The American Sentinel 14
June 15, 1899
“Notes” American Sentinel 14, 24, p. 369.
THE realm of conscience is sacred to the individual and his God. AMS June 15, 1899, page 369.1
A MAN has the same right to enjoy himself on Sunday that he has to enjoy himself on any other day, goer or not. AMS June 15, 1899, page 369.2
IRRELIGION is a sin, but it is not properly a crime. AMS June 15, 1899, page 369.3
THE more aid the church receives from the state, the weaker she becomes as a spiritual power. AMS June 15, 1899, page 369.4
SO LONG as the church upholds Sunday laws, she denies the Scriptural doctrine that an individual can do right only through the exercise of faith. AMS June 15, 1899, page 369.5
IF a person does not want spiritual recreation on the Sabbath, he ought not therefore to be prohibited from taking what recreation he can get in a physical way. AMS June 15, 1899, page 369.6
NO person has a right to prohibit other people from holding and teaching opinions contrary to his own, or to have his feelings guarded by law against a possible shock. No progress in the knowledge of religious truth was ever made without a shock to somebody’s feelings. AMS June 15, 1899, page 369.7
A SUNDAY law invades one individual’s rights for the sake of saving another person’s feelings. AMS June 15, 1899, page 369.8
THE church can impress the world only by manifesting to the world the power of godliness. When she invokes the civil power in the aid of religion she only impresses the world with a sense of the hypocrisy of her profession. AMS June 15, 1899, page 369.9
NO HUMAN law can offset the power of the “law of sin and death” that, as the Scripture declares, is at work in every unconverted heart. Until that is overcome by the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” the individual will be bound by it in spite of all the Sunday laws or other religious laws that can be enacted. And when he has been freed from the power of sin by the “law of the Spirit of life,” he will need no man-made religious laws to enable him to do right. AMS June 15, 1899, page 369.10
“The Abuse of Power” American Sentinel 14, 24, p. 371.
NO PERSON in the world is so good that he can be solely entrusted with the arbitrary exercise of great power. No person in the world, under such circumstances, could be safely relied on to make no invasion upon the rights of his fellows. AMS June 15, 1899, page 371.1
The truth of this is seen to-day in the use that is made of their power by individuals who occupy positions of financial or political preëminence. It is the arbitrary exercise of the power of vast wealth or of a political dictatorship or of something else, that is disturbing so seriously the equilibrium of society. AMS June 15, 1899, page 371.2
The man who commands millions of dollars, or millions of votes, or the backing of a vast organization holds more power than can safely be exercised by one man’s judgment and will. But it is human nature to wish to exercise power in just this way; and to feel fully competent to exercise properly any degree of power that can be acquired. AMS June 15, 1899, page 371.3
Power, in itself, if a proper and necessary thing for all persons; but there must be something to guard against its perversion. And here is seen the wisdom of God in the gospel. For the gospel provides him who receives it with great power, even the very power of God, but to be exercised only by a will that has first been submitted to God, and by the wisdom of God given to him who has been fitted for its reception. AMS June 15, 1899, page 371.4
And this is the true remedy for the evils that afflict society from the perversion of power. Under the provisions of the gospel, the humblest individual has more power than the mightiest man of earth who stands outside its provisions. He has power sufficient for every human need, while the mightiest man of earth has not the power that he needs to save himself from final destruction. The power of the one is a blessing to mankind, while that of the other is a menace and often a terrible curse. AMS June 15, 1899, page 371.5
The remedy is not to put more of earthly power into the hands of men, but more of the divine power into the hearts of the people. And the clergy, of all men, should be laboring most earnestly to this end. AMS June 15, 1899, page 371.6
“Back Page” American Sentinel 14, 24, p. 384.
SABBATH-KEEPING—as designating the religious observance of a weekly rest-day—is plainly shown by existing conditions to be on the decline among the Protestant bodies of this country, with one exception. That exception is the class of people who observe the seventh day of the week. And note: their Sabbath-observance is not anywhere supported by human law, is in many States discouraged by law, and is everywhere against the tremendous force of popular practice and belief. This Sabbath observance is not declining, but growing; while the other, which has all the Sunday laws behind it and the support of popular custom and tradition, is passing away. How do you account for it? And what is demonstrated by it as regards the utility of Sunday laws? AMS June 15, 1899, page 384.1
THE “American Sabbath” is passing away; that is, the religious regard for Sunday is dying out, as it pointed out in the article quoted from the New York Sun, page 373. But the desire to enforce Sunday observance by law is not dying out. A person may desire to enforce Sunday on others who cares nothing for it himself; this has been seen over and over in the cases that have been brought into the courts. The enforcement of religious observances is religious persecution, and religious persecution will never die out as long as the religion of Christ is in the world. Religious persecution is in most case not prompted by a regard for religion, but by a desire to get rid of the witness which religious truth gives against religious error, which righteousness gives against unrighteousness. It is the repetition of the story of Cain and Abel. AMS June 15, 1899, page 384.2