The American Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 19. (6/5/1889)

The American Sentinel

Jun 5, 1889

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 5, 1889

"The Secular Theory of Education."

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

THURSDAY morning, April 25, Rev. David McAllister, of Pittsburg, delivered an address upon the above subject before the National Reform Convention assembled at that place. In beginning he referred to a paper that had just been read on "The Romish Assault on the Common Schools," stating that his address came in very appropriately after that topic, for the reason, as he said, that "when this assault is understood by multitudes of our citizens, they can see no way of meeting it except by the secular theory of education." He then proceeded as follows:—

“What commands my respect for the Catholics is this, that they maintain that education cannot be complete when that education ignores religion. They are on the right ground there. Man is a religious as well as an intellectual being, and no scheme of education, whether by the family, or the church, or the State, is worthy the name that ignores the higher part of man’s nature. The only mistake with Romanists is this, that the religion which they insist upon is the religion of Romanists. No other religion will they have. They won’t accept the principles that are common to Romanism with Protestantism, for there are such principles. They won’t allow these to be taught, for they maintain that any system of religion that leaves out what they regard as essential is utterly defective, and heresy is to be condemned, and heretics who embrace it are to be persecuted.”

There are several points about this paragraph which we wish to notice. We are willing to admit that a man is not perfectly developed whose education does not embrace the moral and the physical as well as the purely intellectual. But that does not prove that it is the duty of the State to educate him in all of these principles. Indeed, it is an open question with leading educators how far the State should go in education on even a secular basis. There are not a few who maintain that the State should teach nothing except the common English branches, leaving all scientific and classical studies to be provided for by the individual himself, or by his guardians. Certainly then the statement that man is a religious as well as an intellectual being,—that no scheme of education is complete that ignores the higher branch of man’s nature,—proves nothing whatever as to how or by whom this higher part should be educated. We hold that it is not the province of the State to furnish religious education of any kind whatever; that for the State to get into the business of teaching religion is directly opposed to our Government, in that it involves class legislation. There are so many conflicting views concerning religion, and the public schools cannot by any possibility teach them all, so that if the State should go into the business of religious education it would be obliged to discriminate between a large class of citizens as worthy as those who are favored.

Again, note Mr. McAllister’s statement that the only mistake with the Romanist idea of education is that the religion upon which they insist is the religion of Romanists. In this they are perfectly consistent, and nobody can justly find any fault with them for it. Protestants who are worthy of the name must take a similar position, and insist that whatever religion is taught their children, whether by the State or otherwise, shall be none but the Protestant religion. But by this token we know that National Reformers are not Protestants, because they are willing to join with Romanists. It is true that Mr. McAllister wishes to compromise, having the State teach such branches as are common to both Protestants and Romanists; but he might as well go right over to the Catholic Church at once; for when he begs the State to teach the principles of the Christian religion, and says that the principles which he desires to have taught are only those which are common to both Protestants and Romanists, he shows that in his mind there are no distinctive features of Protestantism, as compared with Romanism, that are worthy of being held.

Now let us see where this will lead to. The Romanist will not consent to any such fusion. He thinks that the principles of his religion which differ from Protestantism are vital, and he will not consent that they shall be ignored. In this he is consistent. The only reason why he remains a Romanist is because he regards his religion as superior to Protestantism. But Mr. McAllister, speaking for the National Reform Association, is not so strenuous in regard to his religion. He is willing to drop every feature that is different from Catholicism. The one point upon which Romanists and National Reformers are agreed is that the State shall support religious teaching. Now since the Romanists are decided in their convictions, and refuse to compromise their religion, while the National Reformers are willing to compromise, it is very evident that the stronger and more decided party will carry the day. That is, when National Reformers see that they cannot have religion taught by the State without joining with Catholics, and that the Catholics will not yield, they will compromise, not simply on those principles that are common to Protestantism and Romanism, but on Romanism pure and simple. That this will be the result is further evident from a statement made in the Christian Statesman of August 31, 1881, by the Rev. Sylvester F. Scovel, who, speaking of the desire of the National Reformers to secure the co-operation of Roman Catholics, said:—

“We may be subjected to some rebuffs in our first proffers, and the time has not yet come when the Roman Church will consent to strike hands with other churches as such; but the time is come to make repeated advances, and gradually to accept co-operation in any form in which they may be willing to exhibit it. It is one of the necessities of the situation.”

