The State Is of the People.
By A. T. J.
Some time ago, Rev. E. H. Ashmun, of Denver, Colorado, preached to the Patriotic Order of the Sons of America, a sermon on what he intended to be, “National Education,” but if his views should be carried out, it would be national mis-education. He declared that the education furnished by the public schools “must be to a degree, Christian” and non-sectarian. He did not tell how the State is to find out what Christianity is, without recognizing and establishing a particular religion, nor did he seem to care how the thing should be brought about, only so that his views of Christianity and non-sectarianism should be taught in the schools. And that is all that the argument means about religion and non-sectarianism in the public schools. It means simply some man’s particular views of what constitutes religion and non-sectarianism, and in the end this is simply sectarianism in religion. This is fully demonstrated in Mr. Ashmun’s speech, because the whole thing was a continuous onslaught upon the Roman Catholic Church, and its practices, and its opposition to the Protestant Bible in the public schools, all of which he denounces as sectarian. When any man claims that opposition to the Bible in the public schools is sectarian, his claim is in itself sectarian; because the claim is always in favor of some particular version of the Bible, and in the discussion that is now going on it is in behalf of the King James version, in other words, of the Protestant Bible, but Protestantism is no less sectarian than Catholicism, Judaism, Mohammedanism or anything else. Again, not all of those who are taxed to support the public school believe in the Bible, and would not even if there were but one version of it in the world, and even if it were of all books the only one recognized as the Bible; and to compel men who do not believe in the Bible to submit to the dictation of those who do, is wrong; to compel men who do not believe the Bible to receive it as others believe it, and because others believe it, is persecution and sectarianism too. Mr. Ashmun says that “to make good citizens, you must make good men.” That depends upon the sense in which the word “good” is used. If it is used in the sense of civilly good, then it is only to say that in order to make good citizens you must make good citizens, which is altogether likely. But in the sense in which Mr. Ashmun uses it, that is, if you would make good citizens you must make morally good men, then it is not true. A man may be morally bad, and yet he may be a good citizen. It is very doubtful whether either at the time in which he lived, or now, there could be found a man who would say that Benjamin Franklin was not a good citizen. But it would certainly be difficult to find a man, who is acquainted with Franklin’s character as a man, who would say that Franklin was a good man. Franklin himself would not say it. Alexander Hamilton is another instance, and there are many others. The truth is that morally speaking, a person may be a bad man, and yet he may be a good citizen. But even though it were the actual truth, as Mr. Ashmun means it, that to be a good man is essential to being a good citizen, and that the State must make men good, there never could be any such thing as a good citizen, because314the State cannot make good men. The State is a natural thing. It springs from men in the natural state, and there is no power in nature, or in any natural process, or thing, to make men good. Nothing but the power of God as revealed in Jesus Christ can ever make men good. But that is a supernatural thing. It was supernaturally manifested in Jesus Christ, and is now supernaturally impressed upon men and cultivated in them. Goodness is a fruit of the Spirit of God; and the promise of the Spirit of God is received only through faith, of which Jesus Christ is “the author and finisher.” The State knows nothing of faith, and has nothing to do with faith. It is impossible, therefore, for the State to make good men, and any professed minister of the gospel of Christ who attributes such power to the State as is here attributed by Mr. Ashmun, virtually denies the purpose and the power of Christianity. If the State can make men good, then assuredly there is no need of any other power. If the State can make men good, there is no need of Christianity to make them good, and there was no need of Christ’s coming down to this earth to make them good. But it may be urged that Mr. Ashmun did not mean morally good but only civilly good. This, however, is not true. He means morally good, for he says:— The State has a right to see that the education is such as to make safe citizens. The education must be moral. This is the most important part. The State has a right to educate in what it most needs. When men of ability prostitute their power to basest evil; when money will corrupt thoroughly educated men; when political leaders are so often unsafe, and when men of no mean intellectual parts are found supporting and advocating the saloon, vile literature and anarchy, it is time for us to awake to the fact that what we want is not so much power as its proper control. That character is first, and not as a work of supererogation. Not as a patch on the garment but as the very warp, the fiber of its being. It is said it belongs to the family and the Church. Yes, but the child is in school during a greater part of its most impressible years, and its character is formed whether you will or not. And with many children the only good moral training they ever receive is in school.
