American Sentinel, vol. 5

January 9, 1890

“Front Page” American Sentinel 5, 2.

E. J. Waggoner

The Sunday-law workers are quite accommodating. If in any of their conventions there are not enough of those who openly favor religious legislation to carry their plans and resolutions on a religious basis, they will very obligingly declare the whole thing to be civil only and secure the indorsement upon that basis. Very accommodating indeed they are; but calling a religious or ecclesiastical thing “civil” does not make it any the less religious. Sunday legislation is religious legislation under whatever name it may be proposed. And religious legislation is forbidden by the Word of God. AMS January 9, 1890, page 9.1

With the view of raising the “standard of morality of both sexes, and stimulating the fervor of their religious belief,” the young emperor of Germany has, it is stated, issued an edict intended to put down dancing among the youth. Under the now order dancing is not to begin until after noon, is not to be kept up after 8 in the evening, and none except school children are to be allowed to join in the giddy round or the solemn square. Young people who are being prepared for confirmation are absolutely forbidden to appear at dances or to dance; and all parents and guardians of the young are called upon to use every means in their power to keep their children or pupils from dancing, and they are advised to substitute games for the popular form of recreation. Bismarck, it is said, opposed the ukase, saying:- AMS January 9, 1890, page 9.2

“That policy will be sure to make the young people dance all the harder. Who knows but it may come to pass that dances will be held in secret, like political agitatory exercises, and that the devotees of Terpsichore will have their heads turned with seditious politics as well as with the comparatively harmless dizziness of the waltz?” AMS January 9, 1890, page 9.3

Germany, it might be well to remember is a church and State country. Religion is taught in the public schools, and in various ways God is recognized as the source of all power; yet with the single exception of France, no so-called Christian country equals it in infidelity. It requires something more than imperial edicts, legislative action, and official red-tape to make Christians. We do think that professed Christians should not desire to dance; but if they do, no amount of governmental interference will make the matter one whit better. There is no merit in not doing a thing when there is no opportunity to do it. Hot-house Christians have never been a success. AMS January 9, 1890, page 9.4

“Some Wholesome Suggestions to Ministers” American Sentinel 5, 2.

E. J. Waggoner

The drift of the age is in the direction of “morality” by civil law, and is too often to exclusion, or at least to the neglect of moral suasion. Instead of seeking to construct people in moral duties, and thus lead them to practice morality from and changes motives, even ministers are too often found appealing to the civil law to. This is a grave mistake, for while men may, and should be required under civil penalties to lead civil lives, it is neither proper nor possible to make them world except by persuasion. This was the method adopted by Christ and his apostles, and it is the one which should be followed what by his ministers. Directly in the line of that which we have said is the following from the Iowa State Register, of November 24, 1889, which contains some wholesome suggestions not only for ministers but to all who, though meaning well, are committing a grave error of attempting to reform men by making it impossible, or at least difficult, for them to do wrong. The Register’s article relates particularly to be temperance question, but the principle is the same as applied to other questions, and is for this reason that we presented to our readers. The Register says:- AMS January 9, 1890, page 12.1

“We want to say to the preachers of Iowa at this crisis in public affairs, that in our judgment they are depending too much upon the law, and too little upon moral effort to bring about the condition of things we all desire. We have read with interest their letters and the resolutions they have adopted. We sympathize with them in their desire to banish the saloon and suppress the evils of intemperance. But we want to remind them that it takes more than a State statute to keep men from drinking, and reform those who are slaves to the drink have it. The law is good so far as it goes, but when a human appetite and passion is the subject, it doesn’t go the whole distance. There is something for the churches, something for the preachers, something for every good man and woman who wants to make the world better, to do. We notice in some of the resolutions which have been adopted at preachers’ meetings within the last few days, a disposition to look still more to the Legislature to suppress or to stamp out what ever drinking and violation of the prohibitory law still remain. AMS January 9, 1890, page 12.2

“We believe that is a mistake. The law has done, and is doing all that the law can, to close the saloons, and to keep men from drinking. Can the preachers truthfully say that they have done it and are doing all that they can? We wouldn’t accuse them of willfully neglecting their duty. But have they as ministers done the best in the most the could to keep men sober, to reclaim the drunkard, to save the boys from learning to love liquor, since the prohibitory law went into effect? AMS January 9, 1890, page 12.3

“We have been watching the operation of the prohibitory law ever since it was enacted. We have been watching also the general course of the professed temperance workers toward it. We will credit the ministers with helping to enforce the law. They have preached enforcement from the pulpit. They have talked it on the streets, most of them have voted it at the polls. But when we have said that, haven’t we said it all? Haven’t we summed up the aggregate work of the clergy, and to quite an extent of the temperance organizations of the State? Our good friends, the preachers, have looked to the law to make and keep men sober, and have expected that would do the work which to a greater or lesser extent must be done in every community by personal effort. AMS January 9, 1890, page 12.4