Now no matter how ardently the Roman Catholics might desire religious education by the State, they would be very foolish to yield a single principle in their religion in order to gain it, when they can see clearly by such statements as this, that by remaining firm they can bring professed Protestants to their position. When the National Reformers say that they are willing to make repeated advances, and to endure repeated rebuffs, and will gladly accept co-operation in any form in which the Roman Church exhibits it, all the Roman Church has to do is to wait. She is well assured that the National Reformers will keep up their wooing, and she is sure of gaining all that she may exact from so ardent a suitor. National Reformers may deny that their scheme, if successful, will make Romanism the ruling power in this country; but their denials amount to nothing in the face of such statements as those of Mr. Scovel and Dr. McAllister.

In saying this we would not have anyone think that we objected to the National Reform scheme just because it will result in Roman supremacy. We would just as soon see the State enforce the Catholic religion as the Protestant religion. Not but what we have decided convictions in matters of religion, but we have no choice as to what religion the State shall enforce, if it is to enforce any. The Protestant religion united with the State would be no better than Mohammedism. It is the union of Church and State that we protest against. It was by such protesting that Protestantism originated. He who does not protest against such a union is not a Protestant; and when so-called Protestantism is enforced by the State, it ceases to be Protestantism. The reason why we make so much of the statements of National Reformers, both direct and indirect, that they are willing to join hands with Romanists, and of the fact that Romanism will thereby be supreme in the State, is that we thus show clearly that their scheme does embrace the union of Church and State; because Romanism is avowedly in favor of a Church and State union, with the Church as senior partner.

This one point is sufficient to condemn Mr. McAllister’s entire speech. We might well leave the article here for the present, but will call attention to one little absurdity. Dr. McAllister said:—

“I might pursue at considerable length a line of argument that has become very familiar with the National Reformers; but I will only revert to it very briefly. It is this: The great mistake that is made by secularists is in comparing the State itself to any mere business association. Secular education rests upon the social compact theory of government—a theory that has been exploded long ago. The best political papers do not entertain it for a moment. There is something back of the social compact theory. Men come together and make a covenant, and there is a compact. You cannot have a compact without the Nation, and there must be a Nation behind the compact. It is the Nation itself that makes the compact. The duties of government are laid upon it. Here is the being that is to undertake the work of education.”

Let us make a parallel. Here is a railroad company. A number of men have come together and made a compact, or agreement. They mutually pledge themselves to work together in this line of business, and thus they form a company. They secure a charter and become a corporation. Now we may say there can be no charter without a corporation, therefore the corporation must be behind the charter; but anyone can see that that is nonsense. The corporation does not exist till they form it by mutual agreement We would like to get Mr. McAllister to define what a Nation is. He says a Nation is there before the compact, that there must be a Nation behind the compact. But a Nation is not a mere aggregation of individuals, although there can be no Nation without people. Ten million people thrown together promiscuously within a certain territory, each one independent of everybody else, would not be a Nation. They become a Nation only when they unite their interests, and covenant together for mutual protection, and agree upon certain officers to execute their wishes. But according to the National Reform idea there has been a Nation stalking around this American continent from time immemorial, waiting for centuries for people to settle in order that it might make a compact with them, and have people to carry out its designs. Surely, if the National Reform scheme were not inherently wicked, the absurdities into which intelligent men are obliged to run in order to foster it, should consign it to oblivion. But people love to be humbugged.

E. J. W.

The Peril of Apathy

MANY who avow opposition to the Church and State scheme of the National Reformers feel so confident that the measure can never be carried in this country, that they look upon all effort to counteract the movement as superfluous. Herein, to a great extent, lies the strength of the Amendment party; and when the wicked work shall have been carried to a successful end, the people will have an opportunity to look back upon their lost liberties as largely the result of apathy and indifference.

