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ET no one think for a moment that the National Reform has changed its character. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" No more can National Reform change.

The Reformers are still urging their proposed amendment, which would, if adopted, repeal or supersede that part of the First Amendment to our national Constitution which says that

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The Character of National Reform In the earlier history of the National Reform movement, it's true character stood out more distinctly than it is permitted to do today, as is witnessed by the following excerpts from utterances of National Reform officials, speakers, and propaganda periodicals:

"You look for trouble in this land in the future, if these principles are applied.. I think it will come to you if you maintain your present position. The foolhardy fellow who persists in standing on the railroad track, may well anticipate trouble when he hears the rumbling of the coming train."- Rev. W. T. McConnel, in an open letter" to the editors of the American Sentinel, in the Christian Nation of Dec. 14, 1887.

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"Those who oppose this work now will discover, when the religious amendment is made to the Constitution, that if they do not see fit to fall in with the majority, they must abide the consequences, or seek some more congenial clime."- Dr. David McAlister, in National Reform Convention at Lakeside, Ohio, August, 1887.

"We might add, in all justice, If the opponents of the Bible do not like our government and its Christian features, let them go to some wild, desolate land, and in the name of the devil, and for the sake of the devil, subdue it, and set up a government of their own on infidel and atheistic ideas; and then if they can stand it, stay there till they die."- Rev. E. B. Graham, in the Christian Statesman, May 21, 1885.

"We propose to incorporate in our national Constitution the moral and religious command, 'In it [Sunday] thou

"Let those who will, remember the Sabbath to keep it holy, from motives of love and obedience; the remnant must be made to do so through fear of law. We have no option." - Christian Nation, Sept. 28, 1887.

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"Give all men to understand that this is a Christian nation and that, believing that without Christianity we perish, we must maintain by all means our Christian character. Inscribe this character on our Constitution. Enforce upon all who come among us the laws of Christian morality."-Chris tian Statesman, Oct. 2, 1884.

"Uniformity is essential both to peace and progress. The opinion of the majority must be decisive. Even in the matter of men's consciences a degree of uniformity is a necessity." - Dr. S. F. Scovel, at Winona Lake, Indiana, August, 1910.

"We want state and religion; and we are going to have it. It shall be that so far as the affairs of the state require religion, it shall be religion, the religion of Jesus Christ."Jonathan Edwards, D. D., in National Reform Convention, New York, Feb. 26, 27, 1873.

"Constitutional laws punish for false money, weights, and measure. So Congress must establish a standard of religion, or admit anything called religion." Prof. C. A. Blanchard, in Pittsburgh Convention, in 1874.

"To be perfectly plain, I believe

that the existence of a Christian

Constitution would disfranchise every logically consistent infidel."- Rev. W. J. Coleman, in Christian Statesman, Nov. 1, 1883.

The foregoing show plainly enough the lengths to which

"Do members of Congress have any real interest in legislation purely Christian or moral in character and without any political partisan or financial aspect? Assuredly yes, can be said of many, although the actual proceedings of Congress do not show the interest always actively expressed."

Doubtless some Congressmen are interested in National Reform from the best of motives. But members of Congress, whether Senators or Representatives, are only men, and like other men they may be susceptible to the influence of selfinterest. There are comparatively few who, when nearing the end of the term for which they have been elected, do not want to come back again. Nobody wants to be defeated, and even National Reformers are not above saying to members of Congress, "Support our measures, or our influence will be against you in the next election." Therefore a popular and muchused method with National Reformers is to make it appear that there is a strong popular demand for the laws they desire. Says Laura Rooke Church, in the article referred to:

"Our request to church courts and other branches of church work resulted in the adoption of hundreds of petitions by these bodies, representing in the aggregate many millions of petitioners in behalf of uniform marriage and divorce laws, of a Constitutional amendment pro hibiting polygamy, and of a Sunday-rest law in the District of Columbia. Letters to our office acknowledging receipt of these petitions bear evidence that they were not without effect upon the Senators and Representatives to whom they were sent."

