The American Sentinel, The Sentinel of Liberty, Vol. 15, No. 26.
Another Case of Religious PersecutionPage 1
Another Case of Religious Persecution.
By B.
Another case of religious persecution is reported to us from North Carolina. Again the victim is a Seventh-day Adventist, a cripple, who was trying to support himself and family by running a candy kitchen in the town of Hickory. He sold peanuts and candy Sunday, June 24th, and was arrested the next day and sentenced to pay a fine of $25, or to go to jail for one month. Mr. Vaughn is a poor man, unable to pay his fine, and is probably in jail at the present time.
As usual in such cases, the law seems to be only for Sabbatarians, since some others in the same town sell on Sunday and are not molested. We are not informed whether Mr. Vaughn’s arrest was due to religious animus purely, or whether it was because he had failed to “see the captain,” as they say in New York.402 Of one thing, however, we are sure, namely, that there are vast possibilities in Sunday laws in the way of making it uncomfortable for dissenters from the popular religion, as well as in “frying fat” from those who are willing to pay for “police protection;” or in other words, for the privilege of violating a “law” which other people are compelled to respect. We do not suppose that anything of this sort is practiced in Hickory; but in the larger cities “seeing the captain” is quite a common thing, especially in those lines of business that might better be prohibited every day. The iniquity of Sunday laws would certainly be seen were it not for the element of religious prejudice which enters into the matter. Only bigotry blinds people to the fact that Sunday legislation abridges the natural rights of the individual. But it may be asked, Should not the majority rule? Certainly, in all questions of public policy, such as the “tariff” or “free trade,” “free coinage” or “gold standard,” etc., but not in matters of conscience or of individual, civil rights. No majority, however great, can, except by flagrant usurpation, deprive even so small a minority as a single individual of a single inalienable right, be it civil or be it religious. It has been well said that such rights “are not exercised in virtue of governmental indulgence, but as rights, of which government can not deprive any portion of citizens, however small. Despotic power may invade those rights, but justice still confirms them.” “Among all the religious persecutions with which almost every page of modern history is stained,” said Richard M. Johnson, in 1829, “no victim ever suffered but for the violation of what government denominated the law of God. To prevent a similar train of evils in this country, the Constitution has wisely withheld from our government the power of defining the divine law. It is a right reserved to each citizen; and while he respects the rights of others, he can not be held amenable to any human tribunal for his conclusions.” While not quite so explicit as the national Constitution, the Bill of Rights of North Carolina declares that “no human authority should, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience.” This just provision is overridden however in the interests of Sunday, and a poor man who is endeavoring to make an honest living is fined $25 and costs for carrying on a perfectly legitimate business on Sunday, one that could not possibly disturb anybody, except as the knowledge of its being done might cause mental annoyance to those who regard the day as sacred to rest and worship. But the law can no more properly take cognizance of such annoyance than it could of the annoyance occasioned to the Protestant by seeing the Roman Catholic making the sign of the cross or praying before an image of the Virgin Mary. “Despots may regard their subjects as their property, and usurp the divine prerogative of prescribing their religious faith; but the history of the world furnishes the melancholy demonstration that the disposition of one man to coerce the religious homage of another springs from an unchastened ambition, rather than from a sincere devotion to any religion. The principles of our government do not recognize in the majority any authority over the minority, except in matters which regard the conduct of man to his fellow man.” And the State of North Carolina should in like manner refuse to recognize in the majority, however large that majority may be, any right to dictate to the minority in matters of religious faith or practice. The framers of the national “Constitution recognized the eternal principle that man’s relation with his God is above human legislation, and his rights of conscience inalienable.” North Carolina professedly recognizes the same thing in her Bill of Rights. Her courts, from justices of the peace up to the supreme bench, should see to it that the recognition is promptly made practical in the town of Hickory. B. Civil Government and Worldly Affairs
Since civil government pertains only to this world, it can of right have to do only with the affairs of this world. Moral Duty and the Moral Law
Moral duty is defined only by the moral law; and since God himself is the sole judge of that law, only He has any authority to enforce moral duty. The State and Moral Wrong
The state deals not with right and wrong, but only with rights and wrongs. The state has no right to prohibit anything because it is sinful. Government and Divine Law
No human government however strong has any power to abate one jot from the claims of the divine law; therefore no government ought to attempt to control the individual in his service of God. Christianity and Sunday Imprisonment
The mission of Christianity is to proclaim “liberty to the captives” and “the opening of the prison doors to them that are bound.” Isa. 61:1. Who can harmonize this truth with the shutting up of people in prison by means of the Sunday laws, in the alleged interests of the “Christian Sabbath” and for the promotion of “Christian morality”? The great problem in the laboring world to-day is not to find rest for the employed, but work for the unemployed. Idleness and Moral Debasement
Physical and moral debasement, against which Sunday laws are assumed to guard, are more likely to result from idleness than from labor. Sunday Laws: Civil or Religious
The more the advocates of Sunday laws try to maintain the day as a civil institution, the less will Sunday appeal to the minds of men as a religious institution. The day cannot be both civil and religious, and to advocate its observance from a civil standpoint can only detract from what is said in its behalf from a religious standpoint, and weaken the religious regard for the day which the advocates of Sunday laws really wish above all other things to secure. The more its observance is decreed by law, the more will Sunday take on the character of a holiday rather than a holy day. The Prohibitionists.