Vanderbilt and Sunday Traffic

SUNDAY traffic on the New York Central Railroad has been reduced about fifty per cent., and the Christian Union says that “the thanks of the religious community are especially due to Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose persistent urgency in this matter has at length borne fruit.”

We fail, however, to see that Mr. Vanderbilt is entitled to the thanks of anybody, for in view of the fact that the change makes a material reduction in the monthly pay-roll, without reducing the business of the road, it seems plain that he was not influenced altogether, if at all, by either religion or philanthropy. We suppose, however, that he is now eligible to become one of the vice-presidents of the National Reform Association.

Prohibitionists and Religious Intimidation

The Christian Union of May 9 indulges in the somewhat favorite pastime of giving good advice to the Prohibitionists, especially in Massachusetts. It says:—

“One cause of the reaction in Massachusetts has been the endeavor by some very unwise Prohibitionists to coerce temperance men into voting against their convictions, by charging them with being the allies of the liquor sellers if they vote according to their convictions. The American people are not easily bull-dozed, and of all the American people the people of Massachusetts are the least subject to bulldozing.”

We do not know how true all this is; but we do know that the tactics which the Christian Union charges upon the Massachusetts Prohibitionists are just the tactics which are everywhere adopted to frighten timid people into the support of Sunday laws and other measures of religious legislation. Indeed, it seems to be “just the thing to do” for these zealous “reformers” to charge that all who oppose them are in league with infidels and liquor dealers.

Let Moral Government Remain Moral.

By Alonzo T. Jones

THE eighth Wisconsin district of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union passed this resolution:—

“WHEREAS, God would have all men honor the Son even as they honor the Father; and, “WHEREAS, The civil law which Christ gave from Sinai is the only perfect law, and the only law that will secure the rights of all classes; therefore, “Resolved, That civil government should recognize Christ as the moral Governor, and his law as the standard of legislation.”

What does a civil government want with a moral governor? civil governments have only civil governors; moral governors belong only with moral governments; there cannot be a civil governor in a moral government; nor can there be a moral governor of a civil government. But this is not all; that resolution says, “The civil law which Christ gave from Sinai,” etc. But the law which Christ gave from Sinai was not a civil law at all; it is the moral law; it is the law of the Government of God. If that law is a civil law, then God is only a civil governor, and there is no such a thing in this universe as moral government, or moral law, and no such thing as morality, no conduct can go deeper than civility, and no obligations can rest upon men beyond the restraint of outward actions.

This is the logic of that resolution; this is precisely the mistake that was made by the Pharisees in the time of Christ. “The moral law was generally applied as the civil law, not to the acts of the spirit, but to the acts of the body. It was applied to the external conduct of men, not to the internal life. If there was conformity to the letter of the law in external manners, there was a fulfillment, in the eyes of the Jew and the Gentile, of the highest claims that God or man held upon the spirit. No matter how dark and damning were the exercises of the soul; if it only kept its sin in its own habitation, and did not develop it in action, the penalty of the law was not laid to its charge. The character of the spirit itself might be criminal, and all its exercises of thought and feeling sensual and selfish, yet if it added hypocrisy to its guilt, and maintained an outward conformity to the law—a conformity itself produced by selfishness—man judged himself, and others adjudged him, guiltless.”

But Christ came as the instructor and exemplar in morality; the law which he gave from Sinai he carried to the thoughts and intents of the heart,—laid bare the soul itself before the great moral eye of the universe; “flashed the light of the divine law upon the awful secrets known only to the soul itself,” and showed that these it is that constitute the transgression of the law of God. In this system of government that is advocated by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the National Reform Association, and in principles sustained by the whole Sunday-law movement, there is just such an attempt to reduce the moral law only to the level of outward actions—make it only a standard of civility—as there was by the Pharisees to whom Christ spoke, and to whom he said, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and the platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”

This is the only condition to which men ever can be brought by the application of the law from Sinai as a civil law, making it the standard of civil government.

