fact that we are not blowing our trumpets as Seventh-day Adventists all the time, and that we are content to deal with great fundamental principles of human rights which appeal to every true American citizen, independent of our denominational label. When we get up to heaven, the Lord is not going to ask us whether we were Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, or Seventh-day Adventists. The only thing He will ask of us is whether or not we did His will. If the principles which we are advocating are not able to stand the test and scrutiny of a critic on their own merits, it certainly would not help a prejudiced critic were we to label these great principles with our denominational tag. We are advocating the truth as we see it, and will let it speak for itself. If truth cannot stand on its own foundation, it will not help the situation to give it a human prop for support.

This same minister says that Seventhday Adventists are brought to a pretty pass when they "have to side in with their old-time enemies the Roman Catholic Church," alluding evidently to the Oregon school law, which aims to destroy both Roman Catholic and Seventh-day Adventist schools.

Hope Never to Become Narrow-Minded

We hope we shall never become so narrow-minded in our religious beliefs or so prejudiced that it will be impossible for us to stand up in defense of the Constitutional rights of any man when his natural rights are threatened, irrespective of what his religion may be. Every American citizen has an indisputable and inalienable right to profess the religion of his choice without civil molestation, and when his inalienable rights are assailed, we propose to stand up for his rights and immunities under the law, whether he be infidel or Christian, Catholic or Protestant, and in so doing we do not champion his errors nor the wrongs of which he may be guilty. We have little in common with the

Roman Catholic Church, and are opposed to many of their religious views and practices, yet we hope that God will always give us the Christian charity and the magnanimity of character to defend their rights the same as we would our own. If this is treason, our Presbyterian critic has the privilege of making the most of it.

Another minister writes in all sincerity: "Did not God give the law which you seek to annul? How can you believe in the Bible and noť believe in the laws given by the God of the Bible? You would take away from Christians the liberty to enact laws in accordance with God's law."

Respect the Law of God

We wish to inform our Presbyterian friend that we do not take second place to any man in respect to God's word and His commandments and ordinances. We believe that all these should be observed piously and reverently, just as God gave them to His ancient people, and we believe that they are binding upon Christians for all time without the alteration of one jot or tittle. We believe that we observe all these a bit more strictly and literally than does our critic, or than he teaches others to do. Nevertheless, we believe it is highly incongruous and contrary to the spirit of Christianity to undertake to enforce the law of God as such by civil government.

The first four commandments of the decalogue relate exclusively to a man's duty to God, and clearly are not within the province of the civil magistrate. God's laws are spiritual and take cognizance of the motives of a man's heart. Neither are they administered after the customs of the laws of the land. The civil law is enforced by the power of the sword whenever crime is proved against the guilty offender, whether he is sorryor not. But the principles of administration in the spiritual kingdom of Christ are not based upon force and rigidity, but upon grace and mercy. Christ says that we are to forgive our

brother when he asks for forgiveness, even if he has trespassed against us seventy times seven times. On the other hand, He said that a man was guilty of murder even if he merely hated his brother but lifted up no hand against him; and that he was guilty of adultery even if he only looked upon a woman to lust after her. How would it be possible for the civil magistrate to judge men according to such a standard? Yet this is God's law and God's way of administering the law. If we are going to enforce the laws of God by the civil magistrates, then we ought to compel all people to worship God, to attend the Lord's Supper, the Lord's prayer meeting, to comply with the Lord's baptism, to pay a tithe to the Lord, and to educate all children in the tenets of religion.

This minister further states: "If we are a Christian nation, and we are, or we would not have Sunday laws, we have the right to pass laws protecting the sanctity of the day we believe should be kept holy."

Weakness of His Position

In this argument our friend has exposed not only the weakness of his position, but the danger of his logic. He says, We are a Christian nation, or we would not have Sunday laws, and since we are a Christian nation, we have a right to pass religious laws. This is nothing short of an avowal that Sunday laws are religious instead of civil. political preachers are beginning to disclose the real motive for their "Christian nation" propaganda, which is merely the entering wedge for the introduction of more stringent Sunday laws and for still other measures of religious legislation.

The

George Washington and the United States Senate declared on May 26, 1797, when they concluded and confirmed the treaty of peace and friendship with Tripoli, that "the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."