I go still farther and say that the education must be to a degree Christian. I know this is disputed ground, but I am confident of the correctness of my position. Otherwise you leave no real distinction between right and wrong. The only ground of responsibility is the divine law. Expediency changes with public sentiment which fluctuates with desire. You cannot teach good morals successfully, without touching their root. Responsibility roots in the divine law. The object of education is the prime end of man himself. To make good citizens you must make good men.
That shows plainly enough that what he means is moral good, and indeed such moral good as only Christianity contemplates. Then there comes another consideration upon this, which is, that if the State even through the use of the Christian religion in the public schools, can make men good, then what is the use of the Church, and what was the Church instituted for? When men who belong to the Church, who profess to speak for the Church, and who profess to be ministers of the gospel of Christ, thus put their dependence in the power of the State to make effectual the purposes of Christianity, it is a sorry condition of things. Mr. Ashmun attempts to have the State make a distinction between right and wrong. This is as wide of the truth as any other of his statements. The State knows no such thing, nor can it know any such thing, as a “real distinction between right and wrong.” The State only knows rights and wrongs, and the distinction between these. Men have rights—in the State they have equal rights. For one to infringe the rights of another is to commit a wrong, and the State deals with it only as this kind of a wrong. The State cannot make of it any question of real right or wrong in a moral point of view. The prime defect in this whole system is that those who talk thus, and expect the State to accomplish those things, hold the view that the State is a person, and in fact, a moral person; that it is an individual, distinct from the citizens who compose it, as one individual is distinct from another. But the State is no such thing. The State is no more of a personality than the Patriotic Order of the Sons of America is a personality. The State as an individual cannot do anything. The action of the State is only the action of the majority of the individuals that compose it, or of their representatives. It becomes their action, theirs is the responsibility; and the morality or the immorality, the real right or wrong of what is done attaches to the individual men who are concerned in it. The State is not an end; it is only a means by which to accomplish an end. It is an organization formed by men by which to protect themselves and the rights which they possess, and that is all that it is. It is not safe to give men liberty unless you make them responsible. You dare not let untamed beasts roam at will.
Here again appears the same blemish that exists throughout the whole sermon. That is, that the State is all and in all, and it gives the people all things, even liberty. The State does not give the people liberty. The people have liberty. It is an inalienable right. “Men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Despotism may invade this right, but justice still maintains it. The State is not first; the people are first. The State does not make the people what they are; God or the people make people what they are, and the people make the State what it is. Mr. Ashmun’s idea that men are a set of untamed beasts is strictly compatible with his view of what the State is. If men are untamed beasts, of course, it is necessary to have some power to hold them fast, and if they are ever to be anything more than that, to train them and instruct them so that they may be so. But so long as men are men, and not untamed beasts, there is no need of any such theoretical paternalism as was set forth to the Patriotic Order of the Sons of America, by the Rev. E. H. Ashmun.
A. T. J. THE French are noted for going to extremes. In that country, Catholics are now forbidden to walk in procession on Corpus Christi. L'Univers says they may blame themselves for it. It further says: “We are Catholics, and the vast majority of the French people are Catholics. Our God claims to show his universal sovereignty in the streets once a year. It is his right, and our right. We ask no one to join in our peaceful procession, neither the Jew who crucified him, nor the atheist who denies him. We respect their liberty, but we want them also to respect ours.” It is possible that there is some justification for such a prohibition, but we can scarcely imagine what it would be. To us it would seem that the forbidding of religious processions, is an exhibition of intolerance, unworthy the officers of a great government. If France fears a procession of Roman Catholics she must indeed be in a sad state. THE Maryland State Prohibition platform has the following as one of its planks:—
We approve our Sabbath laws and their enforcement, which secures to the people one day's rest in seven. This the New York Voice calls an almost model platform. But that political platform which approves of Maryland Sabbath laws is as far from model, as the darkest laws of the Dark Ages are from the Constitution of the United States.—Signs of the Times. A CELEBRATED European nobleman says: “The Americans have the best Government, because they are scarcely aware that they have any Government at all.” Commenting upon this, the Christian Advocate says: “When the inhabitants of a country become able to govern themselves they need no other Government. Without self-control among the citizens freedom is impossible.” This is true; but so-called National Reform, which is more or less in favor with the Advocate, is not calculated to develop self-control. National Reform is paternalism, and paternalism in government is utterly destructive of self-government. Congress of the American Secular Union.