Such ideas as are here embodied in this resolution, and such resolutions as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union adopted, and such work as they do in this line, will never do. The women of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and all other people, want to understand that civil government is civil, and not moral; that civil government is based only upon civil law and is governed only by civil governors; that it does not aim at securing morality, but only civility. Such confused ideas of government and law divine and human, moral and civil, clearly show that the women of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union are not in any sense fit to be trusted with the ballot, or with the legislative power in any degree. That these confused views of government and law prevail to such an extent as they do, even amongst men who have the ballot and the legislative power committed to them ought to awaken every American citizen to the most sober consideration of the fundamental principles of American liberties,—which are the true liberties of man.

A. T. J.

Who Are Religious Persecutors?

By W. N. Glenn.

AMONG Protestants, in the past, such terms as “Papal,” “Romish,” etc., were synonyms of all that was intolerant. In other words, the Catholic Church has received credit for about all the bitter persecutions that have ever been heaped upon doctrinal opponents. And because of this quite general impression, erroneous as it is, people are wont to rest in utter unconcern as to any danger of religious persecution in this country, where the Catholics are not at liberty to openly manifest their traditional characteristics.

It is, therefore, supposed by many to be safe, yea, even expedient, to trust all civil and religious authority in the hands of Protestant religionists in the United States. And a very extensive and aggressive movement is on foot to carry out such a scheme. Because of this prevalent delusion it is well to note some of the tendencies of religious

individuals and sects outside of the Catholic Church, when clothed with secular power.

All students of history, as well as many merely casual readers, are familiar with the tyrannical and intolerant sway of the Covenanters and Presbyterians in Great Britain, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It may not be generally understood, but it is a fact, that the Reformed Presbyterians in the United States boast of being the only conservators of the principles of the Scottish Covenanters. Of course they are Protestants, as their religious progenitors, of whom John Knox was a leader, taught that it was right to disfranchise Catholics, and even to put them to death.

This church is leader in the movement to secure a religious amendment to the Constitution of the United States, enforcing by law what it deems the principles of the Christian religion. And representative men, including Conferences, Presbyteries, and other general bodies of the leading denominations, have joined hands with them in the work. Now no man, or set of men, ever earnestly solicits a law which they do not expect to have enforced,—and enforced at all hazards. And it is impossible that they should contend for a law against a strong element of opposition for a quarter of a century without some idea of what would be necessary in order to enforce it. Therefore, persistence in the effort means, in case of success, persistence on the part of the Government in the execution, at whatever cost. In support of this position, I quote the following sentiment from one of the most active leaders in the movement here alluded to. He says:—

“Whether the Constitution will be set right on the question of the moral supremacy of God’s law in the Government without a bloody revolution, will depend entirely upon the strength and resistance of the forces of antichrist.”

This National Reform Association, which is a wheel within the Reformed Presbyterian wheel, is well aware, from its experience of twenty-five years in the direct advocacy of its pet scheme, that there will be strong opposition to the measure. Knowing this, they deliberately plan to meet it; and expecting, through any and every means, to eventually succeed in becoming a majority in the land, they openly avow their intentions. The president of this society’s Prayer League says to opponents:—

“You look for trouble in this land in the future, if these principles are applied. I think it will come to you if you maintain your present position. . . . If, through prejudice or the enmity of unregenerate hearts, you have determined to oppose the progress of this Nation in fulfilling its vocation as an instrument in the divine work of regenerating human society, you may rightly expect trouble. It will be sure to come to you.”

Another apostle of National Reform, as advocated by this religio-political association, says:—

“There ought to be a mighty army ready to pour out treasure and blood, if need be, to vindicate the authority of Christ. The Bible should be adopted as a standard to decide questions of political life, to decide between right and wrong. The idea of a divine law and a divine Christ should be forced into politics.”

And still another declaration of intention indorsed by that body is thus expressed:—

“Those who oppose this work now will discover, when the religious amendment is made to the Constitution, that if they do not see fit to fall in with the majority, they must abide the consequences, or seek some more congenial clime.”

