July 27, 1899
ENFORCED rest always makes a well man very tired.
DEMOCRACY and great wealth cannot flourish together in the same land.
EVERY Sunday law finds fault with men for following the example of the Creator.
THE cords that hold mankind in the channels of morality are not attached to any earthly source of power.
THIS age is doing its best to give the lie to that old and familiar Scripture, “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.”
THE nations all profess friendship for one another, but no nation has as much friendship for any other nation as it has for gold.
THE only significance that can belong to a weekly rest upon a specified day is a religious one. That was the significance given it by the Creator in the beginning, and no sophistry of man or act of the legislature can make it different.
THE only Sabbath which God ever provided for mankind is a spiritual Sabbath—“the Sabbath of the Lord;” and that the Omniscient never provided any other ought with Christians at least to be proof that no other is needed.
IT is not more and louder thunders of law, with all awe-inspiring manifestations of power and majesty, that is needed to make things better in the world. The ancient Hebrews had all this at Mount Sinai, but instead of drawing them nearer the Lord, it only drove them farther away.
IN republican government an institution is subservient to the individual, and not the individual to an institution. Government serves the individual, and is not his lord and master. The former was made for the latter, not the latter for the former. The individual was the crowning active God’s creation, and man has not made anything greater than was made by him.
CHRISTIANITY aims to purify men by casting out the world from their hearts. But there is a false Christianity in the land to-day which aims to purify the world by casting out men.
Great religious organizations are holding conventions and planning for an aggressive campaign to “purify politics.” Certain classes of men must be cast out of Congress and the State legislatures, that these political bodies may be purified and we may have a truly Christian government. When the government has been purified the evils that are now rampant in a society will disappear, and there will be ushered in a reign of righteousness and the establishment of the kingdom of God, so they say.
This is the old story of the world purifying itself, which is only one form of the subtle doctrine that man can be his own Saviour. Politics is of the world, civil government is of the world. In this country the most [450] worldly men, equally with those who profess religion, participate in the government, and any scheme for a less worldly government must contemplate withdrawing the franchise from worldly people. This could not be done, and if it could, by that very act would the government proclaim itself to be hopelessly unchristian than before. The right of self-government is proclaimed by Christianity for every man, whether good or bad. Without self-government, no man can be fit for the kingdom of God.
Politics cannot be separated from the world; and the attempt to purify politics and to cleanse the temples of civil government, is an attempt to purify the world. In the Christian sense of purification, it cannot be done. The world cannot be purified. Whatever is of the world must be destroyed, and is reserved unto destruction, against a future day so graphically portrayed in the second epistle of Peter.
The attempt, therefore, the purified politics, Congress, and the legislatures, in the name of Christianity, is a tremendous mistake and can only end in complete failure and disappointment. It aims at governmental rather than individual salvation, and rejects the individuals who most need saving. Christianity seeks out the most sinful and erring, not to cast them out but to save them. It brings to them not condemnation, but pardon and hope. It knows no salvation that is not of the individual.