NATIONAL REFORMERS and many other professed Protestants are laboring to amend the National Constitution so that it shall expressly recognize Jesus Christ as the Sovereign of this nation. To all such we recommend the careful reading of the editorial from the Western Watchman, on page 235.
Be it remembered that these National Reformers have petitioned Roman Catholics to aid them in overthrowing the “atheistical” Constitution of the United States, and in building one that should recognize Jesus Christ as the Sovereign Ruler of the United States. When the Roman Catholics have gotten the same control in this country that they now have in South America, these National Reformers will have no one to blame but themselves if the Roman Catholics attempt to compel them to bow down to a bread-god sovereign as they are now doing with Protestants in Ecuador.
NOT long since, a Methodist minister and editor in Brazil was persecuted by Roman Catholics because he failed to bow to the “host” which was being carried in procession on the streets. The AMERICAN SENTINEL joins with Methodists in condemning this persecution. Seventh-day Adventists are persecuted in Tennessee, Maryland, and other States, in some cases by Methodists, because they refuse to bow to laws enacted to compel the recognition of Sunday as the sabbath. The Roman Catholic believes that the consecrated bread is the real Christ. Methodists believe it is a false Christ. Methodists believe that Sunday is the real Sabbath. Seventh-day Adventists believe it is a false sabbath. There is absolutely no difference between an attempt on the part of Roman Catholics to compel Methodists to act as if they regarded a portion of bread as holy, and an attempt on the part of Methodists to compel Seventh-day Adventists to act as if they regarded a certain portion of time as holy.
Seventh-day Adventists condemn the former as persecution. Will the Methodists condemn the latter as persecution?
SOME one, signing himself “M.,” has contributed an article to the Dickson (Tenn.) Enterprise, in which he attempts to break the force of biblical precedents for violating bad law, cited by the Adventists. He says:—
Ah, well, say they, if the civil conflicts with the divine, then it is our Christian duty to obey God rather than man. We admit this proposition to be true in the abstract, and here lies the danger of deceiving the simple-minded. It is a “catchy” phrase. But who is to construe the law? Who says our Sunday statutes conflict with God’s law? Whose opinion shall prevail, those of a handful of fanatics, or the combined intelligence and morality of the Christian world?
What an argument! Do majorities infallibly decide what is and what is not in conflict with God’s law? If so, all the martyrs were fanatics who should have gracefully submitted to the majority, rather than court persecution by acting contrary to the “combined intelligence” of the ruling majority. Our readers will be the more surprised when we inform them that this man is master in chancery and a Presbyterian. Sufferings of Presbyterian martyrs! Think of a Presbyterian, whose ancestors,—only a “handful,” so bravely and persistently violated the statutes enacted and enforced by the “combined intelligence and morality of the Christian world”—the papacy, pleading majorities! If majorities are to decide questions of conscience, then Romanism was right in persecuting Presbyterians in days gone by, and is right now in persecuting Protestants in Roman Catholic countries.
And now that the reader may refresh himself with a courageous, consistent, Christian utterance on these Tennessee persecutions, let him turn and read the letter from a Baptist minister on page 235.