By B.
Last week the Prohibitionists of Illinois and of the United States held their conventions in this city, and placed tickets in the field. Both conventions professed to adhere to “the single issue of prohibition of the liquor traffic,” but neither did it; both declaring also in favor of woman suffrage by very large majorities. Both the speeches and the platforms of both State and national convention, revealed also a strong leaning toward that which the readers of The Sentinel of Liberty know as National Reform. The national platform sets forth this: “The National Prohibition Party, in convention represented at Chicago, June 27 and 28, 1900, acknowledge Almighty God as the supreme source of all just governments, realizing that this Republic was founded upon Christian principles and can endure only as it embodies justice and righteousness, and asserting that all authority should seek the best good of all the governed, to this end wisely prohibiting what is wrong and permitting only what is right, hereby records and proclaims,” etc. The Sentinel of Liberty is heartily in accord with everything that is in the interests of temperance. Nobody in any way connected with the publication of this paper indulges even to a limited extent in the use of any intoxicant. Tobacco also is strictly tabood, and even tea and coffee are regarded as hurtful luxuries, to be avoided.403 But while opposed to every species of intemperance, and especially opposed to the liquor traffic as it exists to-day, we are not in sympathy with the platform of the National Prohibition Party. Any party that would undertake to carry out the profession of the Prohibition Party, “prohibiting what is wrong and permitting only what is right,” would necessarily make a record similar to that of the Spanish Inquisition. We do not know exactly what is meant by the words, “Acknowledging Almighty God as the supreme source of all just government.” There is a sense in which this is true, since “there is no power but of God;” but it is not true in the sense that civil government is charged with the duty of administering the divine law, as revealed in the sacred Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. And this is probably what is meant by it in this platform. Again, if by saying that “this Republic was founded upon Christian principles” the Prohibitionists mean principles of truth and justice, they assert only the truth. Never before was any human government established upon principles so just. Never before was the divine principles of government by the consent of the governed so fully recognized by man. But this is probably not what is meant by these words in this Prohibition platform. Political prohibition has almost always been bound up—as it is in this case—with the idea of “prohibiting what is wrong and permitting only what is right.” This is altogether outside the legitimate sphere of civil government. “Right” and “wrong” refer altogether to moral qualities; and with moral qualities civil government can of right have nothing to do. Every political party ought to give attention only to prohibiting wrongs and protecting rights. “Rights” and “wrongs” have reference primarily not to moral qualities, but to the relations of acts to men and women—to social beings having equal rights and common duties, growing out of their relations as social beings. The just powers of civil government begin and end with these rights and duties. To protect natural rights, to enforce natural duties, is the whole duty of civil government. Only despotism can go beyond it, and to come short of it is to fail of the ends for which civil rule is established. Sabbath-breaking is wrong and Sabbath-keeping is right. If the Prohibition Party were in power they would, according to their platform, necessarily prohibit Sabbath-breaking and permit only Sabbath-keeping. But this is altogether outside the domain of legitimate civil authority. Indeed it is beyond the power of civil government, for the reason that Sabbath-keeping and Sabbath-breaking consist not alone in outward acts but in the thoughts and intents of the heart. The same is true of everything to which moral quality attaches. It follows therefore that it is impossible for any human government to prohibit what is wrong and permit only what is right. The Spanish Inquisitors sought to do this, hence their resort to torture to get at the secret thoughts of their victims. The liquor traffic ought to be prohibited, not because it is morally wrong, but because it corrupts civil administration, dethrones reason, endangers life and property, robs families, increases crime, fills poorhouses, etc. But these are not the primary reasons urged by the Prohibition Party; they are in favor of “prohibiting what is wrong” and “permitting only what is right.” In other words they propose to accomplish a moral reform by political methods. They must necessarily fail of their purpose. Morality and Religion.
