Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 14, 1889
The Best Sunday Observance.
By Alonzo T. Jones
To obtain a world-wide view of Sabbath observance, Dr. Crafts says he has corresponded with more than two hundred persons residing in nearly every nation of the world. One of the questions which he asked in this correspondence was:—
“Where have you seen the best Sabbath observance?”
A San Francisco pastor answered:—
“Among the Christian people of California.”
Now California is the only State that has no Sunday law. Yet this pastor testifies that in this State there is the best Sabbath observance that he has seen. And under the circumstances, it is properly to be presumed that this pastor has seen Sabbath observance in other States than California. But, the other States have Sunday laws, therefore the Sabbath observance that that pastor saw in other States, must have been under Sunday laws. Consequently, it is demonstrated by Dr. Crafts’s own evidence that there is better Sunday observance where there is no Sunday law than where there are Sunday laws.
Again. Up to 1883, California had a Sunday law. In 1885, Dr. Crafts published his book. This was nearly two years after California abolished her Sunday law. Yet, in that book, on page 94, Mr. Crafts says:—
“Both laymen and ministers say that even in California the Sabbath is, on the whole, better observed and Christian services better attended, than five years ago.”
Five years goes back three years into the time of the Sunday law, consequently it is once more demonstrated by Dr. Crafts’s own evidence that Sunday is better observed, and Christian services better attended, where there is no Sunday law than where there are Sunday laws. Therefore, Dr. Crafts and all the people who work for Sunday laws are working against the best Sunday observance.
The reason why there is better Sunday observance and better attendance upon Christian services where there are no Sunday laws than where Sunday laws exist, is plain. Where there are no Sunday laws, the Christian people are thrown upon their own resources for securing the best observance of the day. Thus they work by Christian means, by Christian influences, and by Christian persuasion, to secure the best observance of that which they deem to be a Christian institution. This is right. Such methods will always win. They will always work for good.
But, on the other hand, when the aid of the civil power is sought, and Sabbath observance is sought to be secured by the enforcement of law, Christians are drawn away from dependence upon Christian methods, men are repelled instead of being won, and Sunday is worse observed, and Christian services more poorly attended.
By these evidences it is clear that every person who respects Christianity, and who wishes to secure the best Sunday observance, and to have Christian services best attended, ought to oppose Sunday laws with all his might. It is entirely out of respect to Christianity that the AMERICAN SENTINEL opposes all Sabbath laws of civil government.
Let religious institutions be sustained by religious means. Let Christian duties be maintained by Christian methods. Let attendance at Christian services be secured by Christian influences and Christian persuasion. This is the position of the AMERICAN SENTINEL, and it ought to be the position of every person who loves Jesus Christ. A. T. J.
A National Sunday Law Means a National Religion.
THE petition for a National Sunday law asks Congress to pass a bill forbidding in the Nation's mail and military service and inter-State commerce, and in the District of Columbia and the Territories, all Sunday traffic and work “except works of religion and works of real necessity and mercy,” etc.
If Congress should pass such a bill making such to be the law, the United States Courts would be called upon immediately to construe the law. The law forbids everything but works of religion. It would then devolve upon the United States Courts to define what are works of religion. And when the United States shall have defined what are works of religion, and a national law excepts these from the general work of all the people, what will that be but the establishment of a national religion?
More than this; another question would arise226to be decided. The matter would not stop with a decision of the question as to what are works of religion, but the additional question would have to be settled, What religion? There are a great many Chinese in this country, and that which to them would be works of religion would not be considered such at all by the Sunday-law workers. There are Mohammedans in the country, who might perform works on Sunday which, according to the Mohammedan religion would be strictly works of religion, yet which, according to the view of the Sunday-law advocates, would not be considered by any means, works of religion. The United States Supreme Court will have to decide amongst these different and discordant religions what religion it is whose works may be allowed on Sunday. As all those who are working for the Sunday law profess to be Christians; as the law is wanted to protect the Christian Sabbath; as the day which is established is declared by them to be the great badge of Christianity; the court will have to declare that it is works of the Christian religion that are meant in the statutes, and that only these are allowable under the law. And that would be only the establishment of Christianity as the national religion.
The establishment of a national religion is inevitable just as surely as a national Sunday law shall ever be passed.
