THE POPE INVITED TO “UNITY” WITH THE GREEK CHURCH.
By S.
As noted recently in our columns, not much progress, apparently at least, is being made in the direction of “Christian unity” upon the plan proposed by the Papacy. Pope Leo’s recent appeal to the Christian world for unity on this basis has been received with some favor by certain “Protestant” bodies, but has called forth a counterblast from the Greek Church, over the signatures of the Greek Patriarch at Constantinople and his bishops. This has been translated into English, and is being circulated in Anglican and Catholic countries to check the influence of the Pope’s appeal.
The letter asserts that reunion is possible only by a return to the orthodoxy of the first nine centuries, and of the first seven ecumenical councils; in other words, to the point where the Eastern and Western churches separated. It sets forth that the Eastern church remained orthodox, and that consequently, instead of that church returning to Rome, the Pope and his flock must return to the Eastern church, if reunion is ever to take place.
The Roman Papacy invites dissenting “Christendom” to unite under its standard; the Greek Papacy invites the Roman Papacy and all the churches to unite with it; and a fast-developing American Papacy is endeavoring to rally the religious world to a unity of endeavor in behalf of an institution of “the church,”—the man-made sabbath. On the basis of zeal for this institution, all three papacies can join hands; they can come into “Christian unity.” It was instituted by “the church” before the Eastern and Western divisions arose, and is held by Protestants as divine in nature and of binding obligation. The religious world will not be slow in perceiving where the only ground for union lies.
But meanwhile there is, and will be, true Christian unity among the followers of Jesus Christ. Led by one Spirit, they will not walk at variance with each other. The “narrow path” which leads to life eternal affords no room for walking in any other way than in the closest union. Christian union is of God, not of man. It does not exclude diversity, but it does exclude dissension. It excludes self-exaltation. He who is willing to humble himself and be taught of God, will be led into perfect Christian unity with the true Christian church, which is the body of Christ.
S.
WHY WE SHOULD HAVE PROHIBITION ON ALL DAYS.
By Chas. S. Morris
[From the Prize Oration delivered by Chas. S. Morris at the Prohibition Convention, Pittsburg, May 26.]
Two years ago we had a fit of national hysterics, because Coxey's weaponless petition in boots tramped from Ohio to Washington; to-day we coolly watch, marching through the land, an army mightier than any general ever marshalled on the battle-field. An army that sways parties, rules city councils, controls legislatures, dominates Congress, dictates to the Supreme Court how to interpret the Constitution, controls the church and gags its pulpit. This army's recruiting station is the club house, its drill ground the bar-room, its barracks the jail, its soldiers' home the poor house, its national cemetery the potters' field, its uniform rags, its step a stagger, its battle-cry rum. This army enlists for life; the promotions are rapid—moderate drinker, hard drinker, drunkard, sot. Every saloon-keeper is a captain, every brewer a colonel, every distiller a general, the devil himself is its commander-in-chief. The continent is at its mercy; it gives no quarter. Attention, stagger forward, march! Rum, rum, rum. Two million five hundred thousand drunkards are on their funeral march; past home, past honor, past hope; over blighted lives of wife and child; over the graves of broken-hearted mothers; down, down to a drunkard's death and a drunkard's hell.
The saloon says it is a profit to the nation; it pays $200,000,000 a year for license; the nation pays $2,000,000,000 for liquor. It returns eight cents of every dollar it is licensed to steal. It also returns 26,000 lunatics, 50,000 paupers, and enough criminals to fill 50 penitentiaries and 2,000 jails. The nation has to pay $5,000,000 to support its lunatics; $10,000,000 for its paupers, $200,000,000 for its criminals. It loses the value of tens of thousands of men slain and hundreds of thousands rendered idle. Has it not a right then to say whether the saloon should be allowed to carry on this lunatic-pauper-criminal manufacturing company? Is the liquor dealer's right to get rich paramount to a drunkard's right to life, to his wife's right to bread and coal, to his child's right to be well born, to the State's right to an uncorrupted suffrage?
