GIVE men the power to do evil, and they will be just as certain to exercise it, as the boy is to use his first jack-knife; if for nothing else, he will do it out of curiosity to know how it works; and men will generally find motives fully as powerful as this to prompt them to use their “sword of authority.” MORAL.—Don’t play with edge tools, nor leave them where they can be “played with” by any one else.
The leaders of the National Reform movement are, whether fortunately or unfortunately, many-sided, I had almost said two-faced, in stating the objects which they hope to attain, and the process necessary to secure them. To those who are conservative, and with prudent foresight, warn against the evils religious legislation would bring; they reply, “Surely you can trust us; are we not the representatives of God? Do you not think that God will appreciate the compliment we pay him, by enthroning him in the Constitution of this noble land, sufficiently to prevent evil-minded men abusing the power we ask for? He will not allow those who serve him in the right way, to be injured in any way.”
And some are deceived by such assertions. But others, who have an object in view themselves, are approached in a different manner; there is not the reticence with them that is necessary in influencing the unselfish, patriotic heart, so the words are less guarded, and it gives rise to “clashing voices,” sometimes, aye, often, clashing statements by the same voice, and not so very far apart, either. Now, as it is sound philosophy to accept the experience of mankind, recorded in history, as the best guide in all important matters in which we cannot be guided by our own practical, personal experience, we present a few parallels from history, asking the readers if human nature has undergone any change for the better since the fall of man? and if like causes will not still produce like effects?
LOOK ON THIS PICTURE,
A. D. 31. Sanhedrim, Jerusalem.
Caiaphas said: “It is expedient for us that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.” John 11:50.
RESULT.
“Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.” Verse 53. And killed the Prince of Life.” Acts 3:15.
A. D. 321. Roman Empire.
The bishops of the Christian Church wanted the help of the State to carry out their ambitious plans, and, for this purpose, secured from Constantine a Sunday law. See Neander.
RESULT.
The power conferred in order to convert the world, and make all men Christians, almost swept Christianity from the face of the earth. Pagan Rome was far less ferocious against God’s people than the “Vicegerent of the Son of God,” acknowledged and supported by the civil power.
A. D. 1786.
The popular exponent of nationalism in France, M. Necker, the Minister of Finance, stated his idea of human nature, and philosophical government, in his words to Mirabeau, who proposed an entirely different regime: “I can not accept your plans, you would govern by policy; morality is our basis.” We will release the people from all restraint; for it is the bondage they groan under that is the cause of all the evil in the nation. Remove the cause, and the people will instantly be perfect. Their moral nature will assert itself, and they will have no desire to do wrong. All that we need is the law to make the people free.
RESULT.
The theory was founded on wrong premises; and didn’t work in the way the philosophers, in their simplicity, expected it would. There was a terrible retrograde movement at once. Although Necker had been the idol of the people, his theories brought only confusion, and he was obliged to resign his position and go into temporary exile. Satan was delighted to see law and order laid aside; he hates all law, and delights in chaos. As soon as the restraints were cast off, he led them captive at his will. And the Reign of Terror is a fair sample of Satan’s good-will toward men.
A. D. 1787.
In the Hall of the States-General of France, Robespierre said: “Capital punishment is a crime against society, and should never be inflicted.” Evidently this was because the punishment generally fell upon the lower orders, and he was “making a bid” for their favor. By and by he had the power to inflict capital punishment.
RESULT.
He complained that the heads were not falling fast enough to please the people; he must have one hundred and fifty a day. Finally, his friends had to sentence and execute him to save their own lives.
And it is worthy of notice that the majority of those who were guillotined in that awful time, suffered death for no crime of their own, but because their parents were among the nobles. A name counted in those days, but counted against the owner, and cost him his head. They killed Louis XVI. and his Queen, not out of hatred, but, having the power, they hunted up, or Satan supplied them with, a motive to answer their purpose; and the two who had been the highest objects of the nation’s love and respect, were sacrificed because, in the first place, the king gave the people what they asked for. That was his only crime, but it was a fatal one. Instead of satisfying the people, it but made them eager for more; and having now the power in their own unsteady, unfulfilled hands, they made sad havoc with it. They not merely killed friend and foe, but they destroyed the former, and allowed the latter to destroy them.
