Signs of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 42. (10/25/1910)

Signs of the Times

Oct 25, 1910

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 25, 1910

Next Week

By Editor

Begins a series of interesting, informing, and helpful articles on the great book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ.

Synchronously with the above, will begin a series of Bible readings on various phases of God's truth for this time. What does the Bible say?

There will begin also other series on great phases of Bible truth, on subjects everywhere discussed. Is it not worth while to know, "Thus saith the Scripture"?

There are mighty movements now forming and in progress before our very eyes, world movements involving nations in their great on-sweep.

Some of these seem evil and are evil. Some of them, thank God, are good. Some of them seem good and are evil. Some of them seem to be of minor importance to the world, but they involve eternal principles. We can not afford to slight or ignore them. These will be considered in the light of the principles which gave them life.

The most up-to-date book in the world to-day is the Bible. The SIGNS OF THE TIMES is a Bible journal, and it will be the most up-to-date paper published during the next six months, while the above and many other articles are appearing.

(See note on last page.)

"IF YE WILL INQUIRE, INQUIRE YE."

By Editor

This Inquirer's Department is conducted for the purpose of helping those who are studying the Bible. The answers are oftentimes only suggestive. They are never to be considered infallible, only as they agree with the infallible Word. The writer who may answer them does not consider that his opinion is infallible. He will simply give the best that he has, and plead with the inquirer to search the Word. Such questions only will be answered as, to the editors, seem to minister to the good of the readers and to the mission of the paper. We can not answer repeatedly in the same volume questions upon the same scripture. The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable. No letters are answered which do not contain the name of the writer. It is well always to enclose stamp for reply.

3267.—Sons of God

A "Brooklyn Tabernacle" sermon on 1 Peter 3:19 declares that Jesus preached to fallen angels who were "the sons of God" spoken of in Gen. 6:1, 2, and that when the Flood came these spirits, or angels, dematerialized, and to them Jesus preached. Who were these "sons of God"? B.

The whole theory of the sermon in question is fanciful, and has only seeming and inferential support in the Scriptures. "Sons of God" may be used of angels, tho it is doubtful. But the term is used of man, especially man in his right relationship to God. Those who accept of Jesus Christ become "children of God," "sons and daughters" of God. John 1:12; 2 Cor. 6:18; 1 John 3:1; Rom. 8:14. Adam in his first estate is called a "son of God." Luke 3:38. This is conclusive. After man sinned, and when his progeny became more numerous, man began to divide, some following the way of men, their daughters the daughters of men, their sons the sons of men; while those, like Seth and his line, who sought God, called themselves "by the name of the Lord." Gen. 4:26, margin. Not holding to their integrity, they looked upon the idolatrous and seductive daughters of unbelievers, yielded to their charms, and took them for wives. Of course this brought backsliding and all the sad fruitage of evil seen just before the Deluge. This view of the question is natural, clear, and easily comprehended.

3268.—Identity of the Sabbath

By Editor

A correspondent asks the question as to whether we really do know which is the seventh day. The letter states: "So long as we keep one day in seven apart for God's service, we are undoubtedly fulfilling God's decrees. We know that ages long ago our day was only about four hours long, but the days are gradually and imperceptibly lengthening. The time will come when our day will equal fifty-five of our present days. . . . We educated Christians keep Sunday as the sabbath day, because it is the day most sacred and important to all Christianity, being the one upon which our Saviour rose from the dead. 'H. H. D.'"

First it is utterly unreasonable to suppose that the Lord set apart a day for man holy unto Himself, that He commanded man to observe that day, and yet that He has so overruled matters that man is all at sea as to the particular day to be observed. We do not attribute such folly to any earthly government. Shall we charge it to the Most High? But He Himself has spoken very clearly as to which day is the seventh day. Certainly it was known at creation. Twenty-five hundred years this side of the creation of man, God made it known for forty years by the threefold weekly miracle of the manna, so that men could have no excuse regarding the day. He enshrined that day and its observance in the very heart of the moral law, the Ten Commandments.

Fifteen hundred years later the Gospels themselves revealed the same day, "the Sabbath according to the commandment;" and that day comes just before the first day, and therefore must be the seventh. Ex. 20:8-11; Luke 23:56; Mark 16:1, 2. Therefore the world at the time of Christ knew which day was the Sabbath of the Lord according to the commandment, and the commandment was based on the original day and the Sabbath acts of God.

