defense in proceedings " against the accused.

It

The prosecuting attorney stated to the court that the admission before the jury of the above-quoted testimony concerning the religious faith of the defendants would be prejudicial to the State. seems from this that the State wanted to win its case by denying the defendants their legal right to prove their innocency under the law. When a religious statute runs counter to a man's religious faith, and he is put on trial for refusing to do homage to a religious institution, it seems that no one but a Russian autocrat or a Turkish despot would refuse to give the accused the privilege of presenting the reasons why his religious faith is jeopardized. It seems that religious liberty in Blaine County, Oklahoma, has taken its flight to another planet, when the court denies the right of the individual whose faith is on trial to appeal to the constitutional guaranty of the State as a means of defense. That constitutional guaranty reads:

No inhabitant of the State shall ever be molested in person or property on account of his or her mode of religious worship.

The jury and the court convicted these men as criminals, and penalized their faith by fining each $25 and the costs. The case has been appealed, and is pending future action.

Truly "judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter."

We trust the reader will not fail to study carefully the favorable opinions of other learned jurists upon this question, given elsewhere in this magazine.

L.

The Best Sunday Observance Found Where There Is

No Sunday Law

THE best and indeed the only acceptable religious observance, is voluntary. The Lord accepts only heart service.

A Chicago merchant writes: "Christian homes in Chicago and in New Eng

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land differ little - a careful observance by parents and children of the propri eties of the day, and mingling together as a family in happy little teachings and enjoyments, which make the day both Christian and pleasant." A San Francisco pastor gives a like answer to the question, " Where have you seen the bes: Sabbath observance?" Among the Christian people of California. The characteristics of their Sabbath observ ance are: Sweetness and light; reverence tempered with love; joyousness and rare fidelity in Christian service; teaching in the Sunday schools and mission schools: visiting the sick, the poor, and the prisoner; holding service in almshouses and hospitals; giving Christlike ministration to those in trouble, want, and sorrow." -"The Sabbath for Man," by W. F. Crafts, edition of 1885, page 95.

At the time the Chicago merchant wrote to Dr. Crafts concerning Christian homes of that city, there was there no pretense of enforcing the Sunday law: but that fact did not interfere in the leas: with the observance of the day by those who wished to keep it.

Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That whenever a complaint in writing shall be filed with the Postmaster-General that any publication making use of or being sent through the mails contains any article therein which tends to expose any race, creed, or religion to either hatred, contempt, ridicule, or obloquy, he shall forthwith cause an investigation to be made under his direction, and shall within twenty days after receipt of such complaint, if the facts contained therein are true, make an order forbidding the further use of the mails to any such publication; but nothing herein contained shall be deemed to prevent the PostmasterGeneral from restoring such use of the mails to any such publication whenever it shall be established to his satisfaction that the publication has ceased to print or publish such prohibited matter, and given him satisfactory assurances in writing that there will be no further repetition of the same.

This bill, which is said to have strong support, has all the bad features of both the Fitzgerald bill and the Gallivan bill introduced into the House late in the third session of the Sixty-third Congress. The power with which it is proposed to clothe the Postmaster-General is great and far-reaching, and would enable that official to do indirectly, upon the written. complaint of a single person, who need not be even a citizen of the United States, what the Constitution declares that Congress itself shall not do; namely, abridge the freedom of the press.

It may be said that any paper or other periodical could still be printed, but of what avail is it to print if the matter printed cannot be circulated? As well say that freedom of speech is not abridged as long as one has the right to talk, even though the government may make it impossible for him to secure an audience.

It is a principle of law that neither an individual nor the government can do indirectly that which may not be done directly. It is perfectly clear that Congress cannot forbid the publication of such matter as is described in the Siegel bill; is it not equally clear that Congress cannot rightfully do the same thing indirectly, as the bill plainly seeks to do? Even if the end sought were a legitimate one, it would be a monstrous prop

osition to lodge in the hands of one man, a single individual, such vast power to censor and to muzzle the press of the country.

The Postmaster-General is an appointed official, not even directly responsible to the people; and yet it is proposed to make him a czar, with power to hear and to determine what does and what does not tend" to expose any race, creed, or religion to either hatred, contempt, ridicule, or obloquy." Have the Renaissance, the Reformation, the English Revolution, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution all been in vain, that it is now seriously proposed to muzzle the press in the interests of anything that cannot bear the searchlight of criticism?

We cannot believe that such a bill as H. R. 491 can ever become a law, or that it would be sustained by the courts even if passed by Congress and signed by the President; but it is unsafe to judge the future, or even the present, by the past. Things seem to be turning backward. Instead of going forward, the world is turning again toward the things of the Dark Ages, and the occasion demands the greatest possible vigilance.