We can now see the wisdom of this statement made by the fathers of our Republic, and which statement is now a part of the fundamental law of our land, since the "Christian nation" argument is being used to justify the enactment of religious obligations into civil law, in order to force unbelievers to comply with church dogmas, and to accept ecclesiastical interpretations of divine require ments.

When we see and realize these things, and it is so apparent that the real object of these religio-political reformers is to further Sunday legislation, and laws for religious establishments, we feel not only justified in exposing the fallacious arguments of our critics, but in opposing their religio-political schemes before Congress and the State legislatures. The scheme to make this a Christian nation by civi law instead of making it so in fact by the sweet influences of Christianity in the hearts of the people, is evil, and only evil continually. We stand with the founders of our Republic, and with them we say, "Keep the church and state forever separate in America."

*

An Exhibition of Fanatical Intolerance

A

PRIEST in New Jersey has been fined $1 on the technical charge of violating that State's vice and immorality act, because he produced a Passion Play on Sunday. It seems fanaticism hardly could go farther than that.

It is perfectly understandable that many people object to certain kinds of theatrical performances on Sunday, though the fact remains that men have a moral right to give them, and others have a moral right to see them, regardless of any one's opinion to the contrary

The remedy which lies in the hands of the objectors is, of course, to stay away from the theater on Sunday if it offends them. No one can dispute their right to do that.

But when a minority group proposes

to close, and in some cases actually succeeds in closing, places of amusement on the only day of the week when the average person is free to visit them, the thing becomes a nuisance and a menace to individual liberty.

And when fanatics term a dramatic representation of the life of Him whom

they call Master a violation of a vice and immorality act; and what is more, win their point, the unprejudiced bystander rubs his eyes in astonishment. At this mad rate, it soon may become illegal to breathe on Sunday in the State of New Jersey. Sacramento Bee, Feb. 26, 1923.

T

HE following well-served tribute was printed in the Knoxville Sentinel from the pen of our friend Judge Cyrus Simmons, of Knoxville, Tennessee :

"The three co-ordinate branches of our government the executive, the legislative, and the judicial should function under the most friendly and cordial Conditions. In our democracy this is necessary for the well-being of society. Any attempt to destroy the good fellowhip existing among them, or to impair the confidence the people have in any ne of them, should be regarded as dangerous and un-American.

"In many instances it is just as necssary to construe a law as it is to make t. As the judiciary religiously refrains. rom pronouncing an opinion that would e regarded as judicial legislation, so he legislature should as firmly refuse to ass a law whose effect would be to anul or set aside a decision of the court. A house that is divided against itself annot stand.'

"A disrespect for the government, a Oss of confidence in the court, an unriendly rivalry for the ascendancy, and n education proletarian and destructive re the fruitage of a measure that sets f cross-purposes any two branches of ur government. Already the public ind is being agitated about this quesion: already prominent politicians and

statesmen are outspoken in the favor of legislative interference with the decisions of the court; already our body politic has been exposed to this terrible disease, which, if allowed to continue unarrested, will as a cankering sore, eat out the very heart and soul of our government. Should not steps be taken to remedy this malady, to prevent its spread, and to acquaint the good people of its poisonous and infectious nature?

"The fall of Rome and Jerusalem teaches us that the enemies within are more to be dreaded than the enemies without. Our nation has arisen anew from its baptism of blood in its dreadful civil conflict. Today, with Lincoln, are we not standing at Gettysburg in the midst of internal and contending forces whose insidious and pernicious propaganda may eventually impair the spirit and genius, and the beautiful equipose of our Constitution?

ford as one of the nine Justices to sit in the greatest court of our nation, is evidenced by the State-wide satisfaction and liberal applause of a thankful people. It is an honor conferred upon our State, for which we are all proud. His judicial record needs no panegyrist. It is outstanding for its wisdom, its justice, its mercy; and for the maintenance of those principles that protect the rights of the citizen and the law of the land. In these ominous and uncertain days of industrial disturbances and social disquietude, of revolutionary hysteria and

blundering Bolshevism, the people joice in having the assurance that Constitution, which is admitted to be greatest contribution to political scien finds in him a faithful friend and a w jurist. jurist. The bar has observed with ticeable admiration the placid and seh arly dignity that adorns his ermine, which the awe majesty of the court fittingly sit. Not only the State of Te nessee, but the entire country should congratulated on his appointment. O best wishes and heartiest felicitations with him."

