BISHOP POTTER, who has recently returned from the Philippines with altered views touching that country and people from those previously proclaimed by him, says in The Outlook that “There are probably a few people in America who believe that self-government is an absolute and indefeasible right.” There are a few people, probably, who still believe that “all men are created equal,” and that all men “are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” which governments are instituted among men for the purpose of preserving; and that civil governments accordingly derive their just powers from “the consent of the governed.” This language means self-government for all people if it means anything, and there are a few people who still believe it speaks the truth. That is what we believe.
NO PARTY, religious or political, can put God into the Constitution by taking out of it that equality and freedom for all in religion with which God has ever been inseparably connected.
THE gospel does not mean that any person shall force even himself to do right, much less that he shall force others to do what he thinks is right.
THE appointed work of the Christian minister is not to restrain the hands, but to touch the heart.