You say these evils must stop; but how? The old parties will never stop them: the saloon controls them both. The Democratic Party wept over a billion dollar Congress, but it does not even shed a crocodile tear when the saloon robs paupers of $1,200,000,000. The Republican Party will compass heaven and earth to protect the workingman's dinner pail, yet it permits the saloon to rob him of his dinner without protest. It sees 100,000 pieces of American bone and sinew buried annually by the saloon and it is silent. It will protect things, not men. The nation has a hundred light-houses along her coast, but around the awful rocks of intemperance, on which unnumbered lives have been beaten out, she has nothing but licensed pirates. Neither the Republican nor Democratic captain of the Ship of State will pick up a drowning drunkard. . . .
For a century a certain man on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho has regularly fallen among thieves. The Republican priest and the Democratic Levite have passed by on the other side. If you want to be a good Samaritan, do not merely take this man to an inn and pay his board, but get your friends and go back along that road determined to arrest the gang of thieves that have been robbing every one that passes down that way. Notify the liquor dealers through the ballot box that the workingman must go from his cottage to his work without passing a single saloon; that is prohibition. The saloon keeper may tell you that prohibition does not prohibit. He is a reliable source of information, isn't he? If prohibition does not prohibit, why is he so bitterly opposed to it? Why has it emptied the jails of Kansas; reduced liquor drinking in Iowa? Why does liquor capital halt at the border of a prohibition State? Why did Maine, after a trial of 30 years, make prohibition a part of her constitution? . . .
Votes were needed for independence in 1776, for union in 1860; they are needed for sobriety, now! Now, when the continent trembles beneath the drunkard's tread—now, when children in their cradles are stung by this viper—now, when it dooms a million women to lonely and unpitied martyrdom.
A river of rum, a mountain of gold, a cloud of tears, a boulevard of broken hearts, a red Niagara, down which the best blood of the nation is pouring, a valley of dry bones, white with a million rum-made skeletons. This is the terrific indictment against this infernal traffic.
WHAT IS RELIGIOUS TEACHING?
[Canadian Baptist (Toronto), July 2.]
IN all the multitudinous articles which have from time to time appeared in England and Canada upon the burning question of religious teaching in the schools, we do not remember to have seen what most of us regard as the sound logical objections to any such teaching under government control and at public expense more clearly and trenchantly put than in the following extract from a letter in the London (England) Daily Chronicle, written by Mr. George Russell, avowedly a churchman and evidently a high churchman:—
“Everyone who believes in religion must, I imagine, wish children to be religiously brought up. The ideal condition of things would be where the whole State consisted of Christian men, and, professing the same religion, brought up all its children therein. But this is Utopia. As a matter of fact, we have in England to-day upwards of a hundred forms of religion, and this makes any national system of religious education, in my judgment, impossible. For example, I am a firm believer in the spiritual claims and the doctrinal system of the Church of England; but I think it unjust, and therefore I do not wish, to teach baptismal regeneration with money taken from Baptists222and Independents; nor, on the other hand, do I wish the infallibility of the Pope to be taught with money taken from me. But many of our Nonconformist friends say that although we are split up into a hundred sects we can all unite in teaching children ‘undenominational,’ or ‘unsectarian,’ or ‘undogmatic’ religion. But is this possible? If, laying aside all questions of church government, sacraments, ministry, and the like, we teach children that Jesus Christ is their Saviour, we touch at once the most vital and also the most controversial of dogmas. If we teach them that there is a God, we touch the foundation of all dogmas. If we go on to teach that God is our Father, that he sees what we do, and will treat us accordingly, we plunge at every step deeper and deeper into dogma.
For myself, the Christian religion, with its fundamental dogma that Christ is God, is as vital as air, and I am more certain that I believe in it and trust it than that I have hands and feet. But I do not think it just, and therefore I do not wish, to teach the Godhead of Christ with money taken from the Jews. I do not wish to teach the doctrine of the Holy Trinity with money taken from Unitarians. I do not wish to teach the existence of God and a future life with money taken from atheists and agnostics. And if, in order to be ‘unsectarian,’ ‘undenominational,’ and ‘undogmatic,’ we abstain from teaching any of these things, what is left? What has become of that ‘unsectarian religion’ which we were all to agree in teaching, and which the State was to offer to its children as their guide in life and death? All that is left is a bare system of morality, and morality, deprived of its authority, the revealed will of God, may be many things, but is assuredly not religion.”