Georgia Sunday Law.
CODE OF GEORGIA, 1882.
Sec. 4,579. Violating Sabbath. Any tradesman, workman, or laborer, or other person whatever, who shall pursue their business or work of their ordinary callings upon the Lord’s day (works of necessity or charity only excepted), shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction, shall be punished as prescribed in section 4,310 of this code.
Sec. 4,310. Punishment of accessories after the fact. Accessories after the fact, except where it is otherwise ordered in this code, shall be punished by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars, imprisonment not to exceed six months, to work in the chain-gang not to exceed twelve months, and any one or more of these punishments may be ordered, in the discretion of the judge.
Sec. 4,582. Fines for violation of the Sabbath. All moneys arising from fines imposed for offenses, the gist of which consists in their being committed on the Sabbath-day, shall be paid to the Ordinary of the county, to be by him distributed for the purpose of establishing and promoting Sabbath-schools in the county.
Georgia ought to be a paradise for National Reformers, and Sunday-law advocates. It should be remembered in this connection that it is urged in behalf of a National Sunday law, that all that is wanted is simply to make State laws effective. But in the case of Georgia that would be but little short of the torments of the Inquisition. Such a law is a disgrace to any State. And to seek to make it effective stamps any association, we care not how high its professions may be, as antichristian. Men who would seek to make such a law “effective” would do more if they had the power.
Conscience
By Stanley Matthews
CONSCIENCE is a tender thing and tenderly to be regarded; and in the same proportion in which a man treasures his own moral integrity, so ought he to regard the conscience of every other man.—Stanley Matthews.
An Unchristian Union.
By Ellet Joseph Waggoner
At the State Convention of the Vermont Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, something over a year ago, the 170 delegates adopted by unanimous vote,—
“Resolved, That we believe Christ, as the author and head of government, should be recognized in all political platforms, and by all societies, and we will rejoice to see the day when a political party distinctly gives such recognition.”
Miss Willard is reported as having said concerning this resolution, “There is not a W. C. T. U. in the land that will not echo this.”
This is sufficient of itself to settle the question as to whether or not the W. C. T. U. is an ally to the National Reform Association. But it was not especially for the purpose of commenting on this resolution that we quoted it, but to place before our readers some correspondence which took place in regard to it, and which, though old, will doubtless be new to a great majority of the readers of the AMERICAN SENTINEL, and will be of interest, as the principles are ever the same.
Shortly after the passage of this resolution, Mrs. Lucinda B. Chandler addressed an open letter to Miss Willard, which was deemed of sufficient value by the latter to merit what she termed “a reply.” After a brief introduction Mrs. Chandler proceeds as follows:—
“It is impossible for me to understand the record of the teaching of Jesus so as to claim him as ‘the author and head of government.’ He emphatically declared that his kingdom was not of this world. Jesus of Nazareth neither established ecclesiastical nor civil government. He founded neither church nor State. The great burden of his teaching was to pronounce the relation of humanity to the Father as one of spirit, and the only worship he enjoined was to worship in spirit and in truth.
“How much would this true worship and love of the Spirit be promoted by grafting upon political platforms the name of Christ as ‘the author and head of government.’”
“With your fertile imagination I beg you to forecast the effect upon the native honesty and integrity of office-seekers and political partisans, of making the condition of a place in office and political power a religious test, and the subscribing to a claim that Jesus Christ is ‘the author and head’ of our national affairs. Have we not already enough of lying and hypocrisy in our land? Have we not enough of centralizing power already oppressing the people in mammon-bred monopoly? Shall we have added a religious test to the sycophancy, and hypocritical pretense?”
It would seem as though this should commend itself to everybody as just criticism. It is incomprehensible how any one with any knowledge of American politics, or with any knowledge of human nature, should think that politics will be purified and human nature elevated by a political party having as the chief plank in its platform the recognition of Christ as “author and head of government.” When we see how ready men are to profess anything, in order that they may advance their own interests; when the history of the world contains scarcely anything else than the record of the time-serving policy of men, of how men have sold their influence and their honor and everything, to gain popularity and power; how men have professed one religion to-day and another to-morrow, according as one or the other had the greatest hold upon the masses of the people—it is as clear as noon-day that if a political party should base its platform chiefly on the recognition of Christ as “author and head of government” it would only make hypocritical followers of Christ. Just as soon as it should by any means,—and it could not do it by Christian methods,—begin to gain control of affairs, all the baser element, all those who intend to feed at the public crib at any cost, would turn and support it; and men who are gross and profane and licentious in private, if not in public, would shout themselves hoarse for Christ and his kingdom.