Before us is a chart prepared by a noted antiquarian, the late Rev. William Jones of London, England. It presents the week in 160 different languages and dialects, giving the name of the week and the name of the days of the week. Of the 107 Oriental languages and dialects, 71 know the seventh day by the term "Sabbath" or its equivalent. Of the 53 European languages, 37 know the seventh day by the term "Sabbath." Of the 160 different languages and dialects, 108 call the seventh day by no other term than "Sabbath" or an equivalent to that. Many of the nations represented by these languages were widely separated from each other, having no commercial or national intercourse. It is one of the strongest proofs that all the nations received and acknowledged from that same common source, the original Sabbath, the sacred character of the seventh day. The history of the experience of the Jews proves the same thing, as do also astronomical calculations. Therefore we may know which is the seventh day, and keep it according to the commandment, as did our Lord and the early disciples.

Secondly, the statement regarding the length of the day is pure speculation, one of which men know nothing, and it does not take into account at all God's overruling providence regarding His universe. But if the day were four hours long or four of our weeks long, it would not affect the Sabbath law, which does not command so many hours, but a certain day of the cycle, whatever the length of the day. Remembering this, the length of the day can have no bearing whatever upon the question.

Thirdly, if Sunday is the most sacred and important day to all Christianity, of what worth is the statement, "So long as we keep one day in seven we fulfil God's decree"? The two statements are certainly not consistent; and if the writer believes that we do meet the commandment by keeping any day of the week, what objection has he to the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, which he discountenances later on by saying, "Surely we are not going to admit the Jewish law should dominate Christianity"?

It is well to remember that all the written revelation we have from God comes to us through the Jews. God made them the depositaries of His truth, not to hold to themselves, but to give to the world. To them "pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God-blessed forever." Rom. 9:4, 5. And it is our Lord Himself that declares, "Salvation is of the Jews." John 4:22. The only hope which God gives the Gentiles at all is to abjure the world and sin and self, accept Christ, the hope of Israel, and receive adoption into the family of God. Thus they are no longer aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise. See Rom. 2:28, 29; 9:6-8; 11:17-22; Eph. 2:11-20. And the true Sabbath of the Israel of God is ever and always the seventh day. Ex. 31:17.

To set apart an institution to commemorate a work of God when God has said nothing whatever concerning it, is purely will-worship. The words of Jesus are, "Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?"

3269.— Jeremiah or Zechariah

How do you reconcile the statement in Matt. 27:9, "Spoken by Jeremy the prophet," when the quotation appears to be from Zech. 11:12? Who said this, Jeremiah or Zechariah? R. H. M.

Perhaps both. For instance, if we had a quotation from Micah 4:2-5 attributed to Isaiah, and we were unable to find the expression in Micah, we would think there might be a mistake; yet the passage in Micah referred to above and Isa. 2:2-4 are very similar indeed. Jeremiah might have said this very thing that Zechariah did, but the writing may not have come down to us. There are not a few prophecies referred to in the Old Testament which have been lost to us.

Secondly, some scholars have suggested that the last six chapters of Zechariah, 9 to 14, formed at one time the writings of Jeremiah, but when the manuscripts were gathered a mistake was made in placing them in the position they are. They think the language itself is more like Jeremiah's than Zechariah's. Zechariah repeatedly refers to "the word of the Lord" which came to him, in the first chapters. In later chapters, "the burden of the word of the Lord," which is used by Jeremiah and by none other of the prophets. Either of the above suppositions may be correct, and either would clearly explain the passage found in Matthew.

Hell

By T. B.

3270.—Hell

What is hell, and where is hell? It can not be in this earth or on this earth, because hell is a bottomless pit, but if it were on this earth it would have a bottom; and therefore it must be separate from this earth. There will be a lake of fire, and into the lake hell and death will be cast (Rev. 20:14), and this must be separate from the earth.

The word "hell," which occurs about twenty times in the New Testament, comes from three different words: Hades, meaning the grave, the place of the dead, both wicked and righteous; Gehenna, from the Hebrew of the Valley of Hinnom, a place of punishment; and once from Tartarus, the aerial or dark regions surrounding this world, where the angels were said to have been cast. 2 Peter 2:4. But in every case these expressions pertain to this earth, and all the references to which our friend refers have to do with this earth. As far as the bottomless pit is concerned, referred to in Revelation 20 and elsewhere, it comes from the same Greek term as does the word "deep" in Gen. 1:2 in the Septuagint. That word is abussos. It simply means a dark, void, or empty place, and in Revelation 20 it refers to this earth in its desolate condition when men are destroyed from the face of it by the burning glory of Christ's second coming. At the end of the thousand years, the earth becomes a lake of fire, the wicked are raised from the dead, and with the devil and his angels are cast into the lake of fire. That lake of fire is upon this earth, for then will be fulfilled what is predicted by the apostle Peter in the third chapter of his second epistle, "The elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up." Into the burning mass will be cast everything that is identified with sin, and with it death and hell, or the grave—hades—shall perish forever. Then as the apostle declares, "We, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth." But the creative power of God will bring the earth forth from her fiery cleansing, clean swept from sin, and restore it to its primitive beauty, to be the home of God's children forever. "The righteous shall be recompensed in the earth: much more the wicked and the sinner." "The meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace."