REPEAL THE SUNDAY LAWS.
Does it seem like a bold presumption to come to the Prohibition Party asking for repeal of the Sunday laws? I know that such proposition hitherto, would be supposed to belong to the friends of the liquor traffic. But I do come in behalf of the Sabbath, in behalf of religious liberty, and in behalf of prohibition, and ask of our party to repeal these laws. I come to Prohibitionists because within their reach is the power to do it, and because the alternative of our great need demands it. Could one go to men who have not faith in divine power to make request for this? They are the ones who, setting aside the divine law, must rely upon the civil law, else they have no law to achieve for them a sabbath. Could one go to the liquor dealers to make request for this? They are the ones whose interests are served by a compulsory holiday. They like to have as much exemption and latitude for themselves as they can gain, but they desire to have the rest of the world corralled for an idle day.
As much as a compulsory holiday caters to the saloons, it nevertheless was not devised by them. Strange as it may seem, the scheme has been developed through the doings of Christian men. Wherever compulsory Sunday laws have been enacted it has been at their instance. The petitions that come to Congress, and to the legislatures, and to our municipalities, for these laws, all emanate from the churches. What is that something in Sunday that thus leads the Christian world upon a way that is fraught with mischief? Can it be that because of having no command of God to make it a sabbath, it must seek the civil law for it or else have no law? The affirmative answer is too obvious to admit denial. Can it be that the disobedience of Christians themselves, in putting aside the Sabbath, placed by God upon the seventh day, and setting up in its stead this Sunday, has constructed for themselves the device of their own mischief? If we in behalf of prohibition, whether Christians or not Christians, shall see that this is where the trouble lies, shall we delay longer to put ourselves where men as Christians ought to stand, and conform to the absolute condition that has been set before us? If we do not see it thus, if there yet remains any doubt, there is an additional complication of Sunday with the saloon business that makes cumulative the evidence, not only of the hindrance to our success, but showing also that our own work respecting this Sunday, is more and more making intrenchment for the saloon in our land.
Prohibition One Day In Seven.
The scheme of prohibition one seventh of the time is not the ideal attainment that Prohibitionists desire. Total prohibition is their aim. Nothing less than that is their intention. But somehow, for some reason, they find themselves diverted to effort for this compromising thing. As much as they desire the other, and as much as they deprecate the exhausting of their energies for this; there nevertheless is an infatuation which holds them to it. This thing that occupies Prohibitionists in part, engrosses almost wholly the efforts of the more indifferent friends of prohibition, yet they exhaust their efforts, and satisfy their conscience by what they do for prohibition on Sunday. The few who would get further find themselves unable to get a following and are stalled.
What is the import of this to the prohibition issue? John B. Finch in his lectures for the party, declared his conviction that it would require much less effort to close the saloons all the time, than to close them on Sunday, when they are given intrenchment on days either side of it. This is a recognition at headquarters, by the former chairman of the National Prohibition Committee, that the compromising scheme to close the saloons one day in seven, involves us in a harder task than to close them all the time. The Union Signal, July 25th, 1889, quoting Mrs. Zadel Barnes Gustafson, said: “High license, local option, and Sunday closing, have never scared the traffic. They have seen in these compromises, their best garrison against the at last thoroughly aroused conscience of the people.”
Both of these utterances are from sources to which none of us will attribute a bias against Sunday. They are views with which a host in the Prohibition ranks will concur. They state what is amply sustained by the condition of things we see about us. It is not an economical expenditure of time and energy, to allow ourselves to be diverted to the harder task, in the compromising scheme of prohibition one seventh of the time, than would avail by uncompromising work to secure entire prohibition. It is not a wise scheme on our part to build by such compromise, the structure wherein, as stated in the Union Signal, the traffic “finds its best garrison.”