THEN ON THIS.
A. D. 1887. Convention, Lakeside, Ohio.
Dr. McAllister said: “It is better that a few should suffer, than that the whole Nation should lose its Sabbath.”
WARNING.
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matt. 25:40.
A. D. 1863. United States of America.
The Clergy again seek the intervention of the civil power, in order to uphold their waning influence and tottering institutions. God will not help them; they are determined to have their way; and they, too, ask for a Sunday law.
WARNING.
Some things are never satisfied. The cry is, and will be, “Give, give!” Says Dr. Crafts, in his “Sabbath for Man,” “We want more than this.”
A. D. 1889.
The new nationalism, based upon the flimsy philosophy of Bellamy, assumes that, pecuniary interests being entirely removed by absence of competition, the people will be entirely free from sectional, selfish, or partisan influences; and the sense of duty and desire of applause will be the guiding motives. Suppress the “brute principle” of competition, and have the new and beautiful principle of “association” instead. Let the Nation provide work, food, raiment, shelter, and pocket money for every individual in the Nation, and if there isn’t work for all, why, then, keep the idlers from doing unpleasant things by paying them for doing nothing. And this will make a perfect nation. (See Olivet Echo, May, 1890.) Those who are posted will recognize exactly similar demands by the American Sabbath Union. See Report of Hearing on Breckinridge Bill.
WARNING.
Neither constitutions nor laws have power to make men good, not even the perfect law of God. Its design is altogether different. It points out sin, as man’s laws point out crime, but can never change the character. Forces within the man must do this. Nothing that the State can do will convert a single individual, but the “embarrassing legislation,” so generously promised by the Sunday-law advocates, would make multitudes of hypocrites.
The National Reformers of this generation profess lamb-like innocence:—“One can but smile at their apprehensions of the success of a movement which would not harm a hair of their heads.”—Christian Statesman,
But it don’t work that way at all!
Their theory is not practical, so it must be wrong somewhere; and the reader of THE SENTINEL will not have much trouble to find out where that wrong is. See how would-be National Reformers have applied the “embarrassing legislation” of individual States, and see what kind of a smile it would provoke to have similar laws adopted and enforced by national authority, “recognizing God’s power behind them.”
We imagine a grin of satisfaction, rather than any more benevolent “smile,” and especially prominent must it be upon those who can see that they are entrapping the politicians, the men that make laws.
Read Senator Crockett’s “Plea for Liberty,” in Arkansas, and the account of persecutions in that State and in Tennessee, and of the arrest and attempted persecution of Seventh-day Christians in Missouri. These prove that the spirit of religious persecution is not dead, nor even dormant; it simply awaits a favorable moment and the longed-for legislation, to spring forth in all its old-time fury.
WILLIAM MAY.
The Sunday Law in California.
By W. N. Glenn
EDITOR DAILY TIMES: I see by your issue of November 24, that the American Sabbath Union has been regaling the people of San Jose with the beauties of a proposed Sunday law for California. The Union’s representative seems to think that because a Sunday congress was held in Paris, and because attention was called to the subject in a labor congress in Germany, that we must needs have a Sunday law in this State. This line of reasoning is not surprising, coming as it does from a man who thinks we ought to have a reproduction of Julius Cæsar in this climate. The two ideas are about on a par; and if California and the United States should be so unfortunate as to secure the Sunday laws after the pattern designed by this Eastern jobbery house, we will no doubt have some Cæsarism duplicated before we get through.
