at least, are still true to the memory of their sires, who drove out the Baptists, and whipped the Quakers, and hung the witches.
Another manifestation of this same spirit occurred only a few days since. Mr. Stacy of Springfield, received the following letter, a police officer acting as carrier:
Springfield, Mass., August 6, 1891.
H. H. STACY, ESQ.—Dear Sir: I am informed that the game of croquet is played on the Lord’s day, by yourself and others, on your premises at Number 138 King Street. Your attention is respectfully called to the following extract from the public statutes, chapter ninety-eight, section two.
“Whoever on the Lord’s day . . . takes part in any sport, game, or play, or except as allowed or prohibited in the preceding sections, is present at any dancing or public diversion, show, game, or entertainment, shall be punished by fine not exceeding fifty dollars for each offense.”
I presume that you consider yourself justified in playing games on the Lord’s day by section thirteen of the same chapter, but if you will read it carefully you will see that while it permits persons who conscientiously believe that the seventh day of the week ought to be observed as a Sabbath, and who actually refrain from secular business on that day, to engage in such business on the Lord’s day if they do not disturb other people thereby, it does not include games, and sports, and therefore such games and sports are unlawful on that day.
In calling your attention to the matter in this way I am actuated by a desire to secure compliance with the law for the future without the disagreeable features attending a prosecution in the courts, and also to prevent future complaint from people living in your vicinity.
Respectfully,
F. G. SOUTHMAYD, City Marshal.
Mr. Stacy is a Seventh-day Adventist. He had played croquet only twice on Sunday. The people who complained of him were some good (?) Sunday keeping (?) neighbors of his, who, at the time they saw him playing croquet, were themselves out with a party of friends, having a merry pleasure ride on the sacred day. The conscience that can distinguish between riding out for pleasure on Sunday, and playing croquet for pleasure on Sunday, and make one a sin and a crime, and the other perfectly innocent, must be gifted with Jesuitical powers of casuistry.
It seems, however, from the decision of the City Marshal of Springfield, that not only the elastic consciences of the complainants, but even the law of the State, makes such fine distinctions. The Sunday law of Massachusetts exempts from275all its penalties, the letting of teams, and consequently the use of teams for purposes of pleasure, on Sunday, and yet it condemns all games and sports on that day. Section thirteen, referred to in the letter of the Marshal, reads as follows:—
Whoever conscientiously believes that the seventh day of the week ought to be observed as the Sabbath, and actually refrains from secular business and labor on that day, shall not be liable to the penalties of this chapter for performing secular business, travel, or labor on the Lord’s day, if he disturbs no other person.
It is the evident intent of this section to cover the penalties of the chapter, and exempt the seventh-day observer, provided he disturbs no other person, but as secular business and labor are specified, and sports are not, the Marshal of Springfield decides that the seventh-day observer may work on Sunday, but he cannot play.
All this is but another illustration of the worthlessness of exemptions. They are but class legislation anyhow, and if the Government confined itself to its legitimate sphere of protecting and maintaining the inherent rights of its subjects, instead of despotically invading those rights, they would never be needed or thought of.
All such legislation as this, is a direct invasion of inherent rights, and a disgrace to our boasted civilization. We look for Massachusetts yet to come to the very front in this iniquitous religio-political movement. The blood of her Puritan ancestry still runs in her veins, with its taint of bigotry, as well as its sturdy virtues.
The speech of Congressman Morse of Massachusetts, in the Washington Sunday law convention, two years ago, was noticeable for its puritanic indifference to the rights of conscience, and its advocacy of straight religious legislation, without even the thinnest veil of the “civil Sunday law” sham.
In fact everywhere here in the East, the “civil Sunday” is less talked about, and in all the numerous mass meetings and conventions of the American Sabbath Union, and its allies, the enforcing of strictly religious Sunday laws, is unblushingly advocated.
If this is what they really want, as we know it is, we are glad to have them say so. Even a wolf is less dangerous, when every one knows it is a wolf, than when many imagine it is only a “civil” lamb.
G. E. FIFIELD.
The “Civil Sabbath.”
By J. P. LOGAN.