There are two things operating more conspicuously than others, to enlist men in the work that brings such unsatisfactory results. The reader has perhaps been impatient to assert one of them before it is stated here. It is that so many are idle on Sunday that the liability to indulge in drink is in excess of any other day. That statement is correct. It is so obvious that a great host feel justified in working for prohibition on that day; even though the citing of that day singly, does express a compromise, and tacit admission for the traffic on the other six days. There are some, seeing the traffic intrenched on days either side of Sunday, and seeing it an idle day, with its susceptibility of being affected by contact with those days, who recognize an impossibility of rescuing Sunday from the scourge of the traffic, by anything short of prohibition for all the days. The facility for procuring supplies on the preceding day, the lawlessness, and the insidious ways of evading the law, and the compulsory holiday, all combine to thwart the expectation that it can avail. But the impracticability of the plan is not so obvious to many, as is the sense of need for prohibition on that day. Hence they are persuaded to occupy their time in that effort. Consider what results from this! The liquor dealers themselves could not devise a way to serve them better after making a compulsory holiday; than next to divert the friends from efforts for entire prohibition, into trying instead to secure it one seventh of the time and to occupy them with that impracticable plan.
THE WORLD-WIDE SUNDAY MOVEMENT.
[N. Y. Independent, July 2, 1896.]
The International Federation of Lord's-Day Societies has made a report as to the work done in the year. Among the items of interest are the following: In France the Paris League for Sunday Rest has enrolled over 4,000 members. Many shops are closed on Sunday, including the great Magasin de Louvre. In the army Sunday is a day of rest, and contractors are not now obliged to work on that day. In Lyons there are more than 1,000 shops and stores closed entirely on Sunday. A commission has been sent to England from Germany to inquire into the laws applying to Sunday labor in factories and in workshops. There has been a marked advance also in Austria, owing to an enactment in December, 1895, that on Sunday all work, industrial and commercial, shall cease, except such as is absolutely necessary. In Switzerland Sunday laws have been passed in nearly all the cantons. The post and telegraphic service are reduced one half. No freight trains are run, and the freight depots are closed. Each employé on railroads, steamboats, street road cars, and in the post-office is allowed fifty-two days of rest, and seventeen of these must be Sundays. In Belgium, on account of the anti-religious feeling, the Sunday as a day of rest is not named in the law which guarantees one rest day in each week for women and children; but in practice it is thus observed to a very great degree, and in many departments of labor Sunday work has been reduced. In Holland there are no Sunday newspapers, the railway traffic is reduced, and Sunday hours of rest are given to public servants, though a whole day on each Sunday is an exception, not the rule. In Denmark shops are closed at 9 A. M., and also factories, except where work is essential. In such cases the employés get alternate Sundays. In Norway and Sweden factories and workshops close on Sundays, and no intoxicating liquors are sold from 5 o'clock Saturday afternoon until 8 o'clock Monday morning. There is not even bread-making on Sunday, and street railways are closed until afternoon. In the cities there is only223one postal delivery at 8 o'clock in the morning, and railway servants get every third Sunday. The movement has extended to Russia, where a new law as to Sunday is in preparation and where the post-offices are open only from 12 to 2, and public houses are closed until 11 o'clock in the morning. In Spain the Sunday work of young persons under eighteen years of age in factories is prohibited. In Japan, of the 600 newspapers and periodicals, not one is published on Sunday. In India the Christian Literature Society is active, and has accomplished considerable.
The Only Alternative of Success.
By G. H. LYON
—By G. H. LYON.—
Some Condition of Success in the Prohibition Party is Wanting. What Is It?
The Sunday issue has become so involved with the prohibition issue, by reason of the compulsory holiday, making an idle day; and by reason of diverting of work for prohibition to one day in seven; that it behooves Prohibitionists quickly to give heed to it.
NOTE THE ABSOLUTE CONDITIONS.
See page 22, “For Repeal of the Sunday Laws.” Protection for every man equally in his right to one day of rest in seven; whichever day he holds, not by compulsory Sabbath laws, but in freedom to worship God.
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THE NATIONAL SUNDAY LAW.
Arguments in behalf of the rights of American citizens, presented by A. T. Jones in opposition to the Blair Sunday Rest Bill. As a thorough catechism upon the subject of Church and State. 192 pages. Price, 25 cents. Send for Spring Catalog of Publications.