Again we quote:—
“Religious tests as qualification for civic service would not develop a spirit of truth. Religious tests and a formal recognition of the name of God or Christ would inevitably become the fettering gyves of an assumptive hierarchy. The Protestant idea and principle having abnegated itself by adopting the method of hierarchical authority; would be swept into the abyss where liberty had already been cast, wounded unto death.
“No, no, my much-respected sister, I must hope that your more matured consideration will lead you to a different conclusion and determination. I cannot believe you wish religious liberty overthrown. I cannot think you would welcome the reign of hypocrisy and cant as an agency of political power. To enforce outward conduct by offering political preference would not advance either the spirit of truth or of love.”
We quote again:—
“Righteousness, justice, truth, and above all ‘love which vaunteth not itself and is not puffed up,’ cannot be actualized in peoples or nations through legislative enactment.”
With this last paragraph everybody ought to agree. It is self-evident. Love is not a thing that can be forced. Who is there so foolish as to think that one person can be compelled to love another? Who is there that would think of using physical force to get a child to love its teacher? and yet the W. C. T. U. and other National Reform bodies think to promote love for Christ and his truth by legal enactments! The statement of their desire should be sufficient to show the folly of it.
The letter proceeds as follows:—
“It is earnestly to be hoped that the W. C. T. U. will not lend its influence to any proposed political measures to destroy our constitutional liberties, religious or civil, but that they will continue to work diligently on the lines of education, toward a higher physiological, social, and moral standard of life on the comprehensive principle of temperance.”
We heartily second this wish. With the legitimate work of this W. C. T. U. we have always been in sympathy. If they would continue as they begun, to labor for the advancement of temperance by moral and intellectual means, they would never have a word of criticism from us.” We heartily support them in their work to educate the children and all others in the principles of health and temperance and morality; but we cannot go with them when they depart from this reasonable and just method of work,—the only method which can accomplish any real results,—and adopt the unreasonable and unjust and wicked method of attempting to compel men to be Christlike.
We do not see how anyone can answer the following paragraph of the open letter to Miss Willard, except by endorsing it:—
“Jesus said to Zebedee’s sons: ‘Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you. Whosoever would be chief among you, let him be your servant.’ The real followers of Christ will serve and minister unto humanity, and not seek to establish political power by means of religious test, even of the name of Christ.”
The following also is worthy of careful consideration:—
“If the church under the constitutional freedom secured to it cannot leaven the people with a love of justice, and make itself a power against political corruption by its higher life, and the spirit of truth in its membership, it would surely fail of accomplishing it by platform dogmas or constitutional amendments.”
This last paragraph strikes at the very root of the matter, and shows that such a course as is marked out by the National Reformers is derogatory to the Christian religion. It virtually says there is no power in the Spirit of Christ, and that God, working through his own divinely appointed ways, cannot accomplish the result that he designed; that if men work according to the rules he has laid down they will fail, and that therefore they must inaugurate a system of their own.
Further than this, it can be shown that a political party with such a platform as is desired by the W. C. T. U. can succeed only by stultifying itself. It can come to power only by going directly contrary to all the principles of Christ and his kingdom, which they profess to wish to establish. Thus, political parties have influence according to the number of votes that they can control. These alone count. Now why is there call for such a party as the W. C. T. U. desire to see? Why do they wish it? Simply because existing parties are corrupt. And why are existing parties corrupt? Because the men who control them are corrupt; and not only are those who control them corrupt, but the men they control are corrupt. In other words, politics is corrupt because the good men, the Christian men, and the men of high moral principle in the government are in the minority. They are outvoted by those who have no principle but selfish policy. Now how is this reform party to secure the controlling influence? Only by meeting these corrupt elements on their own ground, by opposing policy to policy, and by wire-pulling and underhanded means, such as are now employed; and then if they ever get into power, what will constitute their strength? Simply the number of votes they can secure to back their principles. And from what ranks will these voters have been secured?—from the ranks of the existing corrupt parties, from professional politicians who will have taken their stand because they have been led to think that there is profit in it; and so they will have a party professing allegiance to Christ, but made up of the very same men who227composed and controlled the old parties, and holding the very same principles; and, worse than all, these men will think themselves good Christians because they belong to the “Christian party.” We say that all good Christians ought to pray to be delivered from complicity with any such party as this.
