March 17, 1898
“JUDGE not, and ye shall not be judged.” “Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned.”
EVERY Christian is called of God to be a reformer, but not one is called to reform any nation, community, or individual, by the power of legislatures or of courts.
THE church might lobby till doomsday to secure legislation in behalf of religious institutions, without ever convincing the world that there is such a thing as the power of godliness.
AMS regards religion, the majority in this world have always been on the wrong side. Hence the vote of the majority in a religious question is practically certain to be on the side of error.
MEN are not made good or bad by the government; but the government is made good or bad by the men who conduct it. Reform the men, and there will be no occasion for a reform in the government.
THE only government that is suited to a corrupt people is a despotism. When the American people become corrupt, a despotism must and will be set up over them. Despotism is the inevitable sequence of national corruption.
WHEN the “peace of God” rules in the heart, there is quiet in the soul; and that quietness is a hundred fold more essential to proper Sabbath observance than all the quiet that can be secured by Sunday laws. Without it, indeed, no real Sabbath observance is possible.
A SUNDAY law is a tax, demanding one seventh of all an individual’s time. And this time is money to the individual, but cannot possibly be such to the government which demands it. It is of all taxes the most absurd, useless, unwarranted, and unjust. God alone has the right to require one seventh of a person’s time, and he alone has a wise purpose in requiring it.
IT is very strange that a prayer-meeting or other religious service can be held in the church on any “week-day” evening without being at all disturbed by work and traffic, but cannot be held on Sunday without “great disturbance,” if there happens to be any work or traffic in the vicinity. One would think it was not possible to be religious except in the midst of absolute quiet.