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THE “CYCLONE” STILL WHIRLS
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Sweeping Everything Clean Before It.
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A · NEW · BIBLE,
Or rather the Old Bible in a New Style. . . . . .
They that sealed the covenant.
NEHEMIAH, X.
The points of the covenant.
they have dominion over our bodies, and over our cattle, at their pleasure, and we are in great distress.
38 And because of all this we make a sure covenant, and write it; and our princes, our Levites, and our priests, seal unto it.
CHAPTER X.
1. The names of them that sealed the covenant.
NOW 3 those that sealed were, Nehemiah, the Tirshatha, the son of Hachaliah, and Zed-kijah,
2 Seraiah, Azariah, Jeremiah,
3 Pashur, Amariah, Malchijah,
4 Hattush, Shebaniah, Malluch,
5 Harim, Meremoth, Obadiah,
6 Daniel, Ginnethon, Baruch,
7 Meshullam, Abijah, Mijamin,
8 Maaziah, Bilgai, Shemaiah: these were the priests.
9 And the Levites: Jeshua the son of Azaniah, Binnui of the sons of Henadad, Kadmiel;
10 And their brethren, Shebaniah, Hodijah, Kelita, Pelaiah, Hanan,
11 Micaiah, Rehob, Hashabiah,
12 Zaccur, Sherebiah, Shebaniah,
13 Hodijah, Bani, Beninu.
14 The chief of the people; Parosh, Pahath-moab, Elam, Zatthu, Bani,
15 Bunni, Azgad, Bebai,
16 Adonijah, Bigvai, Adin,
17 Ater, Hizkijah, Azzur,
18 Hodijah, Hashum, Bezai,
19 Hariph, Anathoth, Nebai,
20 Magpiash, Meshullam, Hezir,
21 Meshezabeel, Zadok, Jaddua,
22 Pelatiah, Hanan, Anaiah,
23 Hoshea, Hananiah, Hashub,
24 Hallohesh, Pileha, Shobek,
25 Rehum, Hashabnah, Maaseiah,
26 Ahijah, Hanan, Anan,
27 Malluch, Harim, Baanah.
28 And the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the porters, the singers, the Nethinims, and all they that had separated themselves from the peoples of the lands unto the law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, every one having knowledge, and having understanding;
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PRESS reports for July 8 announced a “miraculous” cure of diphtheria, in the case of a young girl living in this city, by means of a “holy relic,” consisting of what is alleged to be a fragment of a bone of “St. Ann.” While faith—as scripturally defined—is fast disappearing before the spreading worldliness and materialism of the age, superstition continues to thrive, as exemplified in occurrences like the above. Simultaneously with the departure of faith comes the revival of superstition. It could not be otherwise; for faith is the only means of knowledge in spiritual things. If our present day “civilization,” with its “higher” criticism and similar anti-biblical features, embodied any real advancement in religious knowledge, superstition would be dying out instead of flourishing.
THE Democratic national platform adopted at the recent Chicago convention, contains the following “plank” with reference to religious liberty:—
The Constitution of the United States guarantees to every citizen the rights of civil and religious liberty. The Democratic party has always been the exponent of political liberty and religious freedom and it renews its obligations and reaffirms its devotion to these fundamental principles of the Constitution.
This was inserted by the Committee on Resolutions after the platform had been practically completed, at the motion of ex-Senator Walsh, who said that the party should speak explicitly upon the subject, and that should they fail to do so, millions of American freemen would be disappointed.
But the trouble is, there is nothing explicit about it. It is about as definite as the familiar phrase, “sound money.” It is one of those “glittering generalities” with which party platforms are wont to be garnished to make them appear well in the public eye. We do not say, nor would we intimate, that the men who framed and incorporated this “plank” of the Democratic platform are not genuinely in favor of religious liberty; but in the light of the U. S. Supreme Court decision of February, 1892, that “this is a Christian nation,” and its decision of May, 1896, upholding the Georgia Sunday “law,” it is at least evident that the opportunity was not lacking for a very explicit and pointed utterance on the subject. Either they are blind to the present situation in this country as regards religious liberty, or they did not design to assume an attitude so definite as to be of practical importance. It is probable that the utterance has reference to the controversy between the Catholics and the A. P. A.