3271.—The Undying Worm

By Editor

Will you please explain in your question page Mark 9:44, 46, 48? What worm is this? It seems to be different from the one spoken of in Isa. 14:11.

The worm in this scripture is used as a symbol of absolute and complete destruction. See answer to Question No. 3263 in the SIGNS of October 18. The worm of Isa. 14:11 is indicative of the same thing, destruction having reference to worms which prey upon the carcasses of the dead.

Maryland or Rhode Island, Which?

By W. A. Colcord

A Mooted Question Considered

To Virginia unquestionably — thanks to the influence and untiring efforts of Jefferson, Madison, the Baptists, Quakers, and Presbyterians — belongs the honor of first dis-establishing religion in America. But to which colony, Maryland or Rhode Island, belongs the honor of first establishing a commonwealth upon the principle of entire separation of church and state, is a mooted question.

Referring to Maryland's being founded by Roman Catholics, Bishop Spaulding, of Peoria, in the North American Review for September, 1894, says, "They founded one of the thirteen colonies, and were the first in the New World — the first, indeed, in all the world — to make freedom of conscience an organic part of the constitution of a state."

On the other hand, Governor Hopkins, as quoted in David Benedict's "History of the Baptists" (1848), page 446, speaking for Rhode Island, says, "Roger Williams justly claims the honor of having been the first legislator in the world that fully and effectually provided for and established a free, full, and absolute liberty of conscience." And Sidney S. Rider, in his work "Soul Liberty Rhode Island's Gift to the Nation," page 85, styles Rhode Island "the first commonwealth in the New World, the first in the world, to make soul liberty the basis of a constitution for a state."

Conflicting and opposed as are these claims, Montgomery, in his "Beginner's American History," edition 1902, appears to sanction both. On pages 58 and 59 he says: "Maryland was different from the other English colonies in America, because

there, and there only, every Christian, whether Catholic or Protestant, had the right to worship God in his own way. In that humble little village of St. Mary's, made up of thirty or forty log huts and wigwams in the woods, religious liberty had its only home in the wide world;" while on page 65 of the same book he says, "Providence was the first settlement in America which offered a home to all men without asking them anything whatever about their religion."

So eminent an authority as Bancroft, in the earlier editions of his "History of the United States," stated that the Maryland proprietary "adopted religious freedom as the basis of the state," and said that here

"religious liberty obtained a home, its only home in the wide world," and "conscience was without restraint." (Edition 1837, Vol. 1, pages 244, 247, 254.) In later editions, however, while not denying that a wide and generous toleration characterized the early Maryland administration, these statements are omitted, and the declaration made that Roger Williams "was the first person in modern Christendom to establish civil government on the doctrine of the liberty of conscience." (Edition 1888, the author's last revision, pages 161, 162.)

What Are the Facts?

What are the facts, and how are we to understand these conflicting claims?

That there was large freedom in religion in the early history of the Maryland colony, and an absence of religious persecution from its founding in 1634, seems evident. That the proprietary, intent on advancing the interests of his colony, invited the Puritans of Massachusetts to Maryland, offering them lands and privileges, and "free liberty of

religion;" and that certain Puritans, expelled from Virginia for non-conformity to the established religion of that colony, found refuge in Maryland in 1649, are facts plainly stated by Bancroft. (Vol. 1, pages 165, 169.) "It is true," says Montgomery in his "Leading Facts of American History," edition 1902, page 105, "that Lord Baltimore, holding his charter, as he did, from the Protestant sovereign of a Protestant nation, could not have safely denied liberty of worship to Protestants; but it is also true that he evidently had no desire in his heart to deny such liberty. The fact that he invited Puritans into the colony and protected them from persecution, shows the man's true spirit."