By B.
There are many people who while assenting to the proposition that the state has no right to intermeddle with religion, hold that it is the duty of civil government to regulate morals. Let us see how this is—where lies the truth upon this subject? In its broadest sense, religion is any system or method of worship, without regards to what the object of worship may be. In the world there are very many religions, and there are very many objects of worship. In this sense the angels are religious, for they worship God. But in Christian lands the word is used in a more restricted sense. He is not counted religious who does not believe in God, his Son Jesus Christ as the only means of salvation, and the Bible as the revelation of the will of God to man. As the Mohammedan counts all as infidels who do not believe in Mohammed, so Christians esteem all as infidels who do not believe in Christ and the Bible. Christianity is that system which accepts the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the revelation of God to man; accepts the fact of the fall of man, and of his subjection to death as the penalty of disobedience, and of his entire inability to recover himself from his lost condition. It accepts Christ as the Son of God, the sole means of salvation, who died as a sacrifice to redeem us, and lives a priest to make intercession for us, and to aid us by his Spirit. Morality is obedience to the revealed will of God, whose law is the moral law, the only moral rule. Man lost his morality by disobedience of this rule, but he did not cease to be a religious being. Had he retained his innocency, he would still have been a religious being, according to the broadest sense of the word. He would have held communion with God, and worshiped him as the angels now do. But religion in the Christian404sense would not have existed. There would have been no sin, no need of a Saviour, Christ would not have died, and Christianity would not have been. Alexander Campbell, in his debate with Bishop Purcell, said “the ten commandments are a synopsis of all religion and morality.” Webster’s Dictionary defines “morality” as “The relation of conformity or non-conformity to the moral standard or rule: quality of an intention, a character, an action, a principle, or a sentiment, when tried by the standard of right.” The Standard Dictionary defines “moral,” first of all, as “Of or pertaining to the practices, conduct, and spirit of men toward God.” These statements are true, if we consider religion according to its primary signification. But the ten commandments do not contain within themselves the Christian religion; for this is remedial, and a law cannot be remedial. No system can recover the sinner from guilt and its consequences that does not contain pardon. Law cannot pardon, Christianity does. Therefore the law is not religious in this sense,—it is simply moral. Henry N. Day, D. D., says of morals and religion: “In any comparison as to their relative authority and importance to man, the precedence must be given to religion.” But there is difficulty in marking lines where things are so intimately blended as are these two, as the same writer again says: “A piety divorced from morals is a contradiction or an impossibility.” The ten commandments are divided into two parts, as based on the two great requirements to love God with all the heart, and our neighbor as our self. Service done directly toward God is generally regarded as more strictly religious, while obligation rendered toward our fellow-men is more properly moral. But, as before remarked, these intimately blend in the ten commandments. In the first four precepts the religious element predominates; in the last six the moral element predominates. But though one element predominates in one, and the other element predominates in the other, the two elements cannot be separated in this law. No man can be a moral man and violate any one of the first four precepts, though they are strictly religious. Neither can any man be truly religious and violate one of the last six precepts, though they are more strictly moral. No one is a moral man who is profane, an idolater, or a Sabbath-breaker; and no one can be truly religious who is covetous, who is a thief, and an adulterer, or a murderer. These propositions need no argument; they are evident to all. Every precept of the ten commandments is moral, and the whole ten we call the moral law, because they are of original obligation. By this we mean that they directly emanated from the will and mind of the Creator, and depended upon no human contingency. The relations which they recognize, and upon which they rest, are those that inhere in the truth that God is our Creator, and man is our fellow-creature. Men could not originate these relations, nor cause these precepts to become duties. Hence, they are essentially primary; no obligation of any