giving civil power to the church. From this class in England, the Puritans emigrated to America from 1630 to 1640. "The object of the Puritans in coming to America," says Fiske, in "Beginnings of New England," "was not at all religious liberty for all, though they had a great deal to say about it. They came resolved to have a theocracy, like that of Moses, determined that no one should live with them who did not believe just as they did."

Protestantism, the leading idea of which is religious liberty, began its work, not in Germany, but in England; not in the sixteenth, but in the fourteenth century, when parts of the Scriptures were copied and taken to all classes of people. Wycliffe gave the whole Old and New Testaments to the English in 1380, before there was any other literature popular in England. Such were the fruits, that when Henry VIII renounced popery two hundred years later, he found more than half his subjects Protestants.

But the English did not retain their primitive Protestantism, and in the theocracy of New England, their custom of using the civil law to enforce religious belief and practices became a most cruel tyranny.

The Puritan leaders in Massachusetts resolved not only to be holy themselves, but to keep sin out of the colony. The Quakers were specially obnoxious to them because of their more liberal views. "Benedict's History of the Baptists," "Goodrich's Church History," and others record numerous cases of cruel persecution of dissenters. As soon as the Quakers came to Boston, in 1636, laws were enacted against them. They were to be banished; in case of return, they were to lose first one ear, then the other. They were to be imprisoned; have their tongues bored through with a hot iron; be stripped to the middle, tied to a cart's tail, and flogged from one town to another. The whip was "a two-handled implement, armed with lashes made of twisted and knotted cord or catgut."

One might reasonably ask, What kind

of flesh and blood had these cruel bigots! They were human beings, with the same kind of flesh as our own. As for their blood, it came of the best the English nation produced. They believed the Quakers had "a diabolical disease, and that they must use extreme measures to drive it out."

A part of the colonists became indig nant at the treatment of the Quakers. and in 1659 they said there should be no more innocent blood shed. But not t after the hanging of the witches in 1692 was there a complete reform.

There was an element in the theocracy that, sooner or later, was sure to lead to emancipation, the Puritans valued education. Most of their clergy were highly learned men. Their sermons were usually "elaborate arguments on doctrinal points, bristling with quotations from: the Bible. And these sermons were talked over at the home fireside."

These sermons were three and a half hours' long, during the delivery of which it was a sin for even children to show any signs of weariness. Small children were taught to read and understand the Scriptures; the Puritans had no fanciful interpretations, making the Bible mean anything except what it says. Since the Bible is the exponent of religious liberty the principles of which were clearly given by Christ when on earth; and since the Puritans made it their express counselor, they must have some time seen and mentally rejected their union of church and state, even before they repudiated it in practice.

One hundred Pilgrims came over in the "Mayflower;" in twenty years they had become twenty thousand. Their descendants, and the descendants of the Puritans who came ten years later, now number millions, many of whom, while saying, "If we had been in the days of our fathers we would not have been partakers of their deeds," still cling to the false theocratic theory that made the Puritans the persecutors they were.

(The above facts were largely culled from Fiske's "Beginnings of New England.")

T should be remembered that intellectual enlightenment is no safeguard against bigotry, intolerance, and persecution.

The Greeks were a very intellectual people, but they were persecutors. The Athenians tolerated babblers and sophists, but exiled Anaxagoras for contravening the established dogmas of religion, and condemned Socrates to drink the poison hemlock on a charge of atheism. Their religion and their state, the Greeks believed, would stand or fall together.

The maintenance of the former was, in their view, essential to the stability of the latter. In like manner the Jews, a few centuries later, justified their condemnation of Christ, saying, "If we let Him thus alone, all men will believe on Him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation."

It was for political reasons that Constantine favored the Christians, while at the first not offending the pagans; and in every age, state patronage of religion has been defended as essential to the stability of civil authority. After the abolition of Christianity in France, Robespierre declared that France must have a religion; that if there were no God, they nust make one. The people must have an object of worship.

This was Constantine's theory. When he saw the failure of paganism, the stability of his throne threatened, and the empire itself apparently about to fall to pieces, he seized upon the then new religion, Christianity, as the most promsing stabilizer of civil society, and #hroughout his life made the most of it En a political way.

It is sometimes said that it was in this way that the Christianity of the fourth century was so greatly corrupted; ut, as one writer has remarked, Un

less it had already been corrupted, it could not have been adopted by Constantine at all."