According to the express acknowledgment, yea, the boast, of those who are endeavoring to have their faith incorporated in the fundamental law of the land, when they shall have attained their end they will use the utmost power of the Government—if need be, “a mighty army ready to pour out treasure and blood”—in order to compel all to accept their peculiar religious faith. And this is so-called Protestantism. Now we have it plainly set before us, that opening the way for religious legislation in our free country means radical persecution for all dissenters from the established faith. And this notwithstanding the fact that Protestants are the instigators of the scheme, and expect to be the executors of the law. Let no one be deluded by the seductive idea that this is a Protestant move and can bode no danger. Beware of the religious clan that seeks political power. Human nature is the same in all ages, and in all religious sects.

W. N. GLENN.

A True National Reform Government.

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

In the Century of April, 1888, Mr. George Kennan had an article on “Russian Penal Code,” from which in the August SENTINEL we copied what it had to say on the subject of religion. In that it was shown clearly that the Russian Government, with all its tyranny and intolerance, is the very kind of government that the National Reformers are working for. In the April Century, this present year, Mr. Kennan gives us a view of the workings of the Russian police department, in which is shown very clearly the working of National Reform principles. The following extract from the article will enable the reader to judge for himself:—

“The police, with the Minister of the Interior at their head, control, by means of passports, the movements of all the inhabitants of the empire; they keep thousands of suspects constantly under surveillance; they ascertain and certify to the courts the liabilities of bankrupts; they conduct pawnbrokers’ sales of unredeemed pledges; they give certificates of identity to pensioners and all other persons who need them; they superintend repairs of roads and bridges; they exercise supervision over all theatrical performances, concerts, tableaux, theater programs, posters, and street advertisements; they collect statistics, enforce sanitary regulations, make searches and seizures in private houses, read the correspondence of suspects, take charge of the bodies of persons found dead, ‘admonish’ church-members who neglect too long to partake of the Holy Communion, and enforce obedience to thousands of multifarious orders and regulations intended to promote the welfare of the people or to insure the safety of the State. The legislation relating to the police fills more than five thousand sections in the Svod Zakónof, or collection of Russian laws, and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that in the peasant villages, away from the centers of education and enlightenment, the police are the omnipresent and omnipotent regulators of all human conduct—a sort of incompetent bureaucratic substitute for divine Providence.”

“In order to give the readers of the Century an idea of the nature and infinite variety of the transactions regulated in Russia by the Government through the police, I will quote, almost at random, the titles or subjects of a few of the circular letters of instructions sent by the Minister of the Interior to the governors of various Russian provinces between 1880 and 1884. They are as follows:— “1. To regulate religious instruction in secular schools. “2. Concerning measures to be taken to prevent horse stealing. “3. Concerning a list of dramas that are unconditionally permitted to be put on the stage. “4. To prohibit the sale of Shimanski’s Pills. “5. To prohibit peasants from cutting young birch trees with which to decorate churches and houses on holidays. “6. Prescribing the manner in which the censor shall supervise the reports and accounts of private societies. “7. Concerning a removal of the restrictions upon the transportation of rendered tallow. “8. Concerning personal identification marks in the passports of Jews. “9. To regulate the use of mineral waters by sick or wounded officers of the army. “10. Concerning an order for the sale of all grain by weight instead of by measure. “11. Setting forth the circumstances under which, and the times at which, the police and other employes of the Ministry of the Interior can wear white linen covers on their caps. “12. Concerning the question who has the right to collect subscriptions in the empire for the holy places in Palestine. “13. To abolish the long chains used for the purpose of chaining together marching criminals in gangs of six. “14. To regulate printing on the paper of cigarettes. “15. Concerning the prohibition, at meetings of provincial assemblies and town councils, of the expressions of such opinions or judgments as may, from their nature, lie outside the limits of the jurisdiction of such bodies. “16. Concerning an order prohibiting the emigration of dissenters to the Trans-Caucasus. “17. Concerning regulations for the proper construction of houses in peasant villages. “18. To control and regulate the transportation of animal bones. “19. To regulate advertisements of medicines. “20. Forbidding the use of all school-books and appliances of instruction not approved by the Minister of the Interior and the ecclesiastical authorities. “21. Concerning the proper method of measuring the legs of recruits for the army. “22. Concerning meetings of school-teachers. “23. Prescribing the manner in which permission shall be obtained for concerts, readings, theatrical performances, and other public entertainments. “24. To require printers to send to the Department of Police copies of all newspapers, magazines, and almanacs printed by them. “25. To prevent the sale of quinine that is not of good quality. “26. To regulate the censorship of price-lists, printed notes of invitation, and visiting cards. “27. Concerning the construction of water-closets according to the removal or barrel system. “28. Providing for the censorship of the seals, rubber stamps, and cards of private individuals and business corporations. “29. To regulate begging for ecclesiastical institutions and for the holy places in Palestine. “30. To regulate the sale by apothecaries of certain ‘cosmetics’—namely, soap, starch, brilliantine, tooth-brushes, and insect powder.”