If the closing of the saloons had stopped drinking, we should have nothing more to say. But every well-informed man knows that it has not. It is true, there is not as much shrinking as there was when the saloons were open; but there is far too much now. It is vital to deny that a great many boys are learning to drink; that a great many men are drinking who would be far better off, and their families be far happier, if they would let liquor entirely alone. These are facts and stubborn ones, too. It will not do to ignore them; for they have a very disagreeable and painful way of forcing attention to themselves. Now what is being done to teach these boys to leave liquor alone? What is being done to show these men the folly and the harm of their course? What is being done to stir up public sentiment against the use of liquor? Not one single thing so far as we know except the single exhortation to enforce the law and keep the saloons close. AMS January 9, 1890, page 12.5

“When was there a temperance meeting held in Des Moines to plead with man to sign the pledge in leave their drinking ways? When have our honored clergy held gospel temperance meetings to bring all power of Christian influences to bear upon the drinking habit? When did a blue ribbon club or any other organization start out its members to find the old soaks and induce them to sign the pledge and become men again? Was any such personal work done in the last year, or the year before that? All of these good people headed by the ministers have been relying upon the law to do the work which belong never can do. They have preached sermons and held public meetings to demand that the law be enforced, but all this time there were poor fellow’s sinking lower and lower, and there were young men fastening the chains of appetite about their necks, and hardly a word of public protest or private entreaty has been heard. AMS January 9, 1890, page 12.6

“We do not single out Des Moines as exceptional in this respect. We do not believe its honored ministers are any more deserving of reproached for criticism than the ministers of other cities. We mentioned Des Moines because it is the nearest example of what we have in mind, and because it has more effectual perhaps than any other large city in Iowa, close the open saloon. In calling attention to this neglect of moral effort, we are not asking for the return of the saloons, or pronounced in prohibition a failure. But we want to say that there is too much tendency to let the loss of plant the rightful work of the pulpit and the church. Our friends, the preachers, in some of the resolutions that have been adopted recently, demand that the Legislature shall pass additional laws to enforce prohibition in counties where it is not now in force.... But if the brethren will permit the Register to say it, there would be a good deal of work for the creatures in the river counties, even if the next Legislature should devise some scheme for closing the saloons. The saloons there are open because a majority of the people in those counties believe that it is not a crime to sell liquor and not a sin to drink it. If every saloon were closed to-morrow, they would still think the same, and would seek at one some way to evade this law and satisfy their appetites. AMS January 9, 1890, page 12.7

“Now if our friends, the preachers, will allow us, we will tell them a way to close the saloons and every river county without any help from the Legislature.... Let them turn a phalanx of their best workers lose in those counties, and start an old-fashioned temperance revival. Preach temperance, sang a temperance, talked temperance, reach out the hand of kindness and love to the poor drunkard, teach men that the saloon is the enemy of their homes, show them that the path of sobriety seek to is the way to happiness, and just as quick as a majority of the people have been converted, the saloons will be close, will stay closed. We would recommend that the district conference that demanded more legislation stop passing resolutions and move more into Scott county and go to work. AMS January 9, 1890, page 13.1

“As we believe in short sermons, we will practice what we preach. But we would urge upon the ministers of Iowa of that they must not expect a lot to make men good, and pure, and noble.... Don’t expect the Legislature to do with a higher authority than man has laid upon human hearts and hands to do. We are disposed to look to the Legislature to much to reform society. As Francis Murphy says, they have an idea in the East that the people of Iowa are trying to change the Lord’s prayer so as to make it read, ‘Our Father who art in the Legislature.’ That won’t do. Don’t leave moral work to be done by the law. We don’t want to see our ministers acting as searchers and informers. Others can do that. They have a work which others can’t do. It is theirs to do the work which their great Example did. He saved men from their sins, but not with the sword of Cæsar.” AMS January 9, 1890, page 13.2

“No Compromise” American Sentinel 5, 2.

E. J. Waggoner

The Baltimore American thinks that progress and religious liberty “has been great during the present century-greater, perhaps, than in all its predecessors combined; and it has logically follow the spread of general knowledge.” “But,” remarks that journal, “there must be more progress-very much more, too-before men learn to respect those who differ from them in religious matters, and to refrain from damnatory criticism.” AMS January 9, 1890, page 13.3

This point, it intimates, is to be reached by compromise. But this is a mistake; there can be no compromise and religion, as there can be in politics. Nothing can be hoped for in the direction of greater religious liberty, or even the preservation of the degree of religious liberty which now exists, except as it comes through the recognition of the divinely-establish principle that in matters of faith men are answerable, not to their fellows, but to God alone. The true doctrine is that all men, no matter what their faith, are entitled to equal rights, both civil and social. The man who sits in judgment on another in the matter of his religion, and then attempts to punish him for what he is pleased to term “heresy,” simply usurps a prerogative of God. AMS January 9, 1890, page 13.4

“A Baseless Basis” American Sentinel 5, 2.

