The American Sentinel 15
February 22, 1900
“Front Page” American Sentinel 15, 8, p. 113.
IN religion, the voice of authority is not that of the people, but the voice of God alone. AMS February 22, 1900, page 113.1
LEGISLATURES and courts exist to protect rights, not to manufacture or annul them. AMS February 22, 1900, page 113.2
IF the national Government or a State government can profess religion, it can with equal propriety join a church. AMS February 22, 1900, page 113.3
“CIVIC righteousness”—righteousness by law—is the righteousness that was boasted by the Scribes and Pharisees. It is a counterfeit. AMS February 22, 1900, page 113.4
THE right of every man to rest from work on Sunday, implies also his right to labor on that day; for if labor is not a right on Sunday, it is not a right on any day. AMS February 22, 1900, page 113.5
THE gospel of Christ is not a command, but an invitation; and if changed to a command by the coercion of the civil power, it ceases to be the gospel at all. And this is why the state cannot be religious without working against Christianity. AMS February 22, 1900, page 113.6
NO PERSON’S conscience is to be interfered with by law, unless it has become so perverted as to lead him to do violence to the rights of others. And in such a case the civil authority acts not for the purpose of chastising or correcting the conscience, but only to protect the rights that are suffering invasion. AMS February 22, 1900, page 113.7
IF the millions of people who labor on the seventh day do not thereby harm the few thousands who observe that day, how does it appear that these few thousands will harm the millions by doing work on Sunday? AMS February 22, 1900, page 113.8
THE Sabbath belongs to God, for he calls it “the Sabbath of the Lord,” “My holy day,” etc. And since we are to render to God that which is his, and to Cesar only that which is Cesar’s, it is plain that Cesar has no business to command us to keep the Sabbath. AMS February 22, 1900, page 113.9
“A Methodist Bishop Calls for a National Sabbath Law” American Sentinel 15, 8, pp. 113, 114.
THE Religious Telescope (Methodist) of Dayton, Ohio, published in a January issue an article by Bishop J. S. Mills, D. D., calling for “A National Sabbath-observance Law,” in which the bishop says that such a law “is the only satisfactory prevention of Sabbath desecration known to me.” He inquires what hinders such legislation, and proceeds to enumerate several hindrances. AMS February 22, 1900, page 113.1
“1. The indifference of the masses—Christians as well as others—on this subject. AMS February 22, 1900, page 113.2
“2. The open opposition of those persons (chiefly foreigners) who have a standing objection to Christianity and to all its institutions. AMS February 22, 1900, page 113.3
“3. The national greed for money is chiefly responsible for the Sabbath-breaking of the 3,000,000 of workingmen who toil on Sunday as well as the other six days of the week. These toilers would be glad for the privilege of the day of rest, but corporation greed forbids it. AMS February 22, 1900, page 113.4
“4. In the recent past and now the Saturdarians [by this term he refers to observers of the seventh day] are the worst organized foe to a Sabbath law. They are distributing millions of pieces of literature over our land of a plausible, but deceptive character, aimed to prevent Sabbath legislation.” AMS February 22, 1900, page 114.1
Now we had always supposed that the Christian religion—the gospel—was a “satisfactory prevention of Sabbath desecration”; in fact, we still believe this, and that conversion by its power is “the only satisfactory prevention”—the only thing that is sure to make a Sabbath-keeper out of a Sabbath-breaker. But the bishop confesses that this remedy is unknown to him. AMS February 22, 1900, page 114.2
A person desecrates the Sabbath when he does not keep it holy. And the reason the “Sabbath” (Sunday) is not more generally kept holy is, says the bishop, that the masses, including Christians, are indifferent, and large numbers of “foreigners” are opposed to Christianity. So in order to overcome this indifference and opposition to Christianity, and cause Sunday to be kept holy—that is, not “desecrated”—he would have a “national Sabbath-observance law”! A very likely remedy indeed! AMS February 22, 1900, page 114.3