We say nothing concerning anyone’s personal Christianity, but we are sure that no one who is really and intelligently Christian can ever favor any such scheme.
But how did Miss Willard reply to the letter from which we have quoted these strong, sensible paragraphs? She acknowledged the whole point in the questions so pertinently addressed to her, and simply reiterated her declaration in favor of a national Christianity. Here is a specimen:—
“Can the heart of God beat anywhere more potently than in a party and a platform that allies itself to God as revealed in that Christ spirit which knows neither foreign nor native, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female, but lifts humanity to one equal level of opportunity and hope?”
It is indeed true that in Christ there is neither bond nor free, neither male nor female, and all are one; but does Miss Willard expect this state of things to be brought about by political action? Every Christian knows, both from observation and experience, that there is nothing but the personal work of the Spirit of Christ in the heart that can break down distinctions of race and personal peculiarities and preferences, so that different peoples may unite as one. But can party platforms control the Spirit of Christ and bring it into the hearts of men. The fact that written creeds do not make Christians is almost universally recognized; and what would a political party with a platform recognizing Christ be but a creed; and how can such a creed have any more effect in transforming the life and character than a creed which men may receive or reject voluntarily?
There is indeed a party whose platform and all who compose it should be allied together by a tie that would break down distinctions of nationality and personal peculiarity, and that party is the church. Those only who are Christians can unite in the most perfect fellowship, but those who are Christians are members of this church, which is His body. It follows therefore that when Miss Willard desires a party that shall have this for its object she simply desires a political church, in other words, a union of Church and State. Of course, the object will fail of being achieved, and she will have simply a form, and such a church will not be the church of Christ.
Here is Miss Willard’s idea of recognizing Christ. She says:—
“Christ is to-day the great world force for righteousness, for gentleness, for purity; and I believe with all my heart the world can in no other way do itself so great a favor as by making much of his mission. He is so high as to be seen from everywhere; to whom else can the nations rally with such unanimity. He is so vast as to encompass us all in his plan and his record; shall we not let him gather us as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings? He is so universal as to be claimed by all, from Catholics to Spiritualists, and even agnostics and atheists say with Pilate, ‘I find no fault in the man.’ Can we not all then consent to be claimed by him as loyal, loving followers?”
We are amazed that a woman of so much culture and presumably Christian experience as Miss Willard, can be so blinded as to think that a union of Catholics, Spiritualists, agnostics, and atheists, together with evangelical churches, upon a platform recognizing Christ, can be anything more than the most hollow and wicked sham.
Here the reader may see that all we have charged upon the movement is just. There will be no Christianity in it whatever. He who says that there will be real Christianity in the union, must say that infidels, agnostics, and atheists are real Christians. We believe that these men can be good citizens, but we are certain that they are not Christians. It needs no argument to show that a man who denies Christ is not a Christian. If it is true, as Miss Willard says, that all the Christian Unions in the United States are in favor of this thing, and are working for it, it is true the National W. C. T. U. is working itself into a position where it will be not a Christian Union, but an un-Christian union.
We do not know that we need to quote any more from this letter. It shows that the National Reform party, of which Miss Willard stands as the best representative, is visionary in the extreme. We are willing to grant that they desire a better state of things than now exists. They see that there is wickedness and corruption, and they desire to see a reversed state; but they have dreamed an impossible thing. Their desires may be laudable, but their methods of work do not indicate a knowledge either of human nature or of the gospel of Christ. E. J. W.
The Authority for Sunday Laws.
