April 27, 1899
“THE revealed will of God” is a phrase often used to conceal the will of a bigot.
THE true religion wants nothing which it is in the power of the civil authority to give.
STEEL and lead are not good conductors for an endowing current of Christian benevolence.
SOCIETY cannot elevate or reform itself any more than a machine can create power to run itself.
THE truly “Christian conscience” seeks not to have men punished for their sins, but saved from them.
THE saloon may be induced to keep Sunday, but this will be very doubtful honor for the “Sabbath.”
THE doctrine of imperialism assumes the people of foreign lands to be guilty until they are proved innocent, incapable until they are proved capable.
THE Christian Church wants no help from the State any more than a steamship wants help from the ocean. For the State to get into the Church is as bad as for the ocean to get into the ship.
THE Bible in the one hand of civilization, will not induce the heathen to come near the sword in the other hand.
THE poorest conception of God and his government to be drawn from any source, is that derived from efforts made to enforce God’s law by human tribunals.
“SIX days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” says the law of the Creator. Where does the “civil Sabbath” come in here?
THE way to lift society out of the mire of moral degeneracy is not by piling upon it more legislation and new “reform” organizations. Society has enough of these already. What the reform cause wants is not more machinery but more steam.