Until 1625, or within nine years of the founding of the colony of Maryland, Lord Baltimore was himself a Protestant. ("Soul Liberty Rhode Island's Gift to the Nation," pages 11, 12.) He was "a man of such moderation," says Bancroft, "that all parties were taken with him." His chief object in founding the colony, it appears, was commercial and mercenary, rather than religious. From the first, there was a "mixed population," Bancroft informs us, and while "the administration was in the hands of Catholics," "the very great majority of the people were Protestants." (Vol. 1, page 166.) Under such circumstances it is not strange that toleration should exist.

Church and State Not Separate in Maryland

It is not true, however, that the colony was founded upon the principle of total separation of church and state and absolute freedom in matters of religion for all men, as was Rhode Island; or that the early laws of the colony were free from all religious interference and bias. The charter obtained by Lord Baltimore 1632, provided that "no interpretation be admitted thereof by which

God's holy and true Christian religion, or the allegiance due unto us, our heirs, and successors, may suffer any prejudice or diminution." (Hazard's "Historical Collection of State Papers," 1792, Vol. 1, page 327.) This would at least seem to imply or anticipate a favored, if not an established, religion, and state control or supervision of that religion. And one of the first acts of the Maryland Assembly of 1639, reads, "Holy church within this province shall have all her rights, liberties, and immunities safe, whole, and inviolable, in all things." ("Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland, 1637-1664," page 40.)

In 1649 an act containing the following provision, was passed by the Maryland Assembly:

"And whereas the enforcing of the conscience in matters of religion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in those commonwealths where it hath been practised, and for the more quiet and peaceable government of this province, and the better to preserve mutual love and amity among the inhabitants, no person within this province, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall be in any wise troubled, molested, or discountenanced, for his or her religion, or in the free exercise thereof."—Bancroft, Vol. 1, page 168.

Roger Williams Statue, Providence, Rhode Island

While undoubtedly designed to protect freedom of conscience, Bancroft observes that this "clause for liberty in Maryland, which extended only to Christians, was introduced by the proviso that 'whatsoever person shall blaspheme God, or shall deny or reproach the Holy Trinity, or any of the three Persons thereof, shall be punished with death.'" Under the enforcement of such a law, Unitarians, Jews, and unbelievers generally, as well as the profane, would certainly fare hard.

The same law further provided that "whatsoever person or persons shall from henceforth use or utter any reproachful words, or speeches, concerning the blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of our Saviour, or the holy apostles, or evangelists, or any of them, shall in such case for the first offense forfeit to the said Lord Proprietary and his heirs, the sum of five pounds sterling." ("Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland, 1637-1664," page 244.) This sounds very much like a law of a religious establishment, and that, too, of the Roman Catholic Church.

Such provisions show beyond question that the government of Maryland did assume control over religious matters, and that however much toleration there was in the colony, freedom of conscience was not an organic part of its constitution.

How about Rhode Island?

But not so Rhode Island. There, says Montgomery:

"From the beginning entire freedom of conscience was given to every settler. Maryland had granted such liberty to all Christians, but the colony of Providence did not limit it,—not Protestants and Catholics only, but Jews—yes, unbelievers even were protected, and thus men of all religions and of no religion were safe from molestation so long as they behaved themselves. In all other colonies in America [Maryland included], as in every country of Europe, the government favored some particular worship, and in some

degree compelled people to maintain it and conform to it. But here there was nothing of the kind. Roger Williams first laid down and put in actual practise what we may call the American principle—that is, that government has nothing whatever to do with the control of religious belief."—"Leading Facts of American History," page 110.

In 1631, three years before the ships of Lord Baltimore left the shores of England for Maryland, Roger Williams, at Salem, Massachusetts, set forth the doctrine "that man is accountable to his Maker alone for his religious opinions and practises, and is en-

titled to unrestrained liberty to maintain and enjoy them." ("Memoir of Roger Williams," by James D. Knowles, page 48.) This is the doctrine for which he was banished from Massachusetts, and which he took with him to Rhode Island, in 1636, and made the Magna Charta of that colony. To state the matter plainly, religious liberty with Roger Williams was a principle; with Lord Baltimore, a matter of policy.

Roger Williams Praying in Rhode Island Forest

A "Lively Experiment"

In two petitions for a new charter, presented to Charles II in 1662, Mr. Williams stated that the people of his colony had it much in their hearts "to hold forth a lively experiment that the most flourishing civil state may stand, yea, and best be main-

tained, with full liberty in religious concernments." ("State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations," by Edward Field, Vol. I, page 101.) It was Rhode Island, therefore, and not Maryland, that was making this "lively experiment."