He says that “corporation greed forbids” three million of workmen taking rest on Sunday, who “would be glad of the privilege of the day of rest.” But should a workman, or any person, not keep the day God has commanded, because “corporate greed” forbids it? If nobody kept a command of God which the devil, represented by “corporate greed” or any other form of selfishness, forbids the keeping of, how many of God’s laws would be observed in the earth? The fact that the Almighty commands a thing to be done ought to be evidence enough to satisfy a bishop that the thing can be done, no matter what other power forbids it. And therefore “corporate greed” is no real reason why workingmen cannot keep the Sabbath. AMS February 22, 1900, page 114.4
But how can the workingmen take a weekly day of rest when they would lose their positions by doing so? For answer one has but to point to the sixty thousand or more Christians in this country who observe the seventh day each week, and still get alone, without any law at all in their favor. If the minority do not need “protection” by law, the majority certainly do not need it. AMS February 22, 1900, page 114.5
The bishop is very indignant against those Christians who observe the seventh day as the Sabbath,—so indignant that he has to apply to them an epithet not found in the dictionary. But immediately following this, in answering the question “How can such a law be secured?” he says that “God commands the keeping of one day in seven as a day of rest.” The seventh day people observe “one day in seven,” which according to the bishop’s statement is all that God commands, and yet for doing this he finds occasion to denounce them. AMS February 22, 1900, page 114.6
In his view it must be that the church has authority to go beyond the commands of God and exact “duties” of which his Word says nothing. And this is the pure doctrine of the church of Rome. AMS February 22, 1900, page 114.7
The bishop sees that it is very essential that all people should observe one fixed definite day; but why then can he not give the Omniscient the credit of knowing as much, and not claim that his law only commands the observance of an indefinite “one day in seven”? AMS February 22, 1900, page 114.8
This “one-day-in-seven” theory of the Sabbath commandment is only used to combat the idea that “the seventh day” in that commandment is the definite seventh day of the week, which the bishop and all his mind know very well they are not observing as the day of rest. The bishop simply does not believe in an indefinite seventh day at all; nor do any others who call for a Sunday law believe in it. If they did they would not call for a law commanding a definite day. And in all these calls for Sunday legislation, as in this one, there is revealed on investigation the arguments of the sophist and the principles of the papacy. All which proclaim that the cause of Sunday legislation is inherently bad. AMS February 22, 1900, page 114.9
“Back Page” American Sentinel 15, 8, p. 128.
FOLLOWING fast upon the suggestion made by one in close touch with the administration, that the chief executive might find it necessary to conclude treaties with foreign powers without securing either the advice or consent of the Senate, comes the announcement that a secret treaty has been made with Great Britain, which is regarded by the State Department as an offensive and defensive alliance for the protection of the Western Hemisphere. And this treaty, it is further stated, is intended to supplant the “Monroe doctrine,” under which the Western Hemisphere has been secured against European aggression from President Monroe’s time down to the present. AMS February 22, 1900, page 128.1
This treaty is meant, of course, to be binding upon the nation; that is, upon the people; but as the people did not make it, either themselves or through their representatives, it is clearly an instance in which one man has assumed the prerogative of ruler of the American people. AMS February 22, 1900, page 128.2
Naturally the announcement causes considerable excitement and “senators, representatives, and men of all parties,” we are informed, “declare that no British alliance shall ever set the Monroe doctrine aside.” The truth is the Monroe doctrine has already been set aside by the American invasion of the Eastern Hemisphere, and nobody ought to be surprised that a substitute is now proposed to take its place. Nobody ought to be surprised that the Monroe doctrine should be regulated out of the American political system simultaneously with the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. AMS February 22, 1900, page 128.3
THE so-called statesman who “loves” his country so much that he will maintain it in the wrong, will help his country along in the pathway of wrong, which never led anywhere else than to ruin. And as the most that a traitor can do is to bring ruin on the country he betrays, it is plain that these two men belong in the same class. AMS February 22, 1900, page 128.4