E. J. Waggoner

The second article of the American Sabbath Union declares that:- AMS January 9, 1890, page 14.1

“The basis of this Union is the divine authority and universal in perpetual obligation of the Sabbath as manifested in the constitution of nature,” etc. AMS January 9, 1890, page 14.2

The Sabbath is not manifested in the constitution of nature. The statement that it is so manifested is false, and the members of the American Sabbath Union noted to be false. Rev. Dr. Herrick Johnson, of Chicago, is a member of the American Sabbath Union, and not by any means been insignificant member. If they have any such thing as representative members, Dr. Johnson certainly may be named as one. In the congressional hearing, in behalf of the National Sunday law, December, 1886, held by the American Sabbath Union, Dr. Johnson was one of the speakers, and in his speech he said:- AMS January 9, 1890, page 14.3

“This appointment of one day in seven is arbitrary. There is nothing in nature to indicate that division of time. There is the day of twenty-four hours, there is a month, there is the year, all these are natural division; but there is nothing in nature to indicate the weekly division-the observance of one day in seven. It is arbitrary, and we regard that as an evidence of its divine origin.” AMS January 9, 1890, page 14.4

The statements of Dr. Johnson are evidently true upon their face, and they just as evidently prove that the statement, as to the basis of the American Sabbath Union, is false. The divisions of time into days, months, and years, is natural; there is in that in nature that clearly defines these divisions. But there is nothing in nature to mark even the weekly division of time much less is there anything in nature that would mark one of the days in the weekly division as a day to be religiously observed. The State exist and has its basis only upon the plane of the natural. The Sabbath is based only in the action of God and is manifested only in the revealed will of God. Both of which are pre-eminently supernatural. Therefore, the State existing only in the plane of the natural, and having to do only with the natural, can never of right have anything to do with the Sabbath, or with the weekly division of time which is caused by the Sabbath. That much of the basis of the American Sabbath Union is a fraud. And as the Sabbath Union exist for the purpose of securing religious legislation in behalf of the Sabbath, it follows that the basis of the American Sabbath Union rests upon nothing more tangible than does the “baseless fabric of a dream.” AMS January 9, 1890, page 14.5

“The Logic of It” American Sentinel 5, 2.

E. J. Waggoner

If a man should ask to be admitted into membership in a Christian church while asserting his unbelief in Christianity there is not one of the ministers of the American Sabbath Union who would admit him to membership. If anyone should ask to be baptized while maintaining an attitude of positive and unbelief in Jesus Christ there is not one of these ministers who would administer to him Christian baptism. They would deny his right have any share what ever in it. It is so also in the matter of the Lord’s supper. It is logically so also in the matter of the Christian Sabbath. But instead of standing logically to their proposition, they inconsistently demand laws by which men, who glory in infidelity and atheism, and in their hatred to Christianity, shall be compelled to observe the Christian Sabbath as a day of rest. In other words, they demand that the United States Government shall enact laws by which all the people who are not Christians and to do not want to be, shall be compelled to act as though they were Christians. If it be the Christian Sabbath, these people have no right to consent that anybody but Christians shall keep it; and far less have they any right to compel people to keep it who are not Christians. AMS January 9, 1890, page 15.1

If the church has the right to use the power of the Government to compel men to observe the Christian Sabbath as a day of rest, has she not an equal right to use the same power to compel the same persons to observe the same institution as a day of worship? And has she not an equal right to use the same power to compel all men to observe a Christian baptism, and to belong to the Christian church? In short if she has the right to use the power, where is the limit to the exercise of that right, except in her own arbitrary will? The results here suggested will follow as surely as the power is obtained. For, although the church is always a logical and inconsistent in demanding the use of the civil power, she is always strictly logical and consistent in the use of that power to the utmost limit. The only safety is in not allowing her the use of the civil power to the slightest extent. AMS January 9, 1890, page 15.2

“Back Page” American Sentinel 5, 2.