By C. P. B.
The Fourteenth Annual Congress of the American Secular Union has been appointed by the Board of Directors to meet at Portsmouth, Ohio, Friday evening, October 31, 1890, and to continue its sessions on the Saturday and Sunday following. The meetings will be held in the Grand Opera House, corner of Sixth and Court streets. We quote as follows from President Westbrook’s published call for the Congress:— The object of the American Secular Union, as is well known, is to secure the total separation of Church and State, in fact and in form, to the end that equal rights in religion, genuine morality in politics, and freedom, virtue, and brotherhood be established, protected, and perpetuated. While we unite on what is commonly known as the Nine Demands of Secularism, we propose to emphasize the following at the coming Congress:— 1. The equitable taxation of church property in common with other property. 2. The total discontinuance of religious instruction and worship in the public schools, and especially the reading of any Bible. 3. The repeal and prevention of all laws enforcing the observance of Sunday as a religious institution rather than an economic one, justified by physiological and other secular reasons. 4. The cessation of all appropriations of the public funds for educational and charitable institutions of a sectarian character. The American Secular Union is strictly unsectarian and non-partisan in both religion and politics, but will use any and all honorable means to secure its objects as above stated. It is not, either publicly or privately, committed to the advancement of any system of religious belief or disbelief, but heartily welcomes all persons, of whatever faith, to its membership, on the basis of “no union of Church and State.” The word “secular” is here used in the broadest sense, as applied to the State, and not to any system of religious philosophy. To discuss these questions in an orderly and friendly manner, and to devise ways and means to promote these objects, let us come together at this Congress as Free Thinkers, Spiritualists, Unitarians, Universalists, Free Religionists, Quakers, progressive Jews, and liberal Christians, and laying aside our peculiar views on religious questions, unite as American citizens on the one broad platform of no union of Church and State, and the complete administration of our secular Government on purely secular principles. The Nine Demands of Secularism referred to in the foregoing are as follows:— 1. We demand that churches and other ecclesiastical property shall be no longer exempt from just taxation. 2. We demand that the employment of chaplains in Congress, in State Legislatures, in the navy and militia, and in prisons, asylums, and all other institutions supported by public money, shall be discontinued. 3. We demand that all public appropriations for315educational and charitable institutions of a sectarian character shall cease. 4. We demand that all religious services now sustained by the Government shall be abolished; and especially that the use of the Bible in the public schools, whether ostensibly as a text book, or avowedly as a book of religious worship, shall be prohibited. 5. We demand that the appointment by the President of the United States, or by the Governors of the various States, of all religious festivals and feasts shall wholly cease. 6. We demand that the judicial oath in the courts, and in all other departments of the Government shall be abolished, and the simple affirmation, under the pains and penalties of perjury, shall be established in its stead. 7. We demand that all laws directly or indirectly enforcing the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath shall be repealed. 8. We demand that all laws looking to the enforcement of “Christian” morality (as such) shall be abrogated, and that all laws shall be conformed to the requirements of natural morality, equal rights, and impartial liberty. 9. We demand that not only in the Constitution of the United States, but also in the practical administration of the same, no privilege or advantage shall be conceded to Christianity or any other special religion; that our entire political system shall be founded and administered on a purely secular basis; and that whatever changes shall prove necessary to this end shall be consistently, unflinchingly and promptly made. It will be observed that the four points to be “emphasized” by the Portsmouth Congress, are identical with demands 1, 3, 4, and 7, of Secularism, with this difference, that while the seventh demand of Secularism is the repeal of “all laws directly or indirectly enforcing the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath,” the American Secular Union demands repeal of “all laws enforcing the observance of Sunday as a religious institution, rather than an economic one, justified by physiological and other secular reasons.” This we regard as quite an important difference. Sunday is, and always was, a religious institution. It was such in the old Pagan world, and it is such now in the Christian world, and we deny the right of the State to require its observance upon any grounds whatever. True, it is regarded as a holiday by many who have no religious regard for it, or indeed for anything else, and they have a perfect right to so use that, or any other day, so far as their fellow men are concerned; but we deny the right of one portion of the community or State to fasten upon the other portion, that is upon the minority, no matter how small a minority it may be, the observance of Sunday, or any other day, for any reason either religious or otherwise. We do not deny the right of the State to make any day or any number of days legal holidays, leaving the individual citizen free to observe or not to observe such days just as he sees fit, as is now the case with the Fourth of July, and other holidays; but to require the observance of such days, or to forbid upon one day, acts which are freely permitted on other days, is an abuse of the power of the State. The American Secular Union should lay the ax at the root of the tree, and “demand that all laws directly or indirectly enforcing the observance of Sunday” upon any pretext be repealed. C. P. B. Why not Teach Sectarianism?