The Sabbath Union is a New York institution whose chief aim is a national Sunday law; but during the recesses of Congress it skirmishes around the country in search of smaller jobs that are calculated to strengthen its position on the main issue. It has always maintained that a civil Sunday—not a religious Sabbath—is all that it aims to have legalized, but in all the speeches and writings of its representatives, the covert intent of a religious institution always crops out. According to the Times’ report, the San Jose effort was no exception.
The subject, “The Enemies of the Sabbath Movement,” was well calculated to let out the real motive of the movers. Where was the necessity of laboring to prove that this is a “Christian Nation,” as a reason for a Sunday law, if it be only a civil rest day that is wanted? For such a purpose, what is the difference whether the Nation is Christian or not? By the way, it is but two years ago that an extraordinary effort was made to get petitioners for a national Sunday law. Every Christian denomination (excepting two small seventh-day sects), men, women and22children, were counted as petitioners, many of them several times over as members of various associations, yet only about 14,000,000 could be mustered—less than one-fourth of the whole population. That does not look much as though this could be reckoned as a Christian Nation. And the Constitution was especially designed to ignore anything of the kind, leaving all religions on an absolute equality before the law.
Then in enumerating the enemies of the Sunday-law movement, the speaker is reported to have said: “First are the infidels who include a great number and variety of thought. They would strangle every effort that tended to the propagation of the gospel.” What has a mere civil rest-day to do with the propagation of the gospel?
Again he says: “There are the Seventh-day Adventists, who are very unreasonable in their opposition, for we make exceptions of those who for religious scruples would adopt another day as their day of worship.” Here is a further expose of the fact that a day of worship is contemplated, and only those are exempted who are religious on some other day (the petition which is being circulated says “regularly” religious). This exemption directly places a premium on religion, by granting Sunday indulgence to religious people.
That was quite a pertinent (or, was it impertinent?) allusion made by the speaker to Judge Terry; he was the only judge who had decided against the constitutionality of Sunday laws, and he was afterward shot. Surely no other judge will ever dare to follow his example in that kind of decision. The constitutionality question may be considered as settled! The speaker further said: “In the teeth of his (Judge Terry’s) adverse decision, the Legislature of this State passed a Sunday law which was upheld by the Supreme Court.”
Now why did not the Doctor go on and tell the rest of that bit of history. That the State Sunday law, which was passed “in the teeth” of Judge Terry’s decision, was allowed to be dormant on the statute book for nearly twenty years, and was forgotten by almost everybody. Finally about the years 1881-82 some zealous preachers discovered the hidden treasure, and determined to dig it up and have it enforced. Complaints, however, failed to convict more than a very few victims, hardly any of whom were of that class denominated “the greatest curse the country knows.”
And “in the teeth” of this spasmodic tirade, the people spoke in the most emphatic terms. They voted down the Sunday law by an overwhelming majority. The Legislature of 1883 promptly repealed it, and a subsequent Legislature as promptly squelched an effort to revive it. And moreover, the Sunday has been more deferentially observed without a law than it was with it, and even the most zealous Sabbath Unionist of them all (Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts) has acknowledged the fact in his book on Sunday observance.
I submit, then, what must be patent to all reasonable minds, that if the American Sabbath Union succeeds in foisting its scheme upon the people of California, it will have to induce the Legislature to violate the express will of a large majority of the people.—W. N. Glenn, in San Jose Daily Times, November 28, 1890.
Religion in Schools.
OUR friend, the Rev. Dr. Osborn, seems to have got into a newspaper controversy upon the above subject, with one Rev. George Shipman Payson. This crossing of steel (pens) by the reverend gentlemen, one a Baptist and one a Presbyterian, is in the columns of the Examiner, a Baptist paper. So far, Dr. Osborn has got the better of the argument. We quote the following from Dr. Osborn's letter:—
We profoundly believe that our brethren of other denominations are treading, in this movement, on dangerous ground; the most dangerous by far, because under the captious assumption of instruction in morals, and because put forward by so influential names as those of Howard Crosby and his associates, and so influential ecclesiastical bodies as the Synod of New York, and other organizations joining in the Conference.