nature can take precedence of them. The religious element in this law takes precedence, as our duty to God comes first. One must love God supremely, with all the heart, and mind, and soul, and his neighbor only as himself. And this order is not reversed or changed by the gospel; as the angels sang at the birth of the Redeemer: “Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace, good will toward men.” Glory to God is the first note in the song of the angels, as it should be the first object in the lives of men. How does Christianity—“the only true religion”—stand related to this law? We have said that the law is primary, and as the nature and object of Christianity is essentially different from that of the law, they cannot stand on the same plane. The gospel, or the Christian religion, is secondary. Man could not originate, nor can he control, his relations to God as his Creator, or to man as his fellow-creature. But Christianity does not grow out of these original or primary relations. It is wholly based upon the fact that man is a sinner; and this relation man himself originated. It was not so originally; it did not grow out of or emanate from the mind or will of God. And in all the systems of ethics of all mankind, this priority or precedence is given to the moral law. Each and every one of the ten commandments is of obligation, and obedience to each is duty, at all times and under all circumstances. And the importance of this obedience is not lessened by any contingency. Nothing justifies violation of the divine law. We all hold that, if the two may be separated, it is much more important that a man obey the sixth or eighth commandment, that he abstain from murder and theft, than that he obey the requirement to be baptized and partake of the Lord’s Supper. And for the evident reason, that obedience to the gospel is neutralized by disobedience to the moral law. Obedience is and always was better than sacrifice. Of what account is baptism to a thief—to one who continues to steal? Of what value is the Lord’s Supper to a wilful murderer? The law would have been forever binding had Christianity never existed. Its relation antedates Christianity. But Christianity never would have existed had there been no moral law, or if the moral law had never been violated. And Christianity even now is not and cannot be of any benefit to a man who wilfully or negligently violates the law of God,—the ten commandments. Therefore while religion and morality are not identical, they are so blended as to be inseparable; and for this reason and also because405morality refers not alone to the outward acts but to the invisible operations of the mind—even to “an intention,” or “a sentiment”—it is beyond the jurisdiction of civil government and wholly within the jurisdiction of the divine Author of the divine—the moral law. What Kind of a Sabbath Does He Want?
By B.
Sunday, June 24, the 1,280 letter carriers of this city and their families to the number of probably three thousand persons, attended a picnic at Santa Fe Park. That night Rev. Kittredge Wheeler at the Fourth Baptist Church, Monroe street and Ashland boulevard, scored severely all “who do not respect Sunday, but especially the thoughtless or selfish persons who make conditions so hard for toilers that no time for recreation and amusement is possible for their employees except the day set aside for rest and religion.” It will be news to many people that this describes the condition of the letter-carriers. As a class they have more time for recreation than almost anybody406else who has to labor for a living; and it is scarcely just to say that they are “compelled” to take recreation on Sunday or else not get it at all. But this we maintain, that they have a perfect right to take it then if they want to do so. And people who take their recreation on Sunday ought to be no more subject to attacks by the pulpit than those who take it upon some other day. Those who keep Sunday have no more right to abuse those who do not keep it, than those who do not keep it have to berate those who do. “Are we to have any Sabbath at all?” demands Mr. Wheeler. Well, that depends upon what he means by a Sabbath. If by that question he means are all to be required by law to keep Sunday whether they want to keep it or not, we sincerely hope that we are to have no Sabbath. But if he means, are such as wish a Sabbath to have it? we reply, Certainly. Nothing on earth can keep any man who wants a Sabbath from having it. The Lord made not only a Sabbath, but “the Sabbath for man,” and nobody can take it away from those who will keep it. The only trouble with Mr. Wheeler is that his is a man-made Sabbath; and what man has made he can unmake. Hence, while the Lord’s Sabbath is secure to all who will keep it, the Sunday bewailed by Mr. Wheeler, is dependent upon the will and acts of men. B. Church and State.