By A. DELOS WESTCOTT
SINCE the contest upon the question of religion in the public schools began, people talk about sectarianism as if it were something worse than small-pox or the plague. Notwithstanding this, every one of them teaches his own children sectarianism, if he teaches them any religion at all. All definite religious doctrines are sectarian, because they are not universally received. No doctrines could be formulated that would be adopted by all; and as surely as they were accepted by only a part of the people, so surely they would be sectarian in their character. A division of mankind formed upon the basis of religious doctrines held by them, constitutes a sect, and the doctrines which they hold are sectarian. Christianity is sectarianism, and it is the right kind of sectarianism, too. And as the Bible is distinctly a Christian book, it is likewise sectarian, and cannot be taught without teaching sectarianism. “But,” says one, “we do not object to such sectarianism as that; we want that in the public schools; but we do not want such sectarianism as is held by the Methodists, the Presbyterians, or the Baptists. We do not want any sectarianism that is narrower than Christianity itself. Of course Christianity is the right kind of sectarianism, and it is that for which we are working.” Now my friend, I have a question to ask. If all you have said is true, why do you belong to the Methodist Church? Why don’t you leave it and adopt Christianity instead of Methodism? Certainly you should want the best, and if Christianity is the right kind of sectarianism and Methodism the wrong and dangerous kind, why don’t you exchange and get that which is good and safe? Or, if you are a Presbyterian, why do you not exchange your Presbyterianism for Christianity? “Oh, but,” you say, “we as a church believe that Methodism is Christianity. You see Christianity has to be defined, and Methodism, Presbyterianism, etc., etc., are simply so many definitions of Christianity.” Exactly, you have stated the case very plainly. But do you not see that if Christianity should be taught in the public schools, it would have to be defined? And if a definition of Christianity constitutes sectarianism of the dangerous kind, how could Christianity be introduced into the public schools without introducing dangerous sectarianism? Wherever Christianity goes, some definition of it must go also; and that definition will be just as truly sectarian as is Methodism or any other creed. If it were not sectarian, it would not be worth having. A “non-sectarian Christianity” would be a religion so poorly defined, so loose jointed and wishy-washy, that it could be stretched in any direction to suit the ideas of even the infidel and the pagan, so that all would willingly adopt it as their own. Such a religion would not be Christianity at all, and nobody desires any such thing, or intends to have it. Those who are working for religion in the public schools intend to have something that is definite, and that cannot be stretched to mean anything or nothing at all. They intend to have a new definition of Christianity, which in the very nature of things cannot be accepted by all; and this new definition will be as truly sectarian as any which has preceded it, and all those who accept it will, taken together, constitute a sect. If sectarianism is a bad thing, then all the denominations had better disband and give up their sectarian definitions of Christianity, and never make any more. But if it is a good thing, they had better keep on instructing their own children in their own sectarianism at their own expense, and in their own way. But whatever they do, let them forever cease trying to force their sectarianism upon the public schools, which are not sectarian. A. DELOS WESTCOTT. A CORRESPONDENT of the Christian Index, a Baptist paper of Atlanta, Georgia, has been criticising the position of that paper upon the educational question, and among other things, says:— The Bible is not abolished, it cannot be, it is not even banished. — That the teachers can teach as much of the Bible as they please, provided they avoid dogmas upon which churches differ. To this the Index makes reply as follows:— Is he not laboring under a “strange misapprehension”? The Bible and all religious exercises, are prohibited in the public schools of Atlanta, and we think this is practically true of all the schools in Georgia. In many States the use of the Bible in the public schools is prohibited by law. This is as it should be where the children of parents who entertain every imaginable phase of religious belief assemble in the same school. A Christian has no right to force a Jew to listen to his interpretations of Scripture, neither has the Jew the right to force his interpretation of Scripture upon a