If the State may teach religion in schools supported by general tax, the question at once and of necessity arises, What religion shall it be? The Protestant religion of the bodies composing this Conference, the pagan religion of the New York Chinamen, or the Roman Catholic religion, which, nearly, if not quite, controls the school boards of the City of New York? The answer to that question, under our system of Government by the majority, will depend simply upon which religion has a majority of adherents in the State.
As soon as religious doctrine is taught in schools, the word, which? becomes the most important in the vocabulary. Under our system of Government, those who espouse one doctrine have equal rights with those who are the followers of another. It would be no more than natural that the adherents of each doctrine would be pounding away at the school-house door demanding the admission of their especial theories. It would be necessary to comply with the demand of the advocates of one and leave out the advocates of the other doctrines. Now, which would it be?
If the Government should attempt to answer that question in favor of any one doctrine, there would be a cruel religious war upon its hands wherein the hand of brother would be raised against brother. Upon this question the views of the Baptist are far more broad, more liberal, and more sensible than the views of the Presbyterian brother. We believe that the Baptist people have been accused of being narrow-minded, close communion, and of trying to get into heaven with a row boat; but upon this question, under the lead of Dr. Osborn, the Baptists have taken that liberal position that is nobility itself. Their position is not only liberal but a position of patriotism, worthy of a great church people.
In our judgment it is not easy to legislate people into heaven or hell. Religion is a matter of conscientious convictions, and no law can assist one in the fulfillment of his duties to his Maker. Our schools are under the jurisdiction of the State, but the Christianity of the people of the State is not. Our schools are of too much importance, and far too sacred to be ruined by any religious quarrel. Dr. Osborn is right.—Orleans Herald.
The Decalogue in Politics.
By R. F. COTTRELL
The declaration of Senator Ingalls that “the Decalogue and the Golden Rule have no place in a political campaign,” is thus replied to by Rev. Dr. Thomas Dixon, a Baptist minister of New York, as quoted in the Buffalo Christian Advocate:—
This Nation was founded on the Decalogue and the ten commandments. The men who landed on Plymouth Rock, landed on their knees. The foundations of this Republic were cut from the quarry of God’s eternal granite. Its foundation stones were laid in cement made with the tears and blood of Christian men and women. The man who has outgrown the Decalogue and the Golden Rule has outgrown his usefulness in this Nation.
The “decalogue and the ten commandments,” must constitute a strong foundation; but would it not be more truthful to say that this Nation was founded on the Declaration and Constitution—the declaration of equal rights to all men, which is in perfect accordance with the Golden Rule, and a Constitution which was designed to protect all in the exercise of all their rights both civil and religious? One who abides by the teaching of the Golden Rule can ask no more of civil government in respect to religion than to be protected in worshiping God according to the dictates of the Word of God and his own conscience.
The “the tears and blood of Christian men and women,” with which he says the foundation of our Government was cemented, most naturally calls to mind the persecutions of Baptists, and Quakers, and others in New England before the formation of our peerless Constitution, the recurrence of which it was desired to prevent in the future by protecting all religions, and establishing none.
What is meant by “a religious amendment,” of a Constitution which has nothing to do with religion but to protect the rights of all? It can mean nothing short of perverting the prohibition which says, “Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
R. F. COTTRELL.
HUMAN power may extort vain sacrifices, but the Deity alone can command the affections of the heart.—Col. Richard M. Johnson.
IS THE PAPACY IN PROPHECY?
By Rev. Thomas W. Haskins, M. A.
BY THE
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IN THE HEART OF THE SIERRAS,
A COMPLETE HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE SUMMARY OF THE
Great Yo Semite Valley
And its Marvelous Surroundings.
It is by J. M. HUTCHINGS, the old Pioneer, and long resident of Yo Semite, who took the first sketches of it ever taken, and was the first to make its marvelous grandeur generally known to the world.