A REPORT of the Christian Endeavor Convention at Washington, D. C., with appropriate comments, will appear in our next issue.
THE highest income in the “Christian nation” of Prussia, is that received by Herr Krupp, for the manufacture of weapons for fighting.
FROM five towns in Ohio, says the Christian Statesman, of July 4, come “reports of the vigorous enforcement of the sabbath laws,” among these being Canton, the home of the Republican candidate for President.
The trial of the four Seventh-day Adventists at Tiptonville, Lake County, Tenn., for working on Sunday, is expected to occur on the 16th inst. The editor of the SENTINEL will attend the trial and report the proceedings.
Be sure to read the article on another page, “Divine and Human Government.” Some parts of it may seem trite to the old SENTINEL readers, but as a whole it will be found sufficiently striking to reward a careful perusal by every one.
REMEMBER that while you are enjoying freedom honest men are imprisoned for their faith. J. W. Lewis is still in Tiptonville (Tenn.) jail, and four of his brethren in the same county are almost certain to suffer a like imprisonment within a few days.
In Russia the Lutheran Church has suffered much from the religious “laws” and restrictions enforced by the Russian government; yet the officials of that church have been more hostile toward Seventh-day Christians, who have recently gained a foothold in Russia, than have the officials of the government. A recent proscription of Adventist literature in Russia turns out to have been secured by the Lutheran Church.
NOTICE the world-wide scope of the movement for enforced Sunday-keeping, as set forth in the report of the International Federation of Lord’s Day Societies, given on page 222. What else could be expected when that nation which has claimed to be the standard bearer of liberty among all the nations of the earth, sets the example in the work of binding men in the chains of religious legislation. Evidently, under a continuance of the present order of things, the world will soon be “a safe and dreary prison” for such as choose to obey God rather than man, by keeping holy the seventh-day Sabbath.
REGARDING the rumor of a successor to Satolli, the Sun (N. Y.), of July 7, takes occasion to publish a dispatch from Washington, as follows:—
WASHINGTON, July 6.—No information has been received from Rome that Archbishop Falconio will replace Cardinal Satolli as the papal delegate at Washington. Cardinal Satolli will not return to Rome until his successor has been appointed and confirmed in his new dignity. It is regarded as unlikely that the Pope will make the appointment before September next, inasmuch as it is not desirable that the change should be made during the heated term.
Rome has been scheming for a long time to get a recognized delegate at the seat of government in this country, and she now assumes that it is an accomplished fact. Will the American people acquiesce in this assumption?
From the town of Lego, North Carolina, comes word of the arrest and trial of Robert Morehead, colored, an observer of the seventh-day Sabbath, for working in his garden on Sunday. He was convicted and sentenced to pay $7—fine and costs. Fortunately, he was not without friends among the most prominent white people of the vicinity, some of whom were very indignant over the action of the justice (formerly a Methodist preacher) who procured Mr. Morehead's arrest. These friends advised him to appeal his case to the superior court, and furnished his bond, which was $50. The case will probably not be reached for trial before September.
THE good people who see nothing wrong in a Sunday “law” which applies merely to the saloons, should before giving it their indorsement, pause and ask themselves where the Sunday crusaders purpose to stop in their demands. In New York City the “law” closes all saloons, but allows many other places of business to remain open until 11 o’clock, A. M. In Boston, the “law” closes all places of business except drug stores; and in Pittsburg it has been announced that even drug stores must be shut on Sunday. And yet the party of religious “reform” do not proclaim themselves satisfied. They have never yet announced that they had secured all they wanted, for any place or occasion. Nor will any such announcement be forthcoming until they shall have suspended all business on Sunday except their own, and discovered some way to corral the people within the churches. The germ of Sunday legislation contained in “laws” seemingly quite innocent, such as those closing the saloons on Sunday, grows readily into a Upas tree of vast dimensions. The time to resist such legislation is at the outset.