By H. E. Giddings.
What is a union of church and state? A union of church and state exists wherever the church and state unite and work together to secure the same end or object. Just as truly as a man and woman are united in the bonds of matrimony upon their declaration of common interest and the authority of the officiating magistrate, so are the church and state united when they avow a common purpose and the officiating representatives of both seal it with their authority. The church is the body of Christ, the embodiment of Christ and all that he is to the sinner in his mission of salvation. The dispenser of grace and mercy. The state is a worldly body, the embodiment of the world in its efforts to secure civil order among men, a dispenser of justice by means of the sword. “He beareth not the sword in vain.” Rom. 13:4. The field of action for the church is the hearts and minds of men. “I will put my laws in their minds and write them in their hearts.” The cry of David, “Create within me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me,” “then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners will be converted unto thee,” expresses fully the field of operation for the church, which is the body of Christ. The field of the state is the outward conduct of men with reference to the civil rights of other men. The work of the church is to save men from themselves. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself.” The white robes of Rev. 3:5 and the right to reign with Christ is not promised to the man who overcomes his neighbor or is victorious in the conflict with his enemies, but to the humble soul who by the grace of God overcomes self with all its evils—the evils of this world. While the church of Christ is in the world, it is not a part of the world. John 17: 15, 16. The result of Christianity received into the heart is to make men the friends of God. “Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world, is the enemy of God.” Christ said very plainly, “My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight.” Hence it is impossible for a man to fulfill the purposes of the gospel and be joined to the world or the kingdoms of this world. The work of the state is to save men from each other and is well defined in the Scriptures. “The kingdoms of this world,” which are products of the world and are necessary in the world because of the wickedness of the world, belong entirely to the world and will end with the history of this world, belong alike to every citizen of this world, no matter how entirely worldly he is. The state has no right to undertake anything which will restrict or debar the worldliest of men from the fullest participation in all its workings. The state can never rise to a higher sphere than the regulation of man’s conduct so as to secure order from a worldly standpoint. The civil government is a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. But Jesus told Peter to put up his sword “for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” Matt. 26:52. When it is the business of the state to use the sword and the followers of Christ are plainly told not to use it, how can they unite? “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal.” 2 Cor. 10:4. “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God,” and no sword but the sword of “the Spirit,” “the Word of God?” Eph. 6:13, 17. “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” How then can those who claim to be Christians desire to unite the church, the body of Christ,—Eph. 1:22, 23, and 5:31, 32—with the state, the embodyment of this world, when it is said to be adultery? In doing this act the church (professed Christianity) becomes guilty of the crime pointed out in Rev. 18:2, 3. Babylon is fallen because she has committed fornication with the nations. Keep the church and state forever separate, that the church may be pure and the state just and impartial. (From the Springfield Republican, June 26.) To see how fast we are moving, it is necessary sometimes to cast a short backward glance. One grows so quickly accustomed to daily news of war that it is easy to forget how new a thing it is in our time. To-day it seems hardly believable that only a few years ago the world was at peace, and peace-lovers were not without excuse for believing that a brighter, sweeter era was at hand than any this blood-soaked planet had ever known. War seemed a remote possibility; peace seemed the normal and natural thing. To see how far we have moved from that tranquil time, it is only necessary to turn back to a newspaper of, say 10 years ago, and compare it with one of to-day. The contrast is The Republican of Wednesday, June 25, 1890, was not so large as the paper of the present day, but it gave in compact form the news that was of most import. Much space was given to college commencements, several columns were devoted to the speeches of George M. Stearns and Attorney-General Waterman on the West-end street railroad case. From Washington came the news that Wyoming was soon to be admitted as a state. There was but one paragraph of military news, to the effect that appropriations for navy-yard improvements and for extra tools at the Boston navy-yard had been struck out by the committee of Congress! Tranquil domestic news was not lacking, and peace prevailed, even in the brief announcement that the men on the Canadian fishery protection cruisers were to be armed with batons, instead of cutlasses. The sugar trust was already making trouble, and Quay was pulling the strings for the Pennsylvania convention. A new record for baseball throwing was made, and John L. Sullivan was fined $500, no doubt very properly. The only item of old-world news which was sufficiently important to be given a place in a crowded paper, ten years ago yesterday, was a four-line paragraph to the effect that Mme. Sarah Bernhardt had accidentally taken an overdose of chloral. Nor did any of the editorials mention any foreign topic, except the action of Newfoundland in regard to the purchase of bait. How dull and disappointing such a day's news would be to the reader of to-day, whose appetite is whetted with daily horrors from all quarters of the world! TO COMPLETE THE CONTRAST.