Now while some of these measures are meritorious, we question the righteousness of representing whole denominations as favoring any given measure simply because it has the formal approval of the highest church court of that particular body of people. That method has been greatly abused in the past, and is almost sure to be

misused again. The exceedingly drastic Sunday bill drawn by Noah W. Cooper, of Nashville, something like two years ago, a bill so drastic as to be almost entitled to be termed a freak bill, had apparently the endorsement of almost the whole of the great Methodist denomination. Yet so absurd were its provisions that Mr. Cooper was unable to find a member in either House or Senate willing to introduce it even by request.

Also prominent leaders in some of the conferences endorsing it, declared that it had not been before them, and were

convinced that it had been endorsed by vote only when confronted by the official record. Evidently such matters are put through with scant consideration, often without a quorum, and instead of representing the denomination, grossly misrepresent, if not a majority, at least a very considerable minority.

Such methods are dangerous, and legislators should beware of them. National Reformers are evidently proposing to substitute clamor for the Constitution. and even go so far as to manufacture the clamor.

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T is so seldom the newspapers state this matter correctly, that we are glad to give currency to the following from the Washington (D. C.) Herald of Dec. 26, 1922:

"Not many students of colonial history feel at their best when reading of how our forefathers hanged (not burned) witches.

"That witch-killing was a world-wide mania at the time, and that the killings our forefathers did were petty compared with the killings elsewhere, is an excuse so far as it goes.

In Germany, for instance, 100,000 witches were slain; in France, 70,000; in England and Scotland, 30,000; in New England only 20. Thus it appears our pious ancestors soon regained their poise."

Of course, hanging, equally with burning, takes life, but there is a very wide difference in the torture inflicted. Witches were hanged in New England from a mistaken sense of duty on the part of civil officials who imagined that they were under obligation to enforce the laws by which the Hebrews were governed under the theocracy.

Sprenger is authority for the statement that in Europe alone, "over nine million suspected witches were put to death on the flimsiest evidence." Very many of these were doubtless entirely innocent of any wrong-doing whatever, or of any thought of harming any one.

This was also the case in New England. Giles Corey and his wife Martha were examples of this sort. She was "tried." condemned, and executed by hanging at Salem, Mass. He refused to plead to the indictment, and was pressed to death. It seems that both were inoffensive persons.

It is an everlasting shame to the Puritans that they were ever guilty of the blood of so-called witches. It is, however, greatly to their credit that they did not torture their victims. They were fanatics, not fiends. They were moved, not by malice, but by zeal without knowledge.

Reading the account of "the witch of Endor," who is not, however, called a witch in the Hebrew Scriptures, it appears that the woman was what is today called a spirit medium. She prac tised necromancy, which is defined as "pretended communication with the spirits of the dead."

But the modern Puritans do not propose to interfere with spirit mediums. Their burden is to enforce the decalogue, especially their interpretation of the fourth commandment. They would arrest, fine, imprison, and milder measures failing, finally put to death people for refusing to observe Sunday. So that

while so-called witches are no longer executed, the intolerant spirit that hounded innocent men and women to their death three centuries ago still lives, and only awaits opportunity to spring into action in this the twentieth century of the Christian era.

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Sunday Bills Religious in Character

M. B. VAN KIRK

Fall monopolies or trusts, none is so evil as a church trust. Of all the expressions of despotism in the world, none bears more characteristics of a despot than a church autocracy. The Christian religion is the most substantial thing in the world. God is its author. God is its upholder, yet, wielding almighty power. He never compels men, He impels them. The religion of Jesus Christ is based upon the divine principle of man's free choice. For millenniums God has borne with humanity, patiently and continually pleading for recognition, but has never coerced men to serve or obey Him. Then why should His professed servants in this world undertake to compel men?

The church is God's kingdom in the world but not of the world. God seeks to induce men to worship Him in spirit and in truth. The attempts to bring the worship of God into any sort of relationship with the state are not in harmony with God's purpose, first, because Christ says, "My kingdom is not of this world: if My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is My kingdom not from hence." John 18:36, A. R. V. The principle of entire separation of civil matters from religious matters was taught by Christ Himself when He said, "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Luke 20:25, A. R. V.

For more than a century there have been attempts made to change by organized effort the American principle of entire separation of church and state.