But plausible and well-nigh universal as is the plea of political expediency, or even of necessity, it can never justify any government in overriding the rights of conscience. When Jesus said to the crafty Pharisees and the scheming Herodians, "Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's; and unto God the things that are God's," He not only drew a distinct line of demarcation between things civil and things spiritual, but He announced a principle that must be recognized by every man who is not a fanatic or a tyrant.

Our national Declaration of Independence sets forth as a self-evident truth that every man is by his Creator endowed with certain inalienable rights. While not specifically mentioned, this generalization must certainly include the rights of conscience. March 5, 1829, the national House of Representatives adopted a report from the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, declaring that the framers of the Constitution recognized the eternal principle that "man's relation with his God is above human legislation, and his rights of conscience inalienable."

This is not an open question in the United States of America today, and ought not to be thought of as such. It was settled when our forefathers made the defense of inalienable rights the basis of their right to resist by force of arms the authority of King George III. It was reaffirmed in the First Amendment to our national Constitution, and has been consecrated by every drop of blood spilled in defense of American principles and American freedom from that day to this.

N

OT long since, the head of the International Reform Bureau, Dr. W. F. Crafts, was in California, and spoke in a number of places on his ideas of reform. One of his sermons or lectures was given in the Emmanuel Presbyterian Church, Los Angeles.

The pastor of this church has been delivering a series of sermons covering the different phases of the Sunday blue law crusade which is now on in the land. Mr. Smith is a Christian gentleman, and did not make a violent attack on those who disagree with him.

It is well known that one of the chief opponents of Sunday legislation is the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. These freely concede to all the right to observe any day they may choose. It is a man's right to keep a day if he so desires, but he is not a criminal if he regards no day as sacred. Sabbath keeping is a religious and not a civil duty. The pastor of Emmanuel church regretted that Seventh-day Adventists fight against the passing of Sunday laws, but also recognized the fact that as a class Adventists are godly people and are devoted to their religion.

Then came Dr. Crafts, and in his discourse made a vicious attack on this people. One of his declarations was that Seventh-day Adventists claim that the United States is symbolized in Scripture by a "horned hog." This, to be sure, was made in order to create prejudice against this people. Dr. Crafts has often made this assertion, and his attention has been called to its falsity. He knows it is untrue; still he persists in making the assertion. He should reform himself, at least to the point where he will tell the truth. The ninth commandment is still of moral obligation.

The prophetic word does symbolize nations by different beasts. Babylon was represented in Daniel's prophecy by a lion, and Greece by a leopard. Modern writers symbolize Britain by a lion and Russia by a bear. The Sacred Writings represent this country by a certain lamblike beast, having two horns. In no book or periodical published by Seventh-day Adventists has one of their accredited writers ever intimated that the United States government is symbolized by a horned hog.

This country has long been the home of the oppressed from other lands, and was here that full civil and religious freedom was first governmentally guaranteed. Seventh-day Adventists recog nize this, and vigorously oppose the efforts of those who try to overthrow these principles.

Dr. Crafts and his fellows are trying to secure a repudiation of these principles. and are endeavoring to secure the enactment of civil laws which will enforce the observance of religious dogmas. S surely as they succeed, persecution wili follow. We see along the stream of time, many places where the very best men of the age in which they lived, have been made to suffer from just such laws & Dr. Crafts now demands in the name of reform! Even though it were granted that Sunday is holy time, a law compelling its, observance universally would not benefit humanity. Such a law woul result in sending men to prison and otherwise punishing them for performing meritorious labor.

Let Mr. Crafts learn to stick to the truth, and attend to his own affairs; le him learn charity for those who do no agree with him, and somehow the worki will move on and God will take care of things.

Quo Warranto?

E. F. JOHNSTONE

Attorney, of North Orwell, Vt. YE advocates of church and state And Sunday legislation:

Show us one text where God declares
To any tribe or nation,
That Sunday is His holy day

For rest and meditation.

Has God not named the seventh day,
And can it be disputed?

Then where and when, by whom and how,
Was Sunday substituted?
Was it by the command of God

This thing was executed?

Has God repealed His holy day?

If so, where was it spoken?
Where is the written record found?
Produce the smallest token!
Who works the first day of the week
Has what commandment broken?

"Thus saith the Lord" is nowhere found
Supporting your contention.
The "Sunday" Sabbath, be it known,
Is mortal man's invention,
And "custom" in support of it
Is all that you can mention.