Christian. So, of all other denominations entertaining radical differences of opinion. It is not our wish or purpose to compel the use of the Bible in the public school. As Baptists we are unalterably opposed to anything that looks like compulsion in matters of religion, or that gives the slightest countenance to the shortest step towards the union of Church and State. The Bible and religion must of necessity be excluded from the public schools. Denominational schools are the only schools where the Bible can be used, and where religious instruction can be given without let or hindrance. But our correspondent says, “The teachers in the public schools can teach as much of the Bible as they please, provided they avoid the dogmas upon316which churches differ.” What does he mean by “dogmas”? It is fair to presume he means those doctrines taught by the various sects or denominations which constitute their cardinal differences. Let us see how much of the Bible there will be left for one of the teachers in a public school to teach when all these are avoided. The Christian believes that Christ was the true Messiah. The Jew believes he was an impostor. The dogma of the Messiahship of Christ must be avoided. The Trinitarian believes in the divinity of the Son, and his co-equality with the Father. The Unitarian believes that Jesus was a mere man. The dogma of the divinity of Christ must be avoided. The Baptist and the Presbyterian believe in the doctrine of election and final perseverance. The Methodist rejects both. The dogma of an effectual call must be avoided. Orthodox Christians believe that repentance and faith are essential to salvation. Universalists believe that all men will be saved whether they repent and believe or not. The dogmas of repentance and faith must be avoided. Baptists believe that nothing but immersion is baptism. Pedobaptists believe that rantism or something else will do. The dogma of baptism must be avoided. Baptists believe that regeneration is an essential qualification for church membership. Pedobaptists do not. The dogma of regeneration must be avoided. So we might extend the list of so-called “dogmas” until every essential doctrine is eliminated from the Bible, leaving little else besides the fly-leaves and the lids. And this is just the position that every Christian, and every Christian paper, should assume upon the question of the Bible in the public schools. The Book of books can properly have no place in schools supported by the State. American Principles.
By Alonzo T. Jones
THE AMERICAN SENTINEL is a thorough-going Protestant journal, and is therefore opposed to every form of the Roman Catholic doctrine, and to the Roman Catholic system as a whole; but we do not indorse in any degree this anti-Catholic cry that is becoming so prevalent. Our opposition to Roman Catholic doctrine, and to Roman Catholicism as a system, is confined wholly to the field of reason and discussion. We maintain that the Roman Catholic has just as much right to be a citizen of the United States as any other man, that he has all the rights of any other man, and that these rights are just as sacred as those of any other man. We know that any man or any class of men who would deny the Roman Catholics any civil rights whatever, would deny the same thing to anybody else. It is certain, therefore, that if this anti-Catholic crusade that is being so urgently pressed by many who appropriate to themselves the name, American, would be as thoroughly despotic if it had its way as Roman Catholicism ever was, or as any system could be. And although all these papers and associations boast of their Americanism, the spirit of the whole movement is everything else than American. Americanism, that is, the genius of American principles and American political doctrine, is the recognition of the equal rights of all,—of the rights of the Roman Catholic as well as of the Protestant, and of those who are neither, as well as of those who are either. The constant ambition of THE AMERICAN SENTINEL is to be thoroughly loyal to genuine American principles, asserting and defending the equal rights of all the people whatever their religious profession may be—the right of any man to be a Roman Catholic and a citizen at the same time; the right of any man to be a Protestant and a citizen at the same time; the right of any man to be neither and also a citizen,—the right of the Roman Catholic Church to exist as a church, and to have its own church schools free from any interference by the State, as the State has the right to its schools free from any interference by any church; and the same to any Protestant church. We believe in the right of the State to exist, and in the right of the Church to exist, and in the total and absolute separation between them. The Veritable Facts.
