Earlier text: SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN EUROPEAN HISTORYAN OMINOUS CONTRAST.
By W. N. Glenn
[Editor Our Little Friend.] ATTENTION is called to the following list of prominent events concerning religious legislation in this last quarter of the nineteenth century:— 1881.—Spasmodic attempts in various parts of California to enforce the Sunday law passed in 1861. 1882.—People aroused, and repeal of the California Sunday law made a political issue in State election. Repeal carried by a majority of about 17,000. 1883.—California Sunday law repealed. 1885.—Exemption clause of Arkansas Sunday law repealed. 1887.—Exemption clause of Arkansas Sunday law re-enacted, after twenty-one cases had been tried, which demonstrated to the people the intolerant nature of the prosecutions made possible under the law. 1888.—Blair Sunday Rest Bill introduced in United States Senate. Blair Educational Amendment to the Constitution, providing for teaching the Christian religion in public schools, introduced in United States Senate. American Sabbath Union organized in Washington, D. C. Later an official of that organization stated that “the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition party have become so entirely National Reform organizations that the regular National Reform organizations have ceased to organize local National Reform clubs as such, but work through these to spread the National Reform ideas.” R. M. King arrested in Ohion County, Tenn., for doing ordinary work on Sunday. Sympathizers with the prosecution gathered in a mob on a Sunday night, and fired shots into a schoolhouse where Elder William Covert was preaching the doctrines held by the defendant. 1889.—The King case tried, and defendant’s conviction affirmed by State Supreme Court, and appeal taken to the United States District Court. Field Secretary of American Sabbath Union organized a branch in California, with a view to securing a State Sunday law. Blair Sunday Rest Bill, modified with exemptions, etc., reintroduced in United States Senate. 1890.—A bill to prevent Sunday labor in the District of Columbia introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative W. C. P. Breckenridge. 1891.—Writ of habeas corpus in the case of R. M. King denied by Judge Hammond of the United States District Court for Tennessee; thus the State Sunday law was sustained by a Federal Court. 1892.—Bill to prohibit the sale of ice in the District of Columbia on Sunday, introduced in the Senate by Senator McMillan, and in the House by Representative Hemphill. Decision of United States Supreme Court in Louisiana Lottery Case making Congress a censor of the press, —a blow to the first amendment to the Constitution. The United States Supreme Court declared that “this is a Christian nation,” the foundation of the claim being laid in documents of Ferdinand and Isabella, the founders and supporters of the Spanish Inquisition and other pre-republic religio-political actions. Congress passed the first law which virtually established the principle of Church-and-State government in the United States, namely, the appropriation of money for the Chicago Exposition conditioned on the gates being closed on Sunday.17 1893.—Thirteen orderly Christian men, observers of the seventh-day Sabbath, indicted in Henry County, Tennessee, for doing ordinary work on Sunday. Hettie Mansfield, who had kept the Sabbath “according to the commandment,” was informed against by her brother for the crime of sewing on Sunday, in Queen Anne County, Maryland. In the same county Chas. O. Ford was arrested and convicted of doing Sunday labor, on complaint of his brothers. See Matt. 10:21, 22, 36. A minister and a schoolteacher, in Gainesville, Georgia, who had arranged some desks in a schoolroom on Sunday, preparatory to opening school on Monday, were convicted of violation of the Sunday laws. It was demanded of the President that Sunday closing of the Chicago Exposition be enforced by troops. Y. P. S. C. E. State Convention of Ohio declared a boycott of Chicago Exposition if opened on Sunday. 1894.—A bill to protect the first day of the week was introduced in the United States Senate by Senator Gallinger. It provided for a number of exceptions, amongst others the “work of those who religiously observe Saturday.” A bill was introduced in the House by Representative Johnson, designed “to secure to the whole people rest from toil during the first day of the week, their mental and moral culture, and the religious observance of the Sabbath day.” A proposed amendment to the preamble of the Constitution for the purpose of formally acknowledging “the authority of Almighty God” in that instrument, was introduced in the House by Representative Morse. By a papal rescript, the United States was declared to be a Catholic country. 1895.—Barbers’ Sunday law (practically a rule of the Barbers’ Union) enacted by the California Legislature. On a test case the law was subsequently declared unconstitutional. Prof. George D. Herron, of Grinnell, Iowa, College, proclaimed his “Applied Christianity” theory from Boston to San Francisco, coming out boldly for Church and State Union, as no other man had in this country. About thirty Christians, observers of the seventh-day Sabbath, were indicted in Rhea County, Tennessee, for laboring on Sunday. About one-third of these were imprisoned for a time. A bill providing for the protection of Sunday as a “day of rest and worship,” in the District of Columbia, was introduced in the House by Representative Morse. 1896.—The United States Supreme Court confirmed the constitutionality of the Georgia Sunday law, altho, under certain articles of the code, convicts under its penalties who should conscientiously refuse to work on the Sabbath day of the commandment, might be charged with “attempted insurrection,” and suffer the penalty of death. Fines collected for the violation of this Sunday law are dedicated to the “promotion of Sabbath-schools in the country.” South Carolina makes the first amendment of the Federal Constitution a part of her Bill of Rights. 