SABBATH observance is nothing more nor less, than a religious business. Under the United States Constitution as it now is, any number of persons may observe any day of the week as a Sabbath, or keep no day at all, as they choose. No one may interfere with another, on account of his religious, or non-religious views. Hence, upon this question, all are upon an equality. And yet there are those who are dissatisfied with this impartiality. They claim the need of a “civil Sabbath” law.
Well, if such a thing could be, it is now already provided for by the Constitution, on equal terms with the religious Sabbath. Any number of persons may observe it (if such a thing could be) to their heart’s content, and none could lawfully molest them. What more does anybody need?
There is something singular about this so called “civil Sabbath” movement. The prime movers therein, are religious Sunday-keepers. What do they want with another kind of Sabbath? It seems as though one kind of a Sabbath ought to be enough for anybody. And in reality it is. No one needs, neither desires, more than one Sabbath for his own use. Proof: Suppose those who observe the seventh day “according to the commandment,” should get a law to compel the observance of Saturday, would it suit Sunday-keepers? No, indeed! Well, on the other hand: Suppose those who keep no Sabbath, should get a law to forbid all Sabbath observance, would it suit Sunday-keepers? No, indeed! Then can they tell why they are working so hard to do to others, that which they would not, that others should do to them? Some, if not all of them claim to love Jesus, and to believe the word which says of Jesus: “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.”
Did Jesus attempt to get a law to force any one to do as he thought was right? Nay, verily. Do they indeed, walk as he walked?
J. P. LOGAN.
Onéco, Illinois.
To Make Christians Keep Sunday.
By A. O. Tait
In the American Sabbath for June, Rev. James Brand, D.D., says that the “Christian Sabbath is in peril most of all from the secularization of the Church. There is hardly any subject in the interest of which it is so hard to arouse men or to secure an audience, even among Christians, as on this subject of the Sabbath.” He then follows with an exhortation to the ministers to agitate this question “till the Christian conscience is aroused.”
In another article in the same paper Professor J. L. McCartney, Secretary of the fourth district of the American Sabbath Union, in giving a report of his work in Wheeling, West Virginia, says:
I was told that it was a common thing for Christians to buy fruit on the Lord’s day; that one grocer said they (the church members of a certain congregation) were some of his best customers on the Sabbath; and that the pastor of the congregation had frequently sent for things on the Sabbath.”
He further adds, that “the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Wheeling, had out a flaming placard for an excursion next Sabbath from Pittsburg to Wheeling, at $1.50 for the round trip. Ministers from Pittsburg, and their congregations, pastors and their congregations of neighboring towns, were all invited to the grand rally on that day. It was the boldest and most outrageous desecration of the Sabbath by the Church that I have ever known.”
Mr. Little, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, in a paper read before the Congregational Council of the World, at London, July 20, stated that, “the duty of the Church, more difficult and important than any other, was to be right in its practice. Some of the greatest obstacles to the correct observance of the day were the thoughtless habits of Christian people.”
A minister in Duluth, Minnesota, speaking on the Sunday question recently, said: “But unfortunately the trains are moving, mails are being sent over the land, machinery is in motion, men are working incessantly, and we poor Christians are patronizing their employers.”
Charles A. Blanchard, President of Wheaton (Illinois) College, wrote recently in regard to the perils of Sunday:—
In the second place the teaching of the pulpit has largely failed; the practice of the pew has failed more largely and lamentably. Professing Christians break the Sabbath in their homes; require those whom they employ to break it and share in the profits of Sabbath breaking. So that men of the world look at the method of Church observance and believe that it does not make any difference whether men keep the Sabbath or not. They do not feel afraid to disregard it, because they see persons who profess to be obedient to God, violating it themselves.”
In regard to the means to be used to change the present condition of Sunday work and amusements, he further adds:—
My opinion is that if the Church alone would begin and energetically do what God requires, the current of public thought in regard to the Lord’s day would be changed in six months. If preachers, teachers in theological seminaries, and leading members of churches, continue to print, sell, and read Sunday newspapers, to own stock in, act as managers of, and travel on Sabbath-breaking trains, consent that the mail service of our entire Nation should be reducing to practical heathenism thousands of our fellow-men, if the Church continues in this line, the Sabbath day will not be recovered, and the ruin of those who are destroyed for want of it will lie very largely at the door of the Church.”