Keep any day or none at all,

Sing, dance, or pray, or labor; But never try by law to force

Your views upon your neighbor. Persuade your brother if you can, But never use the saber.

commercial basis on Sunday, churches were allowed to take up a collection, which was virtually an indirect admission fee. This constituted a discrimination in favor of one organization to the exclusion of another. And the court might have added that the law was also religious instead of civil, because it is not civilly wrong to commercialize any legitimate enterprise on Sunday, and the only reason that can possibly be given to show why amusements and enterprises otherwise lawful are sinful on Sunday is because of the restrictions which have been placed upon that day as a religious institution. Consequently, it is not only class legislation, but religious legislation, and therefore unconstitutional, as the court has declared it to be.

I

Disingenuous Denials

T is most strenuously denied by many Sunday law agitators that they are demanding religious legislation. But everything goes to show that notwithstanding their denial, their object is distinctly religious, not civil.

In his recent visit to Washington to get his petition and proposed Sunday bill before Congress and the President, Mr. Noah W. Cooper, of Tennessee, made this very plain, for his first and great reason for his proposed law was, "God demands it;" and in support of that statement he quoted the fourth commandment of the decalogue, which, by the way, says never a word about Sunday, the first day of the week, but does very strongly emphasize the seventh day.

This same was true of the demand for the closing of the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893. In the debate in Congress one of the proponents of Sunday closing sent a Bible to the clerk's desk for the purpose of having that functionary read the fourth commandment in support of the bill.

Nor are these exceptional cases. The New Schaff-Herzog Religious Encyclopedia," art. "Sunday," says:

"Three main tendencies developed regarding the observance of Sunday: the Puritanical, the extreme anti-Sabbatarian, and the moderate Lutheran. The first of these positions is represented best in the strict Sunday laws of Scotland and of the New England colonies. That Sunday should be most carefully observed as a day of rest and that the state should support them in securing such an observance, was held as a fundamental right.”

That tells the whole story and tells it truly. What practically all the Sunday law agitators want is a religious Sunday

enforced by civil law. All their denials are technical and disingenuous. They have themselves confessed the religious motive too often to make convincing denial of it now.

C. P. B.

turn to the blue laws of Massachusett Connecticut, and Virginia, which in the ill-balanced minds is the only thi that will save the earth from destru tion..

"Dr. Bowlby is intelligent enough know better, but in his maniacal of slaught on liberty, he views liber through the narrow lenses of a fool spectacles instead of viewing it by th sunlight of common sense. He says the

is no such thing in America as person freedom; that liberty is only bedlam, an he thinks that God made an awful mi take when He endowed man with ti inalienable rights of liberty and the pa suit of happiness.

"Let none misunderstand the gre

T

Sunday Sabbatarianism

HE following is an editorial from the Crothersville (Ind.) Herald, of May 27, 1921:

"The attempt of Rev. Harry L. Bowlby, national secretary of the Lord's Day Alliance, to crucify liberty on the cross of Sabbatarianism, should not be dismissed lightly or flippantly. He is commander in chief of the tatterdemalion army of professional reformers, and his scheme to insure compulsory saintliness is to organize in every church in every community a squad of moral police, whose specialty shall be to spy upon their neighbors. If a weak brother shall be so sinful as to fall from grace, the duly delegated character constable would be in duty bound to report him instanter to the authorities. Listen for a moment to the vaporings of one of his subordinate generals, Mr. Noah Cooper, of Nashville, Tenn.:

"Too long have the people of the earth clung to the fleshpots, and their doom is as certain as that of Tyre and Sodom. Europe is the Sodom and America the Gomorrah, and only the immediate return to the Puritanical religious precepts of the witch-burning days can save the earth from destruction.'

"What they mean by the immediate return to the Puritanical religious precepts of the witch-burning days' is a re

legislate religion and its tenets into th human heart, and Christ Himself, lea of all, sought to do so; to make Sunda a day of privation, of gloom, of penanc and of physical and mental stagnatio instead of a day of thanksgiving an jubilancy, and to bring the church bad into power as a dominating factor i politics. Religious liberty means libert for every man of every faith or of faith, but the Lord's Day Alliance peop think that religious liberty means to con pel everybody to worship God accordin to their conscience, and not accordin to one's own. And when one protes against such religious dogma and rais his arms to tear the clutch of the Lord Day Alliance from his throat, he is sordid, soulless, godless worldling. Th Lord's Day Alliance is very considerat for the poor laboring man's day of res claiming that he has been robbed of i and they want to give it back to him b depriving him on Sunday afternoons going to a park, a picture show, a sacre concert, or taking a ride in an autom bile. Their idea of rest is not the di version of the brain from its ordinar path, but refraining from all innoce amusements and engaging in pious con versation. . . . Eternal vigilance the price of liberty, and any one wh values it, any one who would be free t