By Editor
WHAT we want, and ask for, is facts. We can supply principles, and offer their application; but we must get the facts by information. We cannot invent or deduce them. We tried to get the facts about the relation of the Roman Catholics to our public schools; but we did not get all of them in our issue of three weeks ago. We gave an account of the more noted cases, those that had come to our knowledge; but some were not included in the many articles then published. We will add a few obtained since from Iowa. Having seen in the Advance a brief reference to the public schools in Dubuque as allowing the Catholic catechism to be taught in some of them, we wrote to the Superintendent of Public Schools of that city, and received from Mr. Hardie, Secretary of the Board of Education, an absolute denial. That seemed conclusive. But it appears that the Advance had confused the city of Dubuque with the country districts in the same and an adjoining county, and that what was not true of Dubuque was true of the neighborhood about it. We give the facts as stated to us by a correspondent; and so full and circumstantial are they that we cannot help believing them. Here we have an extraordinary illustration of what the Catholic Church has done in a community of Catholic foreigners cast upon these shores, unaffected by American ideas and American civilization. The Rev. Charles O. Brown, pastor of the First Congregational Church of Dubuque, writes us the following facts, from his own personal observation and investigation, about which there can be no doubt:— At Key West, three miles southwest of Dubuque, the public school is in the same yard with the Catholic church, and is taught by nuns, who teach the Roman catechism as a regular study. At the time of the writer’s visit school was dismissed that the children might “go riding with the sisters” to a neighboring convent. At New Mallory and Prairie Creek, the Roman Catholic catechism is regularly taught, the writer himself having been present at one of the recitations on the observance of mass. At Bernard a similar state of things exists. At Wilton, near Asbury, three miles northwest, several years ago a priest ordered, and secured, the removal of the public school from its own to a building of his selection, where he regularly heard recitations in the Catholic catechism, and where he was accustomed to order the whipping of different pupils. At Holy Cross the public school building was sold years ago, and the public school is now in a building on church property, taught by nuns. All of the above places are in Dubuque County. The following places are in Jackson County. At Spring Brook a state of things very similar to that in Holy Cross exists. At Spruce Creek, Otter Creek, Butler, and many other places, the catechism is taught. At La Motte the school is a building next to the Catholic church, which the former bishop, Smythe persuaded the directors to erect on church land. This was done and the house paid for with public money. The present bishop upon coming into the diocese, laid claim to the property, and has since controlled it. At one time a lawsuit was imminent; but the Catholic who dared to oppose his bishop died, and so the matter was dropped. It is needless to add that the Roman catechism is taught there. At the time of the writer’s visit to that neighborhood, school was dismissed that teacher and pupils might attend a “mission” which priests from Chicago were conducting. But it is reserved for Tete-de-Morte, a little village about eight miles north of Bellevue, to cap this sheaf; for there the public school of District No. 2 is in a four-storied nunnery, which is flanked by a Catholic church and cemetery with a life size image on the cross, in the same yard! Of course, the school is taught by nuns, and equally of course, the Roman catechism is taught. These are only instances. Many more might be given. In many of these schools not only is the catechism taught, but Roman Catholic text-books, filled with exaggerations and perversions of American history, are in use. Facts which have more recently come to the writer persuade him that Clayton and Delaware Counties are also suffering from similar abuses; but to what extent he is not at present ready to say. Now these facts are just what we wanted to know, and what we wanted the public to know. Here are religious schools, with undoubted sectarian instruction, paid for out of the public funds. The great State of Iowa ought to put an immediate stop to it. We doubt not it is contrary to the State Constitution. If the reading of the King James version of the Holy Bible in the public schools is declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, what shall be said of the teaching of the Roman Catholic catechism in the public schools of Iowa? We urge the citizens of Iowa to purge out this injustice and to give their children really undenominational public schools. Catholics have complained, and justly complained, that Protestant religious services were held in the public schools. We have admitted that they were right, and that injustice has been generally ended. But here we have a disheartening example of what the Roman Catholic Church has done with the public schools when it had the power. Can Catholics justify it? Will they not join with us in correcting the abuse?—New York Independent, Sept. 25. Who Shall Teach That Christian Theology?