To this end many organizations have been effected, culminating in the organization of a so-called Christian lobby in our national Capitol, under the direction of Dr. Wilbur F. Crafts. The Lord's Day Alliance, with Dr. Harry L. Bowlby, is another of the pseudo-Christian organizations whose purpose is to undermine true American principles and inaugurate a new dispensation under which all men must direct their lives according to rules that the civil government has made into law at the instigation of, and fostered by, these would-be reformers.

It is passing strange to see our good Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian friends, who in their earlier years suffered much at the hand of the state when the government undertook to compel them to conform to the established church, take a hand in this movement. Their proposed Sunday law, which has already been published many times, leaves little to the conscience of the individual. Mr. Bowlby said some months since, in an interview with the correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger: "We are well financed. Our lobby at Washington will be an effective and experienced one. We shall work in every Congressional district. We shall agitate and spread propaganda, and cause voters to write unceasingly to their Representatives in Congress until no Congressman who cares to stay in Congress will dare refuse to vote for our measures."

This movement, which he says represents sixteen denominations, seeks to close baseball parks, golf links, motionpicture and other theaters, concert halls, amusement parks, and bathing beaches, to restrict the sale of gasoline for pleas ure automobiles, to stop Sunday automobiling, Sunday excursion steamers, all Sunday trains and handling of mail, etc. The avowed object and purpose of such legislation is to express our national determination to honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy." What a travesty on God's methods the church attempting to do by law what God has never sanctioned!

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E placed on the front cover of LIBERTY for the second quarter, the picture of Makemie making his plea for religious liberty before Lord Cornbury, and in connection with this, we printed the Memorial of the Presbytery of Hanover to the General Assembly of Virginia, making a plea for the disestablishment of religion in Virginia in 1776. We sent copies of this issue to quite a few Presbyterian ministers, thinking that they would be interested to know that some of their spiritual forebears of those early times stood for religious freedom and the rights of conscience.

We are glad to report that some of these ministers caught the correct idea, and were very grateful for the magazine, and wished greater strength to our arm in defending the fundamental principles of civil and religious freedom in America.

But a few of these ministers caught the wrong vision, and criticized us most unmercifully. One minister wrote: "I consigned your LIBERTY magazine to the flames, and if you send any more, they will go there unopened. I consider you folks the greatest hypocrites on the top of God Almighty's dirt." This letter came from a Presbyterian minister in Pennsylvania, my native State. We have some queer people in the good old Keystone State!

When John Morton, of Pennsylvania, cast the deciding vote on July 4 in favor of and signed the Declaration of Independence, he was not only denounced in shameful terms by some of his friends, but they consigned copies of the Declaration to the flames when he forwarded the same to them. No doubt, those men lived long enough to regret the course they took in belaboring and defaming that noble act of John Morton, alluded to in another article in this issue. We hope

our ministerial critic will live to see the day when he would esteem it a privilege to have a copy of LIBERTY magazine in his possession and to prize it as doubtless did those men the Declaration of Independence. Consigning our magazine to the flames and informing us of that fact is a poor argument and lacks convincing qualities. Such an idea is first cousin to the thought of those who used to apply the torch to the early martyrs, burned at the stake for their loyalty to the cause of human freedom. Such threats coming from ministers are bad omens of our times.

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Another minister writes and wants to know why we do not call the LIBERTY magazine a Seventh-day Adventist paper, and demand "the right to make every one worship your God on Saturday." We wish to inform our critic that we are just as much opposed to the idea of compelling people by civil law to rest on Saturday, the seventh day, as upon Sunday, the first day, of the week. fact, we would oppose the proposition to compel people to rest on the seventh day of the week with far greater vigor than the proposition to compel them by law to rest on the first day of the week, because it is far worse to pervert a divine institution, which was ordained by God Himself, than it is to pervert and change a human institution. God is never more greatly dishonored than when one employs force to propagate spiritual concerns. Christianity has to corrupt itself before it will make an appeal to the civi power for aid in spiritual matters.

This minister wants us to label ourselves as Seventh-day Adventists wher ever we go and whatever we do. Oceasionally we get a letter like this from a preacher, but we are glad to say that we receive many more from ministers. legislators, lawyers, judges, and newspaper editors who compliment us on the