Several Sunday bills have also been introduced, but it is unnecessary more than to mention the fact, since a large part of this number of LIBERTY is devoted to a discussion of the principles involved in Sunday legislation. The ground was fully covered by the famous Sunday mail reports written by Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, more than eighty-five years

But

ago. The legislation now proposed is even less defensible than that proposed then; for that sought only to regulate a branch of the government itself, while the bills now before Congress seek to restrict the liberty of the individual. the people cannot safely take anything for granted. The times are sadly out of joint, and watchfulness is demanded on the part of those who would cherish and preserve the liberties bequeathed to us by our fathers.

The Platform of the Religious

Liberty Association

IN its issue for November, 1915, the Christian Statesman printed the platform of the Religious Liberty Association as it appears on the first inside cover page of LIBERTY, and then proceeded to discuss the several planks seriatim.

"With some of the ideas embodied in this declaration we are in hearty accord," says the Statesman. "For example, we believe that civil government is a divine institution. We are opposed to the union of church and state. We advocate the religious rights of men with respect to the matter of worship. We oppose all legislation that would tend to force upon any one a religious creed or form of worship.

All this sounds very well; and if we could accept it at its face value, we might believe the Statesman and those for whom it speaks to be the friends, and not the enemies, of religious liberty. But in the light of other utterances by National Reform leaders, we must conclude that the Statesman does not mean all that its words might at first be understood to imply.

Cardinal Gibbons and the Catholic hierarchy in the United States are also in favor of "religious liberty." There is no doubt about it, for they acknowledge as much themselves; but they do not mean by religious liberty what is generally understood from the use of that term. And no more do the National Reformers mean by religious liberty what we mean by it.

In a speech made by Jonathan Edwards, D. D., in a National Reform convention held in New York City, Feb. 26, 27, 1873, that gentleman said:

We want state religion, and we are going to have it. It shall be that so far as the affairs of state require religion, it shall be religion the religion of Jesus Christ. The Christian oath and Christian morality shall have in this land "an undeniable legal basis." We use the word religion in its proper sense, as meaning a man's personal relation of faith and obedience to God.-"Proceedings of the

National Convention to Secure the Religion Amendment to the Constitution" (1873 page 60.

In the Pittsburgh convention of 1874 Prof. C. A. Blanchard made the matte still plainer, if possible, in these words

Constitutional laws punish for false mone weights, and measures, and of course Co gress establishes a standard for money weights, and measures. So Congress muc establish a standard of religion, or admit any thing called religion.-" Proceedings of ti Fifth National Reform Convention," page 7:

Their design, then, has been and is sti to have the state obtrude itself into every man's personal relation of faith an obedience to God. Such a theory carried out would of course make outlaws of those who could not subscribe to their dogmas. And this result, indeed, lay sc near the surface that Mr. Edwards himself saw it, and spoke in relation to it as follows:

Now, we are warned that to ingraft this doctrine upon the Constitution will be of pressive; that it will infringe the rights of conscience; and we are told that there are atheists, deists, Jews, and Seventh-day Baptists who would be sufferers under it." Proceedings of the National Reform Convention" (1873), page 60.

But how does Mr. Edwards justify himself and those with whom he is associated in doing that which he knows would be intolerant toward these parties he names? Let him answer the question, as he deals with that phase of the subject:

What are the rights of the atheist? I would tolerate him as I would tolerate a poor lunatic; for in my view his mind is scarcely sound. So long as he does not rave, so long as he is not dangerous, I would tolerate him. I would tolerate him as I would a conspirator. The atheist is a dangerous man.- Id., page 63.

Then the atheist will be put under surveillance to see that he does not rave, that is, propagate his views. When he does this, he becomes dangerous, and must be restrained by the arm of the law. In other words, the National Reformers want a law which will give them a monopoly in propagandism. But having learned what they propose to do with

incorrigibles, let us see what part of the various communities the charity of this doctor of divinity will permit him to class among hardened and obdurate criminals. Under the general head of atheists, he classes deists, Jews, and Seventhday Baptists, in the following manner: —

These are, for the occasion, and so far as our amendment is concerned, one class. They use the same arguments and the same tactics against us. They must be counted together, which we very much regret, but which we cannot help. The first-named is the leader in the discontent and in the outcry the atheist, to whom nothing is higher or more sacred than man, and nothing survives the tomb. It is his class. Its labors are almost wholly in his interest; its successes would be almost wholly his triumph. The rest are adjuncts to him in this contest. They must be named from him; they must be treated as, for this question, one party.— Id., page 62.

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And after getting all they ask,- the laws of this government to be administered upon Christian principles," do they then propose to manifest the spirit of the Master, and tolerate dissenters? Hear Mr. Edwards further on this theme:

Tolerate atheism, sir? There is nothing out of hell that I would not tolerate as soon. The atheist may live, as I have said; but, God helping us, the taint of his destructive creed shall not defile any of the civil institutions of all this fair land. Let us repeat, Atheism and Christianity are contradictory terms. They are incompatible systems. They cannot dwell together on the same continent.- Id., page 63.