It is only necessary to analyze the contents of yesterday's Republican. The principal news page was given up almost exclusively to war—to four different wars. We read of “North China ablaze,” of Minister Wu's opinions on the war, of the supposed safety of our people in Pekin, of the rise of the Boxers in Canton, of the rumored killing of a missionary, of the shipping of vast stores of ammunition to China, of the departure of marines from Washington, of the part of England and the United States in the war, and that of Germany and Russia, of the sailing of the 6th cavalry, of the killing of four Americans in an ambuscade, of the sailing of the cruiser Brooklyn, of the transfer of the headquarters of the Asiatic squadron, of the plans of the war department, of our ex-minister's views on the war, of the rescue of a missionary, of the sailing of a Russian cruiser, and the augmentation of the Indian army bound for China, of pressure brought to bear on Turkey, of England's war with the Ashantis, of Gen. Buller's progress in South Africa, and the raids of the Boers, of the departure of Boer envoys, of the war with a mob in St. Louis, of Gen. MacArthur's dealings with the Filipinos, and the movements of American garrisons in the island of Samoa. There is barely room in this appalling record of bloodshed for a brief statement to the effect that some 19,000,000 people are starving to death in India. There is much peaceful news, too, baccalaureate sermons, sermons from local pulpits, the happenings of the day—but the dominant note is war, one sensation topping another. Whatever views one may have as to the justice or407necessity of any particular war, it must be agreed that the effect of living in A CONSTANT WAR ATMOSPHERE
Is not likely to be conducive to peace. It kindles the passion for fighting, and it makes war instead of peace seem the natural and normal thing. This effect has been vastly intensified by the multiplication of newspapers and the use of telegraphy, which plunges us all daily into the midst of every war going on. A century ago the progress of a war was a matter of slow rumor; foreign nations sometimes hardly heard of one till it was over. The world has now been knit into a nervous organism, every part of which is thrilled by a local disturbance. A morbid appetite for horrors is developed, not unakin to that found in the amphitheaters of the Romans, and a day without a battle, a massacre, or an ambuscade at the very least, is disappointing. It is not hard to awaken the primitive passion for blood; the difficulty is in quelling it. It is a time for peace advocates to redouble their efforts, while apostles of the “strenuous life” may well rest for a season from their labors. Between the two snap-shots of the world in 1890 and 1900 throws a strong light on the pace at which the world has been moving. The view 10 years ago showed a placid, smiling river; now we see the boiling rapids of a torrent plunging toward what abyss no one knows. War has followed war with swift succession, the scene shifting from Greece to Cuba, from Cuba to the Soudan, from the Soudan to the Philippines, from the Philippines to South Africa, from there to China. What the next stroke will be, who shall say? In the tumult of new sensations it is hard to realize how far we have come, or how short a time has elapsed since an era of peace on earth, good will to men. Many a hater of war and cruelty has thought silently of the poet's bitter awakening from his dream of the golden years:—
O cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn of bitter prophecy. Yet the chief cause for disquietude among thoughtful men, who love the arts of peace, and look on war as wicked and hateful, is not that its baleful conflagrations are breaking out in so many places, but that so many reputable men should be found to Teaching the young that courage and manhood and honor decay unless they periodically go out and shoot each other, that it is the duty of strong races to crush the life out of weak and backward nations and reduce all civilizations to one type. What more efficient ally could the cold, selfish greed of commercialism find? What force could so aggravate the craving for war which the world's daily butcher's bill creates? It is easy to talk lightly of “pessimism;” are the millions of people who 10 years ago hoped that the reign of peace had begun exactly satisfied with the situation since imperialism has got into the saddle? The record of 10 years ago was dull and humdrum, but the world was moving steadily forward toward the ideal of the wise men of all ages. Can as much be said for the record of to-day? The following paragraphs, the first from Benjamin Franklin, the second from Senator Lodge, illustrate well the wide difference between the spirit of the Revolutionary Fathers and the spirit that now