E. J. Waggoner

The Christian Nation notices the removal of the AMERICAN SENTINEL to this city, and remarks that “the firing will now be at closer range.” Possible the Nation will now be able to shoot a little closer to the mark. Hitherto its failures to hit anything have been unparalleled by any journal with which we are acquainted, with the possible exception of the Christian Statesman. AMS January 9, 1890, page 16.1

The ministers of Xenia, Ohio, have issued an address to their people, urging them to cease desecrating “the Sabbath” by refraining from burying the dead on that day, going to the post-office, reading secular papers, compelling servants to do household work, and traveling on Sunday, especially by railroad. This is all right; if the ministers of Xenia believe that Sunday should be so strictly observed it is perfectly right for them to persuade their people, or any other people, to keep it; but there the matter should end; they have no right to coerce people in such matters. AMS January 9, 1890, page 16.2

A Reader asks, “Can the Sunday bill become constitutional without being voted on by the people?” There is no way in which the people can ever have an opportunity to vote directly either for or against the proposed Sunday law. If Congress passes the bill and it is sustained by the Supreme Court, it will then be, for all practical purposes, constitutional. Of course we do not think that a Sunday law would be constitutional in the sense of being in harmony with the intent of the framers of the Constitution, but it is not at all unlikely that the courts would sustain such a law as that proposed by Senator Blair. AMS January 9, 1890, page 16.3

In the late convention of the American Sabbath Union in this city the field secretary denounced certain base-ball leagues as “bands of criminals” because they play ball on Sunday, and the same convention asked Congress to pass a “civil Sabbath law.” Now if the Sunday laws are “civil” statutes and forbid only that which is uncivil, then we should like very much for someone to tell what there is in the playing of base-ball on Sunday that is so intensely uncivil as to turn all who play it, into bands of criminals. In California also last summer the field secretary denounced as criminals all members of the legislature of that State who had voted against a Sunday law, and declared that every one of them “ought to be in the penitentiary.” Mr. Crafts is rather too prodigal with his denunciations properly to represent a minister of the gospel of Christ. Christ came not into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. AMS January 9, 1890, page 16.4

Let none be deceived by the plausible cry of “a civil Sabbath.” There is no such thing as a “civil Sabbath,” and nobody wants such a thing. A “civil Sabbath” could be nothing else than a weekly holiday, when public business would be suspended and the people be left free to do as they please so long as they are civil, just as they are upon any other holiday. But that would be the “Continental Sunday” with a vengeance; and that the Sunday-law advocates do not want. “Take the religion out and you take the rest out,” says Mr. Crafts, thus showing that, in his opinion, a Sabbath to be of any value must have a religious basis; and that is the truth. But when that is admitted where is the “civil Sabbath”? The fact is, as before stated, that there is, and in the very nature of the case, can be no such thing as a civil Sabbath. It is simply chaff used to catch sparrows. AMS January 9, 1890, page 16.5

The field secretary of the American Sabbath Union should take the president of that association aside and instruct him in regard to the real object which they have in view. Mr. Crafts has been “swinging around the circle” explaining to the people that the Sunday movement is in the interest of the working men, a sort of sanitary measure as it were. But Mr. Shepard is continually saying something which, to say the least, excites a suspicion that the field secretary has been keeping something back; in short, that the real object of the movement is something else than that which he has represented it to be. One of these unfortunate “breaks” on Mr. Shepard’s part was made in the recent meeting of the so-called Union in this city, when that gentleman offered some resolutions to the effect that the day of the inauguration of the president of the United States should be upon the first Wednesday of March, instead of upon the fourth day of that month. The reason for the change, as set forth in the resolutions, is that it would do away with the desecration of Sunday by enabling persons, east of the Mississippi, and those living even farther away, to leave their homes on Monday, attend the inauguration ceremonies, and return home by Saturday of the same week. This, says the resolutions, would prevent their “dishonoring the Lord’s day for the purpose of honoring the president of the country.” AMS January 9, 1890, page 16.6

Now the question naturally arises what possible connection this proposed change in the day of the inauguration has with a movement in the interests of the working men? It certainly looks very much as though Mr. Shephard’s object is to ... Sunday, and to promote its observance as a sacred day. And inasmuch as the American Sabbath Union adopted the resolution without a dissenting vote, it would seem that the Union is in perfect accord with its president. And thus it appears that unless Mr. Crafts is mistaken as to his real motive, he stands alone in his efforts to preserve the health of that large and respectable class which he professes to serve. AMS January 9, 1890, page 16.7

The object of the American Sabbath Union is declared by article 3 of its constitution to be, “To preserve the Christian Sabbath as a day of rest and worship.” This object the Union proposes by legislation. It makes no other effort than by law to do this. And granting just here, for the argument’s sake their claim that they do not propose to compel everybody to worship, they do propose to compel everybody to rest, on what they themselves call “the Christian Sabbath.” Now Christian institutions and Christian ordinances belong only to Christians. The Christian church is for Christians only; Christian baptism is for Christians only, the Lord’s supper is for Christians only. If Sunday be the Christian Sabbath, it likewise is for Christians only; and they not only have no right to compel those who are not Christians to observe it but those who are not Christians have no right voluntarily to observe it. AMS January 9, 1890, page 16.8