It is too bad that “Christians” will persist in acting so; why is it that they won’t keep Sunday any better? But one might more pertinently ask, why is it that so many of them are clamoring for laws to compel everybody to keep Sunday when they do not keep it themselves? Do they realize an inability to keep the day, and so ask the Government to station an army of brass buttoned blue coats about them to compel them to do their duty? And dreading the example of some one whose conscience does not smite him for working, or for attending some place of worldly amusement on Sunday, does this class of Christians ask a law to compel everybody to keep Sunday for fear their weak knees and undeveloped spines cannot sustain them against the Sunday-breaking influences?276Professed Christians should be ashamed of themselves for asking human law to sustain an obligation for which they claim a divine command. If God has commanded men to observe Sunday there is certainly no need of human law upon the subject. If he has not commanded such observance, the sooner it sinks into eternal desuetude the better. If Christians want people to observe the things they believe, let them present to the world the example of a consistent life. There is no influence to be compared with the power of Jesus Christ in a truly consistent Christian. It is to this power, and to this alone, that Christians are to look for success in making mankind better. Let us trust more in God and less in human law. A. O. TAIT.
Prohibition from a Wrong Standpoint.
By C. P. B.
THE SENTINEL is not and never has been opposed to the prohibition of the liquor traffic on proper civil grounds. It may be that under existing conditions prohibition is not practicable; but that does not affect the principle. If the saloon is a menace to the peace and safety of society, if it makes criminals and paupers, thus increasing the burdens of taxation, if it endangers life and destroys property, the State may properly prohibit it.
But this is not the standpoint from which prohibition is advocated by the great majority of those who are in favor of it. Very unfortunately, it is made a religious question. It is proposed to prohibit the liquor traffic not as a menace to civil society, but as a sin against God. This is a most serious mistake. It is a mistake however to which the Prohibitionists are very generally committed. This is well illustrated by the following resolutions, which among others, were adopted by the Prohibitionists of St. Lawrence County, in their recent convention at Ogdensburg, this State:—
Resolved, 1. That the question of how to deal with the rum traffic is the problem of the age, and that its solution is the work upon the hands of the Prohibition party under God.
Resolved, 6. That the interests of our Nation demand a faithful observance of the holy Sabbath and the enforcement of law touching the same, for the sake of the home and public safety.
In the name of God, and home, and native land.
In this assumption of a divine commission to abolish the liquor traffic lurks a very grave danger. Necessarily, when men assume to act for God, they assume also to interpret the will of God; and in this the Prohibitionists are no exception. Demanding prohibition for religious reasons, because it is sin, and because it hinders religious work, they necessarily stand committed to the suppression of everything that in their view is morally wrong, that is, everything that is in violation of the divine law; for it cannot be denied that if it were the duty of the State to prohibit the liquor traffic because it is sin against God, it would be equally its duty to prohibit all sin.
It is this confusing of civil and religious things that leads the Prohibitionists to demand Sunday legislation. Assuming that it is their mission to prohibit sin, and believing disregard of Sunday to be sin, they demand that it too be prohibited.
This is directly in the same line with the National Reformers, whose scheme of government is thus explained by Rev. N. R. Johnson, in the Christian Statesman:
All civil governments and all officers should take the Bible as the higher law and as the rule of action. Indeed, this holy law is just as good a rule of action in the State, as in the Church, or in personal relations. Accordingly the whole moral law as summed up in the ten commandments, and the whole moral Mosaic penal code, would be the rule of action in Congress, in State Legislatures and in the courts of justice. Kidnapping, man-stealing, blasphemy and adultery, as well as murder would be punished by severe penalties. Not the ever-changing will of the people, but the unchangeable law of the Most High would be of supreme authority. As this would be right, can we doubt that good would result?
This we are told “would tend powerfully to the suppression of existing evil—of all abounding wickedness. Public idol-worship, profanity, blasphemy, Sabbath desecration, disregard of parental authority, oppression of the poor, and of the millions once enslaved, shameful wrongs done to women, the licensed liquor traffic, intemperance, legalized prostitution, infamous divorce systems, polygamy, bloodshed, adultery—these and similar evils would be punished as the divine law requires.”