And what would they do with these poor despised irreclaimables? This may be determined by an extract of a speech delivered at York, Nebr., by Rev. E. B. Graham, a vice president of the National Reform Association, and published in the Christian Statesman of May 21, 1888:

We might add, in all justice, if the opponents of the Bible do not like our government and its Christian features, let them go to some wild, desolate land, and in the name of the devil, and for the sake of the devil, subdue it, and set up a government of their own on infidel and atheistic ideas; and then, if they can stand it, stay there till they die.

It is probably true that the National Reformers do not desire a union of

church and state in the sense of selecting some one denomination and making that the established church, or of establishing entire the creed of some one sect. Most of the National Reformers belong to one of the smaller divisions of the Presbyterian Church, and probably have no hope that their sect will ever be recognized by law, or their church established to the exclusion of others that are much stronger numerically; what they hope. for is the legal recognition of a few of the leading, fundamental doctrines of Christianity. This once an accomplished fact, dissenters from those doctrines or articles of faith would speedily find themselves under the law, whether Jews, infidels, atheists, Seventh-day Baptists, or Seventh-day Adventists.

Let no one be deceived by the honeyed words of the Christian Statesman. By "religious liberty," "church and state,' etc., that paper does not mean what the fathers of the republic meant, nor does it mean freedom to hold and to practice anything contrary to the creed of the National Reformers. The Christian Statesman would turn the wheels of progress backward to days when in England Roman Catholics burned Episcopalians, and Episcopalians did the same to Roman Catholics, and Presbyterians in Scotland. tied Baptists to stakes at low tide, allowing them to drown in the rising waters.

The National Reformers are not unkind men at heart, they do not mean to be cruel, they are not bloodthirsty; but if once they had the power, their theory of civil government, and their responsibility to the divine Being as they understand it, would force them to measures which they themselves now think impossible. The men who whipped and banished Baptists from Massachusetts, and who hanged Quakers and witches, were just as benevolent and as well educated as are the leading National Reformers of today. The trouble with those men was their false theocratic theory of civil government. And that same theory, which is the theory of the National Reformers today, is fraught with no less.

power for evil now than in the past. A legally established creed is a most mischievous thing, and not less so now than two centuries ago.

A creed need not have many articles to be a creed. That of the Mohammedans contains only two articles: "There is one God, and Mohammed is his prophet." The creed of the National Reformers need not be any longer to produce equally cruel results. Nor is it essential to a union of church and state that all who subscribe to the state-established creed shall train under one and the same ecclesiastical banner. The evil thing may be called "religion and the state," or "a Christian state," or by any other name meaning substantially the same thing, but its nature remains the same. It is not the name but the thing itself that is evil. A thistle would not become a rose even if it were solemnly declared to be one. Disease does not become health simply by denying its existence. No more does "religion and the state" become a beneficent or even an innocuous thing merely because a few benevolently inclined gentlemen declare it to be harmless, or even useful. Eternal vigilance has not ceased to be the price of liberty.

C. P. B.

Abraham Lincoln on Liberty ABRAHAM LINCOLN's portrait adorns the back cover page of this magazine. Washington and Lincoln are the two greatest men which the American Republic has yet produced. Their birthdays have made the twenty-second and the twelfth of February days of grateful remembrance. Washington founded a government of the people, for the people, and by the people, and Lincoln preserved it. We are glad to hear Lincoln speak in behalf of the cause of human rights and liberty. He that is dead still speaketh:

Though I now sink out of view, I believe I have made some mark which will tell for the cause of liberty long after I am gone.

The authors of the Declaration of Independence meant it to be a stumblingblock to

those who in after times might seek to turn i free people back into the paths of despotism

All the political sentiments I entertain I have drawn from the sentiments which originated in and were given to the world from this ha [Independence Hall]. I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. The great principle of the Declaration was that sentiment which gave liberty not alone to the people of this country, but, hope, to all the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoul ders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance.

The cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one or even one hundred defeats.

In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free-honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.

When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is not much in the nature of man to be driven to

anything; still less to be driven about tha: which is exclusively his own business.

If there is anything that it is the duty of the whole people never to intrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions.

I fear you do not fully comprehend the danger of abridging the liberties of the pecple. A government had better go to the very extreme of toleration than to do aught that could be construed into an interference with or to jeopardize in any degree, the commer rights of the citizen.

When a . . . man governs himself, that is self-government. But when he governs himself and also governs some other man, that is worse than self-government - that is des potism. What I do mean to say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.

In my present position I could scarcely be justified were I to omit raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism.

These words from the lips of Lincoln are just as applicable today as they were when he first uttered them. A warning voice needs to be raised against those who are desirous of ruling the consciences of other people on religious matters. Such are religious tyrants in heart. and would be in fact if they had the power. May God raise up another Lincoln to stay the oppressor's hand.

C. S. L.