“These are only a few of the countless thousands of orders, directions, and regulations that come within the jurisdiction of the imperial police. Of course they are not all carried into effect. The enforcement of such a multitude of prohibitions and restrictions, affecting every province of human life, is beyond the power of any one man or any set of men; but whether they are enforced or not, they operate constantly as a bar to individual enterprise, a network to restrain every free impulse, and a clog upon all human activity. “It is difficult for Americans to realize that such relations can exist between the people of a country and the Government as those shown by these circulars to exist in Russia. Imagine a governor of New York State issuing an order requiring all the citizens of that State to send in their seals, rubber stamps, and visiting cards for censorial supervision. Or imagine a Postmaster-General writing a circular letter to the governors of all the States prescribing rules for the regulation of the sale of soap, starch, brilliantine, tooth-brushes,

and insect powder! Such an extension of the powers of government is to us almost inconceivable, both on account of its tyranny and on account of its preposterous absurdity; and yet such regulations are not regarded in Russia as anything extraordinary, and one sometimes finds the police engaged in work that is even more remarkable than the regulation of the sale of tooth-brushes and insect powder. I have in my possession the original report of a Russian police pristav, written upon a printed form, in which the officer notifies his superior that, in compliance with instructions of such and such a date, he has called upon such and such persons, who are named, and has ‘admonished’ them that they must partake of the Holy Communion, ‘upon penalty of an administrative calling to account [pod opaseniem v’ protivnom sluchae kazennago vziskania].’ This document bears in capital letters at the top of the first page the words, ‘Ukase [oo-kāz] of his Imperial Majesty the Autocrat of all the Russias.’ In the newspaper Sibir (See-bèer) for July 10, 1883, it is stated, as a matter of news, that the police authorities of the city of Irkutsk have just received orders to admonish all persons who have been neglectful of religious duty, and to oblige them to partake of the sacrament. The use of the police power as a means of compelling indifferent or backsliding Christians to partake of the Holy Communion—the sending of an armed man in a blue uniform to drag another man to the table of the Prince of Peace, and to compel him to eat and drink the symbols of the broken body and shed blood of Christ—is something that has not often been seen, I think, outside of Russia, since the Dark Ages.”

A few words only are necessary to show that this very state of things must exist in this country, if the National Reform Association, the American Sabbath Union, and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, succeed in carrying out their (ir)religious designs. All of these associations heartily indorse Mr. Blair’s proposed amendment to the Constitution, which requires that the principles of the Christian religion be taught in the public schools. It has already been shown in these columns that the adoption of that amendment would require that text-books on religion be issued, and that both text-books and teachers should be in harmony with the standard of religion that would be recommended by the ecclesiastical authorities. But when that is done it will be necessary that a strict watch should be kept to see that no other text-book is brought in; and to see that no teacher presumes to inculcate any ideas of his own, that may be different from the established religion.