1898.—Special effort to utilize the Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor throughout the country in the circulation of the literature of the Lord’s Day Defense Committee. An official representative of the Papacy was received at Washington by the United States Government. (See article in this paper entitled “Union of Church and State.”) Two individuals were convicted of Sunday labor in Queen Anne County, Md., not as individuals, the prosecuting attorney admitted, but as representatives of a certain religious sect. Thus the denomination as a body was condemned by the Maryland Sunday law. This list might be greatly augmented by entering more into detail, as well as by adding other events of less notoriety—all showing the tendency toward a union of Church and State in this government, and the growing sentiment of the people favorable to the principles that underlie such a union. To this brief showing it is pertinent to add that in ten States of the Union there have been legal prosecutions of persons who observe the seventh-day Sabbath, because they exercised their God-given right to labor on the first day of the week. In most of these States the prosecution was in violation of either the State Constitution or Bill of Rights, and all of them were in violation of the spirit of the Federal Constitution. In contrast with this tendency to subvert the civil and religious liberties of the people, attention is called to the struggle to establish these rights during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. There were the Declaration of Independence and the seven years’ Revolutionary War to sustain it. Then the six years of effort to put in operation a permanent government, based upon the principles of civil and religious liberty, culminating in the Federal Constitution. Before the close of the century there were in force eleven of the fifteen amendments to the Constitution; also the treaty with Tripoli, which declared that “the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” The trend of events is indeed ominous, as showing a widespread determination on the part of the people to cast aside in the closing years of the nineteenth century the liberties established at so great sacrifice by their fathers in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. And we trust that this brief array of facts may have the effect of opening the eyes of some to the dangers of seeking moral reforms through the medium of human legislation. It is the sure road to civil and religious bondage, of which the history of past ages is ample proof. THE MONEY POWER IN THE LIGHT OF THE PROPHETIC WORD.
THERE is no more startling development of the last quarter century than that of the money power, and its hold upon the nations and the manhood of the nations. It has been truly said that the people of the various civilized nations of earth are no longer under the governments of their respective nations, but are ruled by “The Invisible Empire,” the money power. As the well-known historian, Prof. John Clark Ridpath, LL.D., remarks (Arena for June):— “Not a nation in the world is exempt from the dominion of the Universal Monarchy. The political autonomy of every one has been surrendered, openly or covertly, to the will of a ruler whom none have seen, but before whom every State and principality, every republic and kingdom and empire, bends a supple knee.” “More than twenty thousand millions of war debt resting upon the nations of the world! . . . Twenty thousand millions of debt, and every dollar of it owned by the Invisible Empire! The interest at four per cent. amounts to eight hundred millions of dollars a year. And it is intended that this principal and this interest account shall run forever. While civilization continues—as long as mankind shall be organized into nations—so long will this intolerable incubus rest day and night on the labor of the world. Under the horrid nightmare every workingman in every country under the sun becomes and remains a slave. It is needless to say that such a debt will absorb the entire property of the world. It will drink the ocean dry. It will suck up, at the rate of eight hundred millions a year, the whole wealth of mankind, and then demand another planet to satisfy the vacuum in its infernal maw.” And this Invisible Empire is the Money Power. The nations of earth owe the Money Power the vast debt of twenty thousand millions. They pay—or the producers in the nations do—to the Money Power, year by year, the annual $800,000,000 of interest, while in all the world there are but 660,457,000 in gold coin! But we wish to call the attention of the reader to other facts, namely, That there is a power above that of the Invisible Empire, the Ruler of the Universe; That He foresaw the intense selfishness and greed of men to enrich themselves at the expense of their fellows; That He foresaw the skill and craft which would be employed in the mad ambition to use men as things, and so grasp the wealth of the world; That He foresaw that this ambition would be, humanly speaking, successful, and that riches would be “heaped together” “in the last days;” That He foresaw that this disregard of the poor and lowly of earth would arouse their hatred of the rich and lead to violence and crime; and, therefore, That He warns the rich of the evil which will come unless the power of wealth shall stay its hand and the rich man shall regard the poor as himself, and minister to his needs; That He foresaw that this warning will not be heeded, and rapine and bloodshed will certainly follow, and the rich be left desolate. And yet God does not sanction violence, but appeals to His