To be consistent every man who demands prohibition because the liquor traffic is sin, must with avowed National Reformers demand the enforcement of the whole of the moral law as summed up in the ten commandments; in short every logically consistent Prohibitionist is, whether he knows it or not, committed already to the National Reform scheme. And this is the reason that no man who has a just appreciation of freedom of conscience, and who is willing that his neighbor should enjoy the perfect religious liberty sought to be guaranteed to every citizen by the Constitution of the United States, can affiliate with the Prohibition Party. C. P. B.
Interesting Statistics.
AUGUST 8, the Census Bureau issued a bulletin giving statistics of the Roman Catholic Church and all other Catholic bodies historically related to it which are represented in the United States. The total number of communicants is 6,250,045, who are attached to 10,221 organizations (churches, chapels, and stations), making an average of 611 communicants to each congregation. The total value of church property, including edifices, the ground on which they stand, furniture, bells, etc., is $118,381,516. The average value of each edifice is therefore about $13,500. The Metropolitan See of New York, with its 472,806 communicants, has church property valued at nearly $9,000,000; that of Chicago comes second, with property worth $6,457,064, and that of Boston third, with a total of $6,379,078. Brooklyn comes fourth, with a valuation of $5,751,907, and Newark fifth, with $4,297,482. These five sees have more than one-fourth of the entire valuation of the church.
In the distribution of communicants, the archdiocese of New York comes first, with 472,806; Boston second, with 419,660; Chicago third, with 326,640; Philadelphia fourth, with 251,162; Brooklyn fifth, with 228,785; St. Paul sixth, with 203,484; and Baltimore seventh, with 192,597. There are twenty-two sees, which contain upward of 100,000 communicants each.
The church is represented in every State and Territory in the country, including Alaska, and the District of Columbia. It has organizations in every county, except one, in the six New England States; also in every county in New York, New Jersey, Wisconsin, and other States and Territories.
Madison’s Views of “Property.”
PROPERTY, in its most general sense, is the right to the use or enjoyment of anything. We have a property in our time. All of each individual’s time (that is, as far as government is concerned) belongs to himself; hence, government has no more right to dictate to an individual how he shall use his time than it has to dictate to him how he shall use his money; and it has no more right to deprive him of the free use of his time than it has to deprive him of the free use of his money. Each individual, in actions that concern only himself, is absolute sovereign, governed only by natural laws. The father of our National Constitution in an essay written in 1792, carried this idea of property even further:—
“In its larger and juster meaning, it [property] embraces everything to which a man may attach a value and have a right, and which leaves to everyone else the like advantage. [italics Madison’s] . . . He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them. . . . In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. . . .
“Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own. . . . If there be a government, then, which prides itself in maintaining the inviolability of property; which provides that none shall be taken directly, even for public use, without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their passions, and their faculties—nay, more, which indirectly violates their property in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and soothe their cares—the influence will have been anticipated that such a government is not a pattern for the United States.277
“According to this standard of merit, the praise of affording a just security to property should be sparingly bestowed on a government which, however scrupulously guarding the possessions of individuals, does not protect them in the enjoyment and communication of their opinions, in which they have an equal, and, in the estimation of some, a more valuable property.
“More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government where a man’s religious rights are violated by penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy.
“Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law [that is, human law], the exercise of that [conscience] being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man’s house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man’s conscience, which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection for which the public faith is pledged by the very nature and original conditions of the social part.
“If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally respect the rights of property and the property in rights; they will rival the government that most sacredly guards the former, and by repelling its example in violating the latter, will make themselves a pattern to that and all other governments.”
Not Enforced Impartially.
THAT Sunday laws are not enforced against the very class which we are told they are especially designed to reach has just been illustrated in Walla Walla, Wash. The Union-Journal, of that city, in its issue of August 1, gives the following account of a typical case:—
Probably what was the wealthiest jury that ever sat on a case in this county was the jury that tried A. Schwarz for violation of the Sunday law, in Justice Taylor’s court, Friday. The verdict was, “Not guilty.” Prosecuting Attorney Blandford fought nobly for the State and the execution of the law, and its failure surely does not lay upon his shoulders nor upon any of the public officials. The responsibility rests entirely with the jury. The first witness put on the stand was Marshal Robinson, who testified that he was in the saloon, saw beer passed over the bar and paid for. Twenty-five or thirty men were in the saloon all day. His evidence was corroborated by that of other witnesses. About the same arguments were made by the defense as on the previous day, but were completely refuted by the prosecution. The Jury, after deliberating only ten minutes, returned a verdict of not guilty.
