The Signs of the Times, vol. 17

January 19, 1891

“Candid but Humiliating Admissions” The Signs of the Times, 17, 3.

E. J. Waggoner

Possibly it is not generally understood that the Sunday-law movement, and the movement to force the Bible into the public schools, are identical in spirit, and that the success of either one logically carries with is the whole National Reform scheme. This fact is so well shown, together with the utter selfishness that prompts the so-called religious reformation, in an article by J. H. Ecob, D.D., of Albany, in the New York Independent of December 11, that we reprint a large portion of the article. As will be seen from the article, the Independent itself does not favor the scheme. Here it is:— SITI January 19, 1891, page 11.4

Within a few weeks, the Independent has again spoken its mind on this subject, quoting with approbation certain Chicago preachers who asked that the Bible be forbidden in our public schools as a matter of justice to the tax-paying Jews and infidels. If I remember correctly, this is the only argument, it certainly is the chief argument, advanced by the aforesaid preachers and by the Independent. This position has an air of breadth and fairness which is captivating. It certainly does seem not quite “on the square” to take the money of Jews and infidels to support an institution, compel them to send their children to that institution, then to read to those children a book abhorrent to the parents. Not a few of our religious papers and teachers are demanding on this ground that the Bible be excluded from our public schools. SITI January 19, 1891, page 11.5

This is a demand that our public schools shall be entirely godless. We have no right to mention with reverence there the name of Christ, on account of the children of the tax-paying Jews. We have no right to pray, even silently, there, because the tax-paying infidel would not have his child’s mind perverted by deism. There must be no recognition of deity whatever in the public school, this great nursery of the nation’s citizens. On the same ground the moralities should be excluded, because tax-payers differ as to the basis of morals, and the extent of the moral code. On the same ground Christian teachers should be excluded; for it is undoubtedly a grievous wrong to the Jew and the infidel to compel him to place his children under a teacher who can no more restrain his Christian influence, if he be a true child of God, than he can restrain his breathing. I suppose the State should seek teachers as the court seeks jurors. If possible, select men and women who have heard next to nothing about God and Christ, and have no yet made up their minds whether or not there be a God and a Saviour of men. SITI January 19, 1891, page 11.6

But we must consider the full scope of this argument. If our public schools must be godless in justice to unbelieving tax-payers, so must all other public institutions supported by the taxes of the people. Our entire system of chaplains in prisons and reformatories, in military schools, in the army and navy, in State Legislatures, and in the National Congress, involves the same injustice. What right have we to take the Catholic, the Jew, the infidel, to support our military schools, then compel his boy to come under the influence of a Christian Protestant chaplain, who not only reads the Bible to him, but prays before him and for him, and, if possible, with him: who; reaches to him in public and labors with him in private, striving by all means to make a Christian man of him? What right have we to tax the Catholic, the Jew, the infidel, to support the State Legislature, elect him to that body, then compel him every morning to submit to the praying of a Christian Protestant? I have spent the eighteen years of my ministry in two capital cities, and have never yet known either a Catholic, or Jew, or infidel to be invited to officiate as chaplain. What right have we to open our great presidential conventions with prayer, our world’s fairs, in short, every great and serious undertaking? What right have our executive officers to issue Thanksgiving and fast-day proclamations? What right have they to take the oath of office? What right has our government to stamp upon our very dollars with which we pay our taxes, the words, “In God we trust”? What right have we to compel the infidel to handle such money, when we know it is supposed to burn his pockets, and harrow up his soul to be in possession of such poisonous stuff? He has a right to the clean, cold silver. SITI January 19, 1891, page 11.7

This argument in behalf of the unbelieving tax-payer would also demand a revision of our Christian statute-books. What place is there for Sunday legislation? Consider what a burden we put upon the Jew. We practically compel him to observe two days in the week as rest-days. His religious scruples hold him to the seventh day, our Christian statutes hold him to the first. Even if some slight concessions are made for his conscience’ sake, the result is practically the same, for no man can work when all the world is resting, neither can he rest much when all the world is at work, as every minister in the land, with his miserable, half-and-half Mondays, can testify. Such a burden has this become that the Jews are agitating the question of adopting the Christian Sunday. SITI January 19, 1891, page 19.1

