January 19, 1899
WHEN a nation if really Christian, it will not need to be governed under a written constitution.
WHEN the nation gets so far gone morally that nothing will save it but a national Sabbath law, it is a sign that it is past redemption.
POLITICAL religion is worth nothing in the sphere of morals.
WHEN Cesar stumbles, it will not be well for religion if she is leaning on his arm. Jesus Christ offers the only support which is unfailing.
[Inset.] TWO ENEMIES OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS. THE American people see the enemy which is advancing from Utah, but they do not see the much more formidable enemy which is advancing from an unsuspected quarter. They are up in arms against polygamy, and denounce the Mormon system in Utah as a union of church and state; and that is true. But it is no less true that the system which would join religion with the national Government is also a union of church and state, and a much worse one than could possibly be formed by the people of a single state. If religion joined with the civil power is bad in Utah, as it is, the like system is bad in any other state; and in the nation as a whole it is as much worse as the United States is greater than a single state. And at this very time there is a widespread movement in progress for just this union,—there is a widespread clamor for legislation, both state and national, in support of religion. The great religious societies,—the Christian Endeavor Society, League for Social Service, Good Citizenship League, Epworth League, the W.C.T.U., American Sabbath Union, and other bodies, are clamoring and agitating for this. Congress is almost continually besieged by them with petitions for a national Sabbath law, or an acknowledgment of God in the Constitution. This national movement is going on, and is daily growing in power, while the American people seem to be unconscious of the danger which it threatens to their liberties. If Mormonism ought to be combated and kept out of the seat of national Government, ten times more ought this national union or religion with the state to be kept out of the same place.