If the defendant had been a poor Sabbatarian on trial for digging potatoes or plowing, greatly to the annoyance and scandal of his Sunday-keeping neighbors, a different verdict might have been rendered. Certain it is that as a rule Sunday laws are made effective only in the most petty cases. They should be wiped out everywhere.
The Christian’s Source of Power.
By A. O. Tait.
In the Missionary Review for January, Rev. John Rutherford, M. A., of Scotland, has an excellent article on “Examples from Modern Missionary History of the unmistakable interposition of God in answer to prayer, and in behalf of his servants and their work.”
Beginning with the remarkable deliverance of Leyden, when besieged by the Spaniards in 1574, he presents quite numerous instances of the remarkable interposition of God in answer to prayer. And, evidently, with the thought before him that the rum, opium, and slave traffic carried on by Christians in heathen lands, is among the greatest difficulties with which the missionary has to contend, he closes with this paragraph:—
Whether we are opposed by immoral legislation or the opium trade or the cruelties of slavery or of the African trade in alcohol, or by the vast force of heathenism, let our resources be the power of God made available for all the needs of his Church. Yes, in all Christian work God supplies all our need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
This is the expression of a faith that believes that God’s own power is all-sufficient for his work. The sentiment of the foregoing paragraph is, when difficulties confront the work of the Christian, instead of turning to human agencies for help, let him go to his God in the strong confidence of abiding faith; go, believing that God is able to carry forward his work against any form of opposition, and raise it above the greatest difficulties. The Christian believes that his God created the world, aye, the worlds, that he upholds all things “by the word of his power,” and that there is nothing too great for him to perform. Then how foolish it is to turn from the strength of the omnipotent God to seek help from the finite arm of man, or to cower before any of his adverse decrees.
It is said of the ancient prophets that they, “through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.” The God of the prophets and ancient Israel is the God of the Israel of to-day. From this principle, certainly no Christian can dissent.
These thoughts are recommended to the consideration of our National Reform friends who are so loud in their demands for human laws to assist Christ in carrying on his work in the earth. Christianity is not dependent upon the favors of human enactments; it often shines at its brightest when its advancing columns are marching in the face of opposing legislation.
A. O. Tait.
Sabbaths Galore.
WE have the “Continental Sunday,” the “Puritan Sabbath,” the “American Sabbath,” and now, if Judge Hammond is correctly reported, we will have State sabbaths galore. Of his decision in the King case, the report says:—
By Judge Hammond’s decision the defendant is remanded back to the custody of the sheriff to serve his sentence. The decision is based, not so much on the constitutionality of the Sabbath clause, as upon the fact that King was convicted under due process of Tennessee law, and that it is not in the province of the Federal Court to review the case. Judge Hammond rules, however, that if man has set Sunday apart in due form by his law for rest, it must be obeyed as man’s law, if not as God’s law.
It appears then that King is condemned for violating the Tennessee sabbath. This institution, however, can be violated only by those who observe the seventh-day Sabbath; all others are exempt. Great is Sunday of the Tennesseans!—Signs of the Times.
THE National Reform movement of the nineteenth century is the National Reform movement of the fourth century over again. Then under stress of so-called Christian influence the State declared the principles of the Church to be those to which everything must be subordinated, and the demand is made now that the State shall do the same thing. Can we hope that the result would be different? The demand as now formulated is that “Christian morality shall be taken as the ultimate standard of right, and that all our laws shall conform to this standard.” This simply means to make the divine law, or rather that which the courts may hold or the Church decide to be the divine law, the fundamental law of the land. It would then be superior to the Constitution, and human judges would administer the divine law and decree punishment for its infraction! The Church and the State would both be governed by the same law; in the Church it would be known as ecclesiastical law, in the State as civil law; but it would be the same law. This is simply what was done in the Dark Ages, and the evils of a union of Church and State are inseparable from such a system whether it be called a union of Church and State or only a union of religion and the State.