By Alonzo T. Jones
We believe that every State in the Union, except California, has a Sunday law. And we believe also that in every State in the Union, except California, Sunday laws have always been held to be constitutional. California's first decision on the question, held the Sunday law to be unconstitutional; but a dissenting opinion held it to be constitutional, and this dissenting opinion was afterward adopted by the Supreme Court, and so held until 1883, when the people, by a majority of nearly eighteen thousand, declared they would have no Sunday law.
The story of that first and proper decision, in brief, is this: In 1858, the Constitution of California said, in Section 4: “The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship without discrimination or preference shall forever be allowed in this State.” There was a statute passed by the Legislature enforcing the observance of “the Christian Sabbath,” on the first day of the week. A Jew in Sacramento kept his store open on Sunday; he was arrested, convicted, and sent to jail. He sued out a writ of habeas corpus on the ground of “the illegality of his imprisonment by reason of the unconstitutionality of the law.” The majority of the Court sustained the plea by decisions separately written, whose soundness, both upon constitutional principles and upon the abstract principle of justice itself, can never be successfully controverted. Mr. Stephen J. Field, now Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was then a member of the California Court. He rendered a dissenting opinion, taking the same position as the Supreme Court of Arkansas as to the omnipotence of the Legislature, and soberly maintaining that the term “Christian Sabbath” in the act was not a discrimination or preference in favor of any religious profession or worship. He declared that “moralists and statesmen,” “men of science and distinguished philosophers,” have pronounced the rule of “one day's rest in seven” to be “founded upon a law of our race.” But he omitted to state what scientist or philosopher or moralist or statesman has ever pronounced upon what law is founded the rule of two day's rest in seven for the man who chooses to rest some other day than Sunday!
In his written opinion, Mr. Field said that he had found that in twenty-five States of the Union, Sunday laws had been held to be constitutional. That this is so there can be no doubt. On this subject, the younger States, both in legislation and judicial decisions, have followed the example of the older States; these have followed the decisions of the oldest, and the oldest followed the example and the precedents of the colonies; and every one of the colonies had Sunday laws because every one had an established religion. The colonies not only followed the precedents, but they were a part of the English system, which is wholly a Church and State system. The Church and State system of England severed itself from the papal rule when Henry VIII. renounced allegiance to the Pope, and put himself at the head of the Church of England in the place of the Pope. The British system at that time was the papal system; the papal system was established by the mutual craft, flattery, and policy of Constantine and the ambitious bishops of his time, when the first Sunday law was enacted. This, in a word, is the genealogy of the Sunday laws of the United States. They belong with an established religion,—a union of Church and State. And in this country they have been almost universally sustained, either upon the British principle of the omnipotence of Parliament, or upon the Church and State principles of the colonies of the British Government, and of the Papacy.
The law of Pennsylvania, sustained by a Supreme Court decision, is virtually a colonial law, which was a part of the system in which nobody who did “not confess and acknowledge one Almighty God to be the creator, upholder, and ruler of the world,” could be a citizen.
The Supreme Court of New York sustains Sunday laws by at once declaring Christianity to be the established religion of that State. This is based upon Chief Justice Kent's decision, of 1811, which cited a law of the colony which declared that “the profanation of the Lord's day was ‘the great scandal of the Christian faith.’” That decision of Judge Kent's made Christianity the established religion of the State of New York, by citing the precedents of the papal institutions of modern Europe and the pagan nations of antiquity.
This, again, proves Sunday laws to belong with established religions, with the union of Church and State, finding their basis in papal and pagan institutions.
In every statute book in America, with scarcely an exception, Sunday laws are found under the head of “offenses against religion,” or “offenses against God and religion.” This springs naturally from the colonial legislation, where each colony deemed itself the special guardian of God and of some particular form of religion.228
But according to the word of Christ, the civil power has nothing to do with either God or religion, nor with offenses against God or religion. Religion is defined by Webster as “the recognition of God as an object of worship, love, and obedience.” Another definition, given by the National Reform Association itself, is “man's personal relation of faith and obedience to God.” Civil government has nothing to do with a man's personal relation of faith and obedience to God. If he has no faith at all, and makes no pretensions to obedience to God, that is nothing to the civil government, so long as the man conducts himself civilly. Neither has civil government anything to do with offenses against God; the Lord himself can attend to that. A man is responsible alone to God for the offenses which he commits against God. Civil government has no business to establish a religion, and then make offenses against it criminal; nor has it any business to put itself in the place of God, and presume to declare that an offense against the governmental idea of God is an offense against God. How is the civil government to know whether an act offends God or not? The fact of the matter is, that just as soon as Sunday laws are investigated at all in the light of truth, or justice, or law, it is found that they are inseparable from an established religion,—inseparable from a union of Church and State.