The Rhode Island charter granted by King Charles the next year, in response to these petitions, said:

"Our royal will and pleasure is that no person within the said colony, at any time hereafter, shall be anywise molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any differences in opinion in matters of religion, . . . any law, statute, . . . usage, or custom of this realm to the contrary hereof, in any wise, notwithstanding."—Ibid., page 104.

Rhode Island had gained what the mother country did not possess herself—religious liberty. No such petitions nor charter relation to any other American colony can be found.

And in "America Dissected" (Dublin, 1753), page 31, Rev. James MacSparran, complaining of Rhode Island, says:

"In all the other colonies the law lays an obligation to go to some sort of worship on Sunday; but here liberty of conscience is carried to an irreligious extreme."

This again singles out Rhode Island as the one and only colony in which there was perfect freedom in matters of religion.

Not a Catholic Doctrine

That there was a large measure of freedom in Maryland need not be denied; but that there was absolute separation of church and state there, or that this is a principle held or advocated generally by the Roman Catholic Church, is not true. Sixty-two years before the founding of the Maryland colony, in 1572, occurred the massacre of

St. Bartholomew, in which the attempt was made to extirpate all Protestants in France. Fifty-one years after the settlement of the colony, in October, 1685, the Edict of Nantes was revoked, and every Protestant who could leave Europe fled to America. And at the very time when the colony was being planted, thousands of men and women in Spain and elsewhere in Europe were sent to prison, banished, or burned at the stake solely for what the Catholic Church

pronounced "heresy" in matters of religion.

The strong claims made during recent years by Catholic writers concerning Maryland would seem to imply an endorsement on the part of the Roman Catholic Church of the principles of separation of church and state and religious freedom; but the utterances of the latest prelates of the Roman see, like those of more ancient times, convey no such impression. Thus, in his letter addressed to the bishops of France, dated February 11, 1906, Pope Pius X, the latest pope, says:

"That it is necessary to separate church and state is a thesis absolutely false,—a most pernicious error. Based in fact upon the principle that the state ought not to recognize any religious faith, it is, to begin with, deeply insulting to God; for the Creator of man is also the founder of human societies, and He maintains them as He does us. We owe Him therefore, not only private worship, but also a public and social worship in His praise." —"Readings in Modern European History," by Professors James Harvey Robinson and Charles A. Beard, of Columbia University, New York, page 229.

In his encyclical on "Human Liberty" (Libertas), of June 20, 1888, Pope Leo XIII said:

"Since the state ought to have a religion, it ought to profess that which is alone true and which in Catholic countries is especially recognizable. . . . It follows from what precedes that it is nowise permitted to demand, defend, or grant liberty of thought, or of the press, of teaching, or of religion, as well as many other rights which man may be supposed to have by nature."—"Life and Labors of Pope Leo XIII," by Charles de T'Serclaes, edited by Maurice Francis Egan, pages 184, 187.

And in his "Encyclical to France," of February 16, 1892, the same pope speaks of "the false principle of separation" of church and state. (Ibid., page 353.)

In the Syllabus of Pope Pius IX, issued December 8, 1864, the following, among the eighty propositions enumerated, were condemned as "errors of our time":

"15. Every man is free to embrace and profess the religion he believes true, guided by the light of reason." "24. The church has not the power of availing herself of force or any direct or indirect temporal power." "55. The church ought to be separate from the state, and the state from the church." "57. Civil laws may and must be independent of divine and ecclesiastical authority." "77. In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion shall be held as the only religion of the state, or to the exclusion of all other modes of worship. "78. Whence it has been wisely provided by law, in some countries called Catholic, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own worship."—"The Papacy and the Civil Power," by R. W. Thompson, pages 729-735.

These propositions are condemned as errors. Their opposites, therefore, must be the position and teaching of the church represented. And this is true even in the United States. In his work "Faith of Our Fathers," page 269, Cardinal Gibbons sets forth the following approvingly:

"Religious liberty may be tolerated by a ruler when it would do more harm to the state or to the community to repress it."

And he adds:

"This is the true Catholic teaching on this point, according to Bacanus and all Catholic theologians."

Think of an American talking about "tolerating" religious liberty?