By Alonzo T. Jones
THE bill introduced by Senator Edmunds to establish a national university, provides for the study and consideration of Christian theology. If that bill should pass and the university be established, the instructors would be holders of an “office or public trust,” under the Government. Now the Constitution declares that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under this Government.” But if Christian theology be studied or considered in that university there will certainly have to be a teacher, and if a teacher be employed to conduct the study and consideration of Christian theology, that teacher should be a Christian; but to require that a man shall be a Christian in order to occupy that place is to require a religious test as a qualification to the office, and therefore is a violation of the Constitution. Consequently from this point of view, Senator Edmunds’s bill is as clearly unconstitutional as it would be possible for any bill to be. On the other hand, if no such requirement is made as that the instructor in Christian theology shall be a Christian, and thus this clause of the Constitution be evaded, then it would follow that instruction in Christian theology would be given in that university by a teacher who is not a Christian. But just as soon as that is done, then the teaching of Christian theology is put upon the basis of sheer rationalism. Therefore if this provision of the bill should be carried out from this point of view, it follows that that which would be taught in this university as Christian theology would be but an ungodly mixture, with no Christianity in it. From whatever point, therefore, this bill may be viewed it is certain that the people of the United States want no such thing as it proposes to establish. The people of the United States do not want to establish a thing which is clearly unconstitutional, nor do they want to establish a system of Christian instruction which shall have no Christianity in it; nor is it right to establish at public expense a system of public instruction which has Christianity in it. As we view the bills, resolutions, etc., introduced by certain United States senators, we are led to wonder whether these are not the very individuals the poet had in mind when he said— But man, proud man
Dressed in a little brief authority
Plays such fantastic tricks before
High heaven as make the angels weep.
A. T. J. A Specious Plea.
By W. H. M.
A PROMINENT Chicago clergyman is credited with this statement:— Any man with his eyes shut can testify to the violation of the Sunday-closing law. Are these violators of the law to be untouched by penalty? What is the refusal to obey law but anarchy? This is the value—to the National Reform Association, and the American Sabbath Union—of the movement for the closing of the saloons on Sunday only. It is really of much more weight in the furtherance of their purpose that saloons should remain open the remaining six days of the week if they are but closed on the first. An honest and impartial effort to close the saloons entirely, and do away with the liquor traffic completely, would deprive the Sunday-law party of one of their strongest arguments and most efficient influences for the adoption and enforcement of strict Sunday laws. It gives them an opportunity, which they otherwise would not have, to enlist the numberless “Law and Order Leagues” which are being established throughout the country, and bring to bear their tremendous and cold-blooded force for the enforcement of existing law, irrespective of what principle of civil or religious liberty that law may contravene. Who can doubt but that so far as its effect upon the liquor business is concerned, Sunday closing is but a specious pretence. It is certain that the strictest closing upon any one day in the week could have no perceptible influence upon the traffic as a whole, or sober any drinking man to a perception of his condition, and save him from his doom. The truth is, the effort to obtain laws for the Sunday closing of the saloon, the store, the shop, the factory, and the office, all stand on precisely the same footing; that is, the enforcement of the religious observance of Sunday. The closing of the saloon is used as a specious plea because that is acknowledged to be a reform of vital necessity, and is the one most prominent before the public at the present time. A law to close saloons on Sundays legitimizes the business for the rest of the week; it is another form of license. All forms of business being established, with the saloon, on the same legal basis, he who opens his store or office on Sunday is equally under the ban of the law and public opinion, with the saloon, and, in the public mind will fall, similarly, under the ministerial question and denunciation,— “Are these violators of the law to be untouched by penalty? What is the refusal to obey law but anarchy?” In the Minority.
By C. P. B.
An exchange remarks that “the Independent has been gathering statistics concerning church-membership in the United States; finding an aggregate of something over twenty-one millions in a population of sixty-three millions. The Chicago Times calls attention to these statistics in view of the demand to close the Columbian Exposition on Sunday; two in three of the population not being church attendants at all, and nearly one half of the remaining third being of some liberal faith and holding very tolerant views of the use of Sunday. It says: ‘The attempt of the Sabbatarian to enforce his peculiar views on this country is the attempt of a relatively small minority to coerce a mighty multitude.’” Some will no doubt think to break the force of these figures by the assertion that the twenty-one million church members are adults, while more than one-half of the other two-thirds are children. But this is not true; the Catholics number ten millions, nearly one-half of the total church membership of the United States, and that includes men, women, and children. The Lutherans, and possibly some other denominations reckon as members all who have been baptized; thus it is safe to say that nearly, or quite, one-third of the twenty-one millions of church members in the United States are children. Were the issue squarely made between voting church members and voting non-church members, the former would certainly be hopelessly in the minority even in this “Christian” country. But even were it otherwise it would not justify the majority in forcing their religious views upon the country. The318small minority of the people of the United States who have any real religious regard for Sunday, are, as Mr. Crafts says, of the Jew and the seventh day, “left perfectly free to keep it”—that is, if they are willing to deny themselves enough to do so; if not we venture the opinion that it makes no difference whether they keep it or not. God requires heart service.