This is further shown by a mere glance at the British system, as set forth by Blackstone in his chapter on “Offenses against God and Religion.” There “profanation of the Lord's day” is classed with such things as “apostasy,” “heresy,” “reviling the ordinances of the church,” “non-conformity to the worship of the Church,” “witchcraft,” “conjuration,” “enchantment,” “sorcery,” “religious imposture, such as falsely pretending an extraordinary commission from Heaven,” adultery as an ecclesiastical offense cognizable by the spiritual court, and such confusion of civil and religious ideas as the punishment of drunkenness as an offense against God and religion. This is the company with which Sunday laws belong. The penalty for apostasy was, first, burning to death; this fell into disuse after a while. Then the penalty was that “for the first offense the offender should be rendered incapable to hold any office or place of trust.”
At such legal nonsense as this the United States Constitution struck a death blow in the clause which declares that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under this Government.” And by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States, this Government utterly separates itself from the whole system of offenses against God and religion so long maintained by the British Government, by the colonies, and even yet by many of the States, and which is characteristic of all Church and State governments—governments of established religion—by declaring that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This is sound American principle, and accords with the word of Jesus Christ. And the effort ought to be, throughout this whole nation, to lift the Constitutions, the legislation, and the jurisprudence of the States up to the level of that of the National Constitution. But instead of doing that, and so carrying this whole Nation bodily onward in the march of liberty, enlightenment, and progress, these people go about to bring down our national system of Constitution and laws to the level of that of the States, which is the level of that of the colonies, which is the level of that of the British system, which is the level of that of the Papacy, which is the system of paganism under cover of the Christian name.
At the hearing before the Senate Committee last December, on the Sunday bill, Dr. Elliott cited Edgar, Athelstan, and Alfred; and Dr. Crafts cites Alfred, Charlemagne, and Justinian; in support of Sunday laws. To be sure! And with equal force they can cite these and many others of the Dark Ages in support of tithes to the clergy, the supremacy of the monks in civil affairs, the “holy anointing” of kings by the Pope, and for any and every other thing that belongs with the papal system. They can carry Sunday-law precedents farther back than that; they can go back to the time of Theodosius and Constantine. They can find, and so can anybody else, that as Pontifex Maximus of the old pagan system, Constantine “had the plenary power of appointing holy days;” they can find that by virtue of this power, Constantine established the first Sunday law of all time, in honor of the “venerable day of the sun,” whose special devotee he was; and also that as “bishop of externals” of the new pagan system,—the papal,—which office he assumed by virtue of his political conversion to the political Christianity of his time, he played into the hands of the ambitious bishops by giving them in that Sunday law their coveted “use of the power of the State for the furtherance of their aims” to compel men to accept the decrees, and submit to the dictates, of the church. He, and all others, will find that this is the literal truth of the origin of Sunday laws.
All this is supported by abundance of testimony of undoubted authority. So eminent a divine as Dean Stanley declares plainly that the retention of the old pagan name of “dies solis,” or Sunday, for the weekly Christian festival, “is owing to the union of pagan and Christian sentiment with which the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine to his subjects, pagan and Christian alike, as the ‘venerable day of the sun.’ . . . It was his mode of harmonizing the discordant religions of the empire under one common institution.”
This same mode of harmonizing paganism with Christianity was further illustrated by his imperial coins, bearing on one side the name of Christ, and on the other the figure of the sun-god, with the inscription, “the unconquerable sun.” This confusion of pagan and Christian ideas and practices is what made the papacy, the union of Church and State, and the confusion of civil and religious things from which, with the exception of the Government of the United States, the nations have not even yet freed themselves. That is the authority, and the only authority, for Sunday laws. Sunday has no basis whatever as a civil institution; it never had any. And the only basis it has, or ever had, as a religious institution is in that confusion of paganism and Christianity which made the papacy, with all that it is or ever was. A. T. J.