In his book "Maryland the Land of Sanctuary," Rev. William T. Russell, while maintaining that in Maryland "religious liberty gained its first foothold among the nations of the earth" (page 1), and that "the glory of Maryland is derived from its generous custom of religious toleration" (pages 310, 311), nevertheless, in harmony with Cardinal Gibbons, teaches that "a Catholic ruler

is justified in granting a limited religious liberty . . . when to refuse religious liberty would be more injurious than to grant it" (page 7); and says that "the closer the union between the civil and religious authority, as long as each aids the other, and neither encroaches upon the domain of the other, the better will it be for both" (page 6). Think of an American citizen and author intimating that for a ruler to grant religious liberty would be "injurious"! And in a sermon on "Catholic Tolerance in America," delivered in St. Patrick's Church, Washington, D. C., May 4, 1910, Mr. Russell further said:

"The state can not afford to permit religious liberty. We hear a great deal about religious tolerance, but we are only tolerant in so far as we are not interested. A person may be tolerant toward a religion if he is not religious. . . . Intolerance means fervor and zeal. The best the state can do is to establish a limited religious liberty; but beyond a certain degree of tolerance the state can not afford to admit the doctrine."—Washington Post, May 5, 1910.

An editorial in the Western Watchman of August 25, 1910, a leading Catholic paper of the country, published at St. Louis, styles a union of church and state in any country, "the ideal relation." It further says:

"We have no union of church and state in this country for the simple reason that our state is not Christian; and the church can not be yoked to an unchristian commonwealth."

An Inconsistent Claim

There is little consistency, therefore, in the claim put forth by Catholic writers that to the Catholic Church is due the honor of first establishing in the world a state founded upon the principles of religious liberty, while the testimony, both ancient and modern, is so abundant that this is not and never has been a Catholic doctrine, and while these same writers themselves stand for a union of church and state and the right to be intolerant. If religious freedom was a good thing in Maryland, why would it not be a good thing in every land? If "the glory of Maryland is derived from its generous custom of religious toleration," why would not the exercise of this same kind of toleration bring glory to every other country in the world? And if placing all denominations upon anything like an equality before the law was a good thing in Maryland, and the Catholic Church really approves of this there, why would it not be a good thing in every other civil government in the world, and why does not the Catholic Church approve of it at the present time in France and Spain, for instance?

Inconsistent Protestants

Nor are Protestants who stand for religious legislation and state interference in matters of religion, less inconsistent. Largely through their influence, and contrary to one of the fundamental principles of Protestantism, there have been placed upon the statute-books of nearly every state in the Union, Rhode Island included, laws for the compulsory observance of Sunday. Says Rev.

W. F. Crafts, in the Christian Statesman of July 3, 1890:

"During nearly all our American history THE CHURCHES HAVE INFLUENCED THE STATES to make and improve Sabbath laws."

And they are now trying to "influence" the United States Government itself to make this same kind of laws. The inconsistency of their efforts in this direction was noted by Rev. Thomas F. Cashman, a Catholic priest of Chicago, a few years ago. He said:

"The position of coercion taken by so many of the Protestant clergy—the position that, altho they are admittedly in a hopeless minority of all the people of these United States, they would compel all the rest of us to accept of their Sunday dogmas by recourse to law and other methods—is a grievous departure from their old battle-cry of civil and religious liberty."—Chicago Evening Journal, April 8, 1893.

To the extent that Maryland declared for or practised religious freedom, let all due honor and credit be given; but to Rhode Island, rather than to Maryland or to any other of the thirteen original colonies, must we look for a state founded, from its very beginning, upon the principle of absolute liberty of conscience and separation of church and state. Speaking of Rhode Island, Montgomery says, "Not a single blot of religious persecution rests on the fair pages of the history of the colony." ("Leading Facts of American History," page 111.) This can not be said of Maryland. Within recent years, under its Sunday laws, have occurred numerous prosecutions of conscientious observers of the seventh day, with fines and imprisonments following.

While the statute-books of Rhode Island, even from an early date (1679, four years before the death of Roger Williams), have been blemished with laws against Sunday labor and "breakers of the Sabbath" (see present Sunday law), and an alleged law of 1663-64, excluding Roman Catholics from office,—tho this last has been declared an evident "interpolation" by those who have carefully investigated the matter, as it appears first in a code called the "Revision of 1745," and no record of its passage can be found when it was said to have been enacted (see Armitage's "History of the Baptists," pages 650-652),—the fact still remains that the colony was established upon right principles, and that, as yet, few if any prosecutions of men for conscience' sake have disgraced the state. To Rhode Island, therefore, rather than to Maryland, must be accorded the honor of first founding a commonwealth upon right principles.

Continue reading: God's Commands Require Perfect Obedience