PROF. G. W. COLCORD, President of the Seventh-day Adventist academy at Graysville, Tenn., is one of the twenty now under indictment there, charged with violating the Sunday law. The six charges against him are for permitting students to labor on the college premises on Sunday. Since the indictments were found, a strong local sentiment has developed against these prosecutions, led by the editor of the Dayton (Tennessee) Leader, and the result is left in doubt. Meanwhile the accused manifest a meek and quiet, yet courageous spirit.
THE Christian Statesman of Feb. 9, contains the following editorial paragraph:—
Popery affirms its interpretation of God’s law through its so-called infallible head to be binding upon the consciences of all men. It leaves no room for dissent. It compels, so far as it has the power, acceptance of its interpretation. It denies the blessing of Christ to all who do not accept its interpretation as the one and only sound and valid interpretation of the divine law. However sure we may be that our views of truth and duty are scripturally sound, we are following in the foot-steps of Romanism the moment we assume to judge brethren in Christ in any such way as directly affirms or indirectly implies that they have not the same right to interpret and apply God’s law for themselves, and to expect his blessing in their honest and sincere endeavors to do his holy will.
The element represented by the Christian Statesman interprets the law of God to mean that the first day of the week and not the seventh day is the Sabbath, and is leaving no stone unturned in the effort to force this interpretation on all men by means of civil law. It denies the right of men “to interpret and apply God’s law for themselves” and is therefore, according to its own definition, “following in the footsteps of Romanism.”
THE New York Observer, of Jan. 24, 1895, attacks the Roman Catholic mass on this wise:—
There is not, in all the Word of God, a passage that can be quoted in support of an early and fasting communion.
The Catholic Union and Times, of Buffalo, replies as follows:—
Neither is there a single text of Scripture to authorize you to change the Lord’s day from the seventh to the first day of the week. Why have you done so? Because the Catholic and Apostolic Church, from earliest Christian days, has substituted Sunday for the Jewish Sabbath, for solid and resplendent reasons.
Of course, the Observer replied to this retort by maintaining the customary silence. What a pity that Protestants should stultify themselves and destroy their ability to wield the Word of God against papal errors by tenaciously clinging to one of the most fatal of these errors.
THE reason why the pope is so anxious to hitch America to his chariot is clearly stated by O. A. Brownson, in his work, “Conversations on Liberalism and the Church.” The author is a convert to Romanism from Protestantism, and so highly is he esteemed among them that steps have been taken to erect a monument to his memory. Mr. Brownson says:—
All heresies and infidelity are disintegrating and destructive, if you will, but really hostile to progress. They interrupt the work of the church, they interpose obstacles to her influence, deny or obscure the principles of progress, and as far as their power extends, so prevent their development and practical application, and not only peril souls, but hinder or retard the progress of civilization. Heretical nations [like the United States] are running the same career the ancient Gentile nations ran, and their influences, aided by the flesh, the world and the devil, extends even to orthodox nations, and neutralizes, to a fearful extent, the power of the church to apply her principles to her own children, so that these nations became almost as unprogressive as heretical nations themselves.—Page 170.
Yes, the religious liberty principles of the Constitution of this heretical nation have neutralized to a fearful extent the “power” of the Roman Catholic Church over her own children, so much so that she has stopped burning them for heresy. There was no United States Constitution to “interpose obstacles to her influence” on Huss and Jerome and the millions of others murdered by her “influence;” hence the earnest solicitude of the pope and the papacy to capture the United States Government and obtain “the favor of the laws and the patronage of public authority.”
WHAT the papacy will do for all nations and all people when the scheme of the pope is realized, is to be learned from a study of the history of the Dark Ages. There are people who are just foolish enough to believe that the “infallible” church has come to regard her cruel, medieval history with becoming abhorrence. All such should read the following, quoted from Brownson’s work, which the writer purchased within a week, from the Catholic publishing house of D. & J. Sadlier & co., 31 Barclay St., New York:—
Christian nations alone are living and progressive nations. And never have Christian nations advanced in all that makes the true glory of civilization so rapidly as they did from the downfall of Rome to the rise of what you [Protestants] call the Reformation.—Page 170.
No real progress of civilization since the epoch of the Reformation.—Page 176.
Always will the period from the sixth to the end of the fifteenth century stand out as the most glorious in the annals of the race.—Page 182.
Comment is unnecessary.
THE Evangelist comments quite numorously [sic.] upon the recent papal encyclical, making in a pleasant way several good points against it; and turning each of them likewise against the assumption of papal power by the Presbyterian General Assembly. The Evangelist concludes its criticism with these words:—
We have no quarrel with the pope; he lives “near St. Peter’s,” and has authority. To Leo’s credit, be is said, he uses his authority discreetly, and on the side of morality and civil order. The pope we fight is the self-made dictator of Presbyterian opinion and law, whether he be one or many; the creature which, like self-perpetuating prosecuting committees, creates and inquisition and forges instruments of torture for the miserable “minority.”
This is valuable from the standpoint of the SENTINEL, chiefly because of the recognition of the fact by the Evangelist that the pope that is to be feared is not merely the pope of Rome but the popish spirit; that the man who is dominated by that spirit is a pope wherever he is or whatever position he may occupy. It is this spirit that appeals to the civil power to enforce Sunday-keeping, demands exemption of church property from taxation, etc.