suffering and oppressed children to be patient to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, who will right all wrongs. All this and more is told by the “more sure Word of Prophecy.” We have space for only three quotations, and shall be as brief as possible, commenting at times in brackets. The first prophecy is from the Epistle of James:— “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are rusted; and their rust shall be for a testimony against you [in the day of judgment], and shall eat your flesh as fire. Ye have laid up [“heaped together,” common version] your treasure in the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who mowed your fields [a class representing all laborers], which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth out; and the cries of them that reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure; ye have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter [of war, of misery, of want, on the part of many]. Ye have condemned, ye have killed the righteous one [by oppressive laws, by force of circumstances]; he doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.” James 5:1-7, R.V. This is a striking prophecy, declaring that woe will come upon the rich from those who are oppressed. Here is another from a more ancient prophet; it voices the Spirit of God in humanity crying out against its oppressions:— “Thou that art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and that canst not look on perverseness [that is, to approve it], wherefore lookest Thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest Thy peace when the wicked swalloweth up the man that is more righteous than he; and makest men [God’s children] as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them? He taketh up all of them with the angle, he catcheth them in his net, and gathereth them in his drag [wily schemes, by which men are controlled]; therefore he rejoiceth and is glad. Therefore he sacrificeth unto his net, and burneth incense unto his drag [glorifies and exalts his schemes]; because by them his portion is fat, and his meat plenteous. Shall he therefore empty his net, and not spare to slay the nations continually?” “Behold, his soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him; . . . a haughty man, that keepeth not at home; who enlargeth his desire as hell [sheol, the grave], and he is as death, and can not be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations [witness the world trust of the Standard Oil Company, and other world-wide confederations], and heapeth unto him all peoples. Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Wo to him that increaseth that which is not his! how long? and that ladeth himself with pledges [bonds, stocks, deeds, mortgages]. Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them? Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall spoil thee; because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city, and to all that dwell therein.” Hab. 1:13-17; 2:4-8, R.V. Blood is not shed by violence alone. The life current may be tapped and its vitality diminished by other means. Insufficient food and drink, unsanitary surroundings, excess in labor, excess in charges for the necessities of life, are all sapping the life-blood of millions. But what does wealth have to do with these?—Simply this: Capitalists and wealthy corporations control these things. In the great teeming cities the power of wealth controls dwellings, fuel, provision, and even affects the air we breathe. In the country the great railways often swallow up all profit from the produce of the land, in excessive rates. And yet the thought of the rich man is not to oppress; it is simply to advance his own interests. The oppression is not meant; it is incidental, not objective to his plan. He regards it with indifference, as something deplorable, but which can not be helped. But “Hast Thou not said that what is done
Unto Thy least and humblest one
Is even done to Thee?” God regards it, and will remember His children and the injustice done them. But here is yet another prediction:— “And the songs of the palace [where the rich dwell] shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord God: the dead bodies shall be many; in every place shall they cast them forth with silence. Hear this, O ye that would swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail.” See Amos 8:1-12, R.V. These are God’s merciful forewarnings of coming dangers and perils, that both rich and poor may be saved. The duty and refuge of the rich are given in the following scripture:— “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.” 1 Tim. 6:17-19. See also Luke 12:15-21; Matt. 6:19-21. God’s message for the poor, even the oppressed and afflicted, is, “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.” James 5:7. Do not yield to the clamor of those who know not God. Neither anarchy nor rebellion is the remedy of the Christian. His hope is in God. The very condition of things as regards capital and labor, monopoly and industrial slavery, is a strong, clear evidence that we are “in the last days,” and that Christ’s coming is near. The Christian knows that human or Satanic rule is brief at best, and that God is just, loving, all-wise, eternal; and will leave his case in God’s hands, rather than resort to violent measures. Reader, in what is your hope? Is it in vain riches, which fly away, or which, at the longest, you must soon leave, even tho you heap them to the heavens? Is it in anarchy, nihilism, violence, politics, to overthrow the power of wealth? You may destroy men or systems; but you will not heal the wrong. Or, better, eternally, heaven-higher better, is your trust in the power and life and light of the love of Christ? There you are safe; for those who put their trust in Him “shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.”