W

E have been hearing much of late about the necessity of a weekly day of physical rest. The writer listened, some time ago, to the presentation of a very ingenious theory to the effect that if the worker start Monday morning with a certain amount of energy, Tuesday morning will find him one notch lower in energy than the day before, and each working day will reduce his energy one notch, when the next Sunday's rest is just sufficient to restore him to normalcy. The theory fails, of course. Some men work to the limit of their physical strength, while others never even approach such limits. Neither does the same individual consume his energy at a uniform daily rate. Sometimes he has so large a surplus that he feels obliged to use half the night at the billiard table or the dance to get rid of it.

Reason would teach that if more physical rest is needed, the hours of labor should be shortened. The primary purpose of the Sabbath is not physical rest, but worship-education of the mind and heart. No man is prepared to worship his Creator in a fitting manner who is obliged on the same day to revive his

physical strength, which has been slum ing through a whole week. The ma who finds it necessary to sleep till no and then take another long nap durin the sermon, has missed the primary pu pose of the weekly rest.

An effective answer to the deman for a day for physical rest is given b Dr. Josephine Jackson, a widely know authority on nervous diseases.

"Unless the body is definitely diseased. virtually never carries over its fatigue from on day to another. In the matter of fatigue ther are no old debts to pay. Nature renews het self in cycles, and her cycle is twenty-fou hours."-" Outwitting Our Nerves," p. 225.

HE Dayton (Tenn.) News gives the following résumé of a sermon preached in Washington, D. C., by op Thomas F. Gailor (Protestant copal), of Tennessee, with President ling as one of his auditors:

This high-placed churchman said the country was losing sight of the rtance of the bedrock upon which ation was founded. That is respect aw and respect for liberty. t is important when a clergyman this. The American tradition was of escape from impositions under h other people suffered. It was the rican's pride that he was free. Ile not bow the knee to a system of I caste. His government depended s decisions. He obeyed the law behis conscience approved it. He ot consider himself as obeying law. respected what he had himself ed.

le regarded democracy as the best cal form of human society, because resented the least interference with ly individual life. So long as an ican did not encroach on the rights other, he did not feel the hand of rity. He had to transgress before ght to decide and act was abridged y fashion.

he old American was conscious of iberty. It was a part of his charHe consulted his conscience, and splayed his character in his acts. p Gailor says that this is changing. mers are indifferent to the rights individual. Groups are formed to pressure on legislation. Daily the dual liberties are curtailed. Decy has ceased to regard protection individual conscience as its aim, ow regards coercion as its mission. on has become intolerant.

'hen people who have been free find aw is taking a new attitude toward they take a new attitude toward it.

They find it is impossible to prevent the raising of the structure of statutes. Organized vigor is too much for them. Groups of people seeking to impose mandates upon them are too aggressive. The people imposed upon take the shortest cut. They become nonconformists. They do not submit. They find outside of the law the freedom which the law purports to take away from them.

"They justify this in their conscience. It makes lawbreaking; but that does not deter them, because they think the law invited disrespect by transgressing against the substance and spirit of American life.

Demos can be a tyrant in some of his moods and enthusiasms. The desire to govern is inherent in human nature. Government exalts the egotism. To impose a rule or a law on human beings gratifies the person who finds the power. When the imposition can be made in the name of public morality and community well-being, the exaltation has the value of an ecstasy. It is an intoxicating sense of virtue to be causing the world to grow better by enacting of laws and promulgation of rules. That seems to be the highest objective of man, coereing wayward, vicious man from his evil ways into the path of the better life.

"Man cannot find his salvation in a hall of legislation, or in the most benevolent despot who ever wrote decrees. He can find moral or physical slavery there, but he cannot find virtue, and he will not look for it there.

"The American ideal of liberty was an asset to human life. It presupposed the best type of manhood. It demanded self-discipline, intelligence, courage, conscience, and respect for the opinions, beliefs, and rights of others. We do not believe that it has failed. The laws which are destroying it, assume that it has failed, and that the American is a child in the nursery who must have a