Then, too, what right have we to tax the infidel to sustain our vast and complicated police machinery throughout the State, and then on Sunday convert the whole system to our Christian use, to obtain a quiet, orderly day in which the Christians may read a book and worship a God in whom the infidel tax-payer does not believe? He and his infidel brethren tax-payers SITI January 19, 1891, page 19.2

“Cannot work and cannot play
On this, the Christian’s holy day.” SITI January 19, 1891, page 19.3

Our Christian churches and institutions are exempt from taxation, the Jew and infidel are compelled to shoulder their proportion of this burden. In fact, this little proposition to render the public school godless for the sake of the unbelieving Jew and infidel, is like the genius escaping from the bottle-it rises and rises till it fills the heavens like a cloud. It is a proposition to render the entire State and national government godless to accommodate that same Jew and infidel. SITI January 19, 1891, page 19.4

It would seem that a few articles like that ought to be sufficient, if well circulated, to show how little of the gospel and how much of the spirit of despotism there is in the demand for the Bible in the schools. The claim that the exclusion of the Bible from the public schools will make them entirely godless has been exploded many times, and need not be noticed here. But we hope that every reader will give careful and candid consideration to the questions which Mr. Ecob asks. SITI January 19, 1891, page 19.5

“What right have we to tax the Catholic, the Jew, the infidel, to support our military schools, then compel his boy to come under the influence of a Christian Protestant chaplain, who not only reads the Bible to him, but prays before him, and for him, and, if possible, with him?” What right, to be sure? We don’t believe that the military chaplain does or attempts to do very much praying with the young men, for he is there as a military officer, whose dignity would be compromised by associating on equal terms with a common soldier; but is there any just reason why the State should assume this role of the tithing-man, to compel people to go to church? If the churches wish to do missionary labor in the State institutions, let them do so at their own expense, and let the people be as free to attend or to stay away as they would be if not Government employés. SITI January 19, 1891, page 19.6

Mr. Ecob says that if the Bible is to be excluded from the schools on the ground that men must not be taxed to support a religion in which they do no believe, then we should not tax them to support chaplains in our Legislatures. A very just conclusion. That farce should be ended, not simply in the interest of justice, but for the honor of religion. SITI January 19, 1891, page 19.7

“What right,” he asks, “has our government to stamp upon our very dollars with which we pay our taxes the words, “In God we trust”? We confess that we cannot answer the question. We are sure that the government does not trust in God, and that the falsehood which it stamps upon its coins is a taking in vain of the name of God. Still, as everybody knows that it means nothing, and few ever stop to read it, but receive and pay out their money without considering what is on it, there is not so much in it that tends to degrade religion to a mere form as there is in the enforced mechanical reading of the Scriptures. SITI January 19, 1891, page 19.8

Mr. Ecob has a wonderfully clear perception of the unity and fitness of things. He sees that if it is not just to enforce one religious act, then it is not right to enforce another. If men should not be compelled to pay taxes to support some other people’s form of worship, then they should not be compelled to support men to enforce Sunday laws. SITI January 19, 1891, page 19.9

But the admission in the last paragraph but one shows conclusively that Sunday laws are, and are considered by their upholders to be, the bond of union between Church and State. “Then, too, what right have we to tax the infidel to sustain our vast and complicated police machinery throughout the State, and then on Sunday convert the whole system to our Christian use, to obtain a quiet, orderly day?” This is well worth considering, not merely by the infidel, but by the true Christian. Is the disciple above his Lord? Shall Christ’s followers do in his service that which he condemned? Is it not misdirected and unholy ambition, which would seek to advance religion by means that the Master would not use? Do men in this century know how the cause of Christ should be carried on, better than Christ himself did? Do those who love the Lord Jesus as the head of the body, the church, and who believe that the true body of Christ will have within it all the power of its divine Head, wish to acknowledge the absence of that power by turning the State into a “Christian” machine to supply that lack? Is the work that was begun by Christ and his apostles to be perfected by ungodly policemen? Should not a people seek unto their God? Would that all who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity, by whatever name they are called, might see in these admissions the insult that is offered to Christ in his own house, and the necessity for a true reformation. E. J. W. SITI January 19, 1891, page 19.10