The individuals who will have this matter in charge may not be called police, but their duties will be exactly such as are defined in the articles above numbered one, twenty, and twenty-two. They will have to regulate religious instruction in secular schools. They will have to note if any books and plans of instruction are used that are not approved by the ecclesiastical authorities, and they will have to oversee the meetings of school-teachers to guard against the introduction of anything in their discussions that shall differ in any way from the standard of religion set by those ecclesiastical authorities. In short, they will have to see that religion is not discussed at all; for it must be obvious to any thinking person that when the State, having taken counsel of the elders, prescribes the religion for its citizens, religious discussion is at an end. School-teachers will have no business to question the text-books, and they will not dare presume to make any alteration. If anything different is to be taught, it will have to be decided upon by the ecclesiastical authorities of the Nation, just as in the days of old in Europe, no new thing can be even mentioned in the school unless a new council has passed upon it. When the council shall have decided upon what shall be taught the people, the school-teachers and ministers of low degree will have simply the duty of handing to the people that which has been given to them by their superiors.

Again, the enactment of a strict national Sunday law will require that the powers of the police be very greatly magnified. Indeed, the Sunday law is often called “a police regulation,” showing that the enforcement of the law will rest largely in the hands of the police. Of course the number of police will have to be greatly increased in order that they may keep an oversight over all the people, to see that no one violates the law. It will be their duty, also, as in Russia, to “admonish” people who do not attend divine service at stated intervals. The leaders in the Sunday-law movement openly avow that their desire for a Sunday law is that people may go to church. But as we have before shown, if the mere enactment of a Sunday law does not accomplish their designs, they will necessarily have to amend it so as to require attendance at church. Moreover, Mrs. Bateham has said that what they want is the “ideal sabbath of the Puritans;” the guarantee to rest and to worship. Now we have before us some of the laws by which that ideal sabbath was secured, and we will quote them. In Robert Wodrow’s “Selections from the Records of the Kirk Session, Presbytery, and Synod of Aberdeen,” we find the following:—

“It is thocht expedient that ane baillie with tua of the session passed throw the towne everie Sabbath-day, and not sic as they find absent fra the sermones ather afoir or efter none, and for that effect that they pass and searche sic houss as they think maist meit.”

In his collections he says that the session allows the searchers to go into the houses and apprehend absentees from the Kirk. In the records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England we find that in 1629 the first Sunday law in the colony read thus:—

“And to the end the Saboth may bee celebrated in a religious manner we appoint, that all that inhabite the plantazon, both for the gen’all and particuler imploymts, may surcease their labor every Satterday throughout the yeare at 3 of the clock in the afternoone, and that they spend the rest of that day in catichising and pharacon for the Saboth, as the ministers shall direct.”

This is very similar to the law now required by the American Sabbath Union. But that law was found insufficient to meet the desires of the ecclesiastics, and so in 1634 they supplemented it by the following:—

“Whereas complaints hath bene made to this Court that dyvers peons within this jurisdiccon doe vsually absent themselves from church meetings vpon the Lord’s day, power is therefore given to any two Assistants to heare and censure, either by fyne or imprisonmt (att their discreecon), all misdemeanors of that kind committed by any inhabitant within this jurisdiccon, provided they exceed not the fyne of vs for one offense.”

It worked then just as we have said it will work now. First was the strict Sunday law. Then was the law requiring everybody to go to church, and allowing officers to search the town to discover absentees. In 1782 an act was passed enjoining the worship of almighty God, as an essential part of the due observance of the Lord’s day, and imposing a fine of ten shillings upon any able person who shall absent himself for a month from the public worship of God on the Lord’s day. This statute provided for wardens to enforce the law, and gave them power to enforce it by stopping travelers, and by entering all places where they may find or think they may find Sabbath-breakers.

That is the “ideal sabbath of the Puritans.” That is the condition of things that Mrs. Bateham wishes to see in this country. When it shall be brought about we shall have a despotism fully as bad as that of Russia. Mr. Kennan says that Russian police are “a sort of incompetent, bureaucratic substitute for divine Providence.” If the American Sabbath Union and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union shall secure their desired ends, we shall have a police who will not only be a substitute for divine Providence, but a substitute for men’s consciences. Is there an American who has any love for freedom? If there is let him protest vigorously against any such usurpation. E. J. W.

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