December 16, 1897
THE appreciation of force in religious matters always drives the soul upon which it is directed farther from God.
CHRISTIANITY can no more be advanced by the ballot than by the bullet, since both alike are the emblems of force.
THE “sword of the Spirit” is effective enough to accomplish all the work that is committed to the church to do.
A “CRIME” that cannot be recognized as such by reason and common sense, deserves no recognition from the law.
CONSIDERING how much trouble the state has to enforce its own laws, would it be wise for it to undertake to enforce the laws of God?
“PUT up thy sword into the sheath,” is the word of Jesus Christ to such of his professed followers as desire to propagate Christianity by force.
RELIGIOUS legislation tends always to break down conscience, make hypocrites, and obliterate the distinction in men’s minds between right and wrong.
TO force a man to do right, is to put force in the place of conscience. Men must be forced to respect rights, but beyond this force cannot rightfully go.
“EXPCEPTIONS prove the rule,” but they do not always prove the rule to be a good one. The exemptions of a Sunday law do not prove the law to be just and right.
THE hardest work of all work is to be obliged to do nothing,—to maintain one’s mental, physical, and moral equilibrium under a condition of enforced idleness. And this is the work which is thrust upon multitudes by the enforcement of a Sunday law.
THE people are calling for Sunday rest by law need to learn that there is an essential difference between rest and idleness. The law can force an individual to be idle, but it cannot force him to rest.