animates not only the rulers of this country but of the world. Franklin said: “To me it seems that neither the obtaining nor retaining any trade, how valuable soever, is an object for which men may justly spill each other’s blood; that the true and sure means of extending and securing commerce are the goodness and cheapness of commodities, and that the profits of no trade can ever be equal to the expense of compelling it and holding it by fleets and armies.” Speaking in the Philadelphia convention, Senator Lodge said: “We do not mean that the Philippines shall come within our tariff system or become part of our body politic. We make no hypocritical pretense of being interested in the Philippines solely on account of others. We see our duty to ourselves as well as to others. We believe in trade expansion. By every legitimate means within the province of government and legislation we mean to stimulate the expansion of our trade and to open new markets. Greatest of all markets is China. * Manila, the prize of war, gives us inestimable advantages in developing that trade.” It is the same spirit that is waging war in South Africa. Not long since Mr. Cecil Rhodes spoke of the English flag as “the most valuable commercial asset” of which he had any knowledge. It is this spirit which now, as never before, dominates the world. It is simply one of the signs of the rapidly approaching end of the age. A recent London dispatch says: “Russia’s primary ambitions are territorial and inordinate; she covets Northern China, Corea, Turkey, Persia, and India; her diplomacy is the ablest and the most unscrupulous in Europe; her military force is numerically the largest.” Roman Catholics and the Boxers.
The statement has been made that the Boxers are opposed to all Christians in China because the priests of the Roman Catholic Church, by treaty between France and China two years ago, now hold ceremonial and civil powers not enjoyed by Protestant missionaries, and that the Roman Catholic Church has been using this power as an inducement to the natives to embrace Christianity. Some of the priests were even suspected of going so far as to defend criminals and evil-doers who promised to join “the church” providing they were acquitted. Some Protestants declare that the present Boxer fury is but a just punishment for the flagrant abuse by the Roman Catholics of the special power and authority thus invested in them. On the other hand, the Roman Catholics declare that the imperial decree simply regulated the intercourse of their missionaries with the mandarins—for instance, by its provisions, bishops were placed equal in rank with viceroys, rural deans with tao-tais or department directors, and priests with prefects; that personal communication, which had been before almost impossible to obtain, is now possible, and consequently justice between Christian and non-Christian is easier of accomplishment. In any case, it is not improbable that, basing their belief on treaty rights protecting all Christians, native Christians may have presumed that they were really independent of Chinese authority and, through foreign protection, might escape the punishment which an ordinary Chinaman would receive. It is not extraordinary that the Roman Catholic Church has been so successful in China, and now numbers there thirty bishoprics and a million adherents. For it should be remembered that she began her work in the far East more than five centuries before the Protestants began theirs. Even Marco Polo found an Archbishop of Peking. No one has estimated Protestant Chinese adherents as numbering over 300,000, and most estimates fall below this figure. In North China the Presbyterians have the largest number of American missionaries—nearly two hundred—and nearly six hundred helpers. The Presbyterian printing-press at Shanghai is the largest mission press in the world, issuing sixty-seven million pages a year. The Methodists have over a hundred and fifty American missionaries and nearly seven hundred native helpers. The Congregationalists (American Board) have over a hundred missionaries and over three hundred native helpers. These are the principal American religious bodies in North China. Important American Protestant mission stations are situated at Kalgan, Paoting, Lin Chang, and Pang Chang. The Church of England is also strongly represented, having in China nearly two hundred missionaries and over five hundred native helpers. In all China religious and educational work is now at a standstill. Church services are impossible. Schools have been disbanded and school buildings made into barracks, and the daily life of all the people is interrupted through dread of the Boxers. It is a satisfaction to add that, though some of the weaker Chinese have fallen away, as a rule the natives have stood firm in loyalty to their faith.