6
                Objection  7.   The Movement is Confined to one or tub
                                              Denominations.

        Connected with the preceding objection is this one. Granting, for a
moment, that it is well founded, is it valid? If one Christian
denomination, or one body of people, no matter who they may be, hold an
important truth, is that a reason why others who may be led to perceive it,
should ignore it? Truth is to be maintained and promoted for its own sake,
not out of consideration to those who may hold it, nor for the sake of
popularity. But the objection is not true, in point of fact. The former
President of the National Association to secure the Religious Amendment,
the Hon. Wm. Strong, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, is
a Presbyterian. The present President, the Hon. Felix R. Brunot, President
also of the Board of Indian Commissioners, is an Episcopalian. The
Vice-Presidents; Secretaries, and Treasurer are men of all the different
Christian denominations, Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, (Dutch)
Reformed, Lutheran, (German) Reformed, Presbyterians of all kinds, and
other bodies. Even Universalists and Unitarians, separated from so many of
the Christian movements of the day, stand upon the platform of the
Religious Amendment Association, and seek to have our nation as a Christian
nation, base itself on a distinctively Christian Constitution.

                Objection 8.    The Friends of the Movement are not
Managing
                                                          Wisely.

        No doubt they have made mistakes in some things. They are fallible
beings,., like the rest of-mankind: But, it must be admitted" that they
have had remarkable success. They ascribe this to the divine blessing.
Erring they know they are.But they have always sought the guidance and
blessing of the Hearer of prayer. They believe in the efficacy of prayer,
and they have reason to believe their prayers have been answered. No
similar movement has ever progressed in our country with equal rapidity. In
a few brief years, it has sprung up and spread into a mighty. national
movement. But admit that it has not been managed as wisely as it should
have been. What then? Whose fault is it? The men who have labored in the
cause have done the best they could. If others who have stood aloof had
joined with them in counsels and efforts, no doubt greater wisdom and
larger success would have been the result. If matters are not judiciously
directed, then, friends, do not retire from the stage of action, but show
us " a more excellent way."

                                                7
                Objection  9.   It Kindles Excitement, and will Lead to
War.

        One of the most prominent of our civil rulers said ".o me
concerning the movement : "Drop it, drop it, I entreat you, drop it. There
is nothing but mischief in it.  It will kill any man that touches it. It
will lead to blood."       If he meant political "killing," in one remark, as
he no doubt did, there may be truth in what he said. But, thank God there
are some men not afraid of losing political place and popularity.
They put truth and right above political position. In the end, too, they
will gain even the latter. If he meant civil war in another remark, as he
did, doubtless, then it is  to be asked, who will be held responsible, if
his foreboding of evil comes true? Anti-slavery men (and this same ruler
was one of  them), were met with the same cry And the war carne,. too ,But
were they the cause of it? Their determined agitation of the subject led to
the war, as the occasion of the attack upon the country. But they did
nothing but exercise the right of peaceable discussion. The friends of the
Religious Amendment appeal to no other weapons than reason and logic and
argument. They will peaceably discuss the nation's duty. They expect to
triumph by sound argument under the blessing of the God of truth. If an
attack is made to prevent the nation from avowing itself to be a Christian
nation, it will defend its life and vindicate its civil and religious
liberties against any and every force. The spirit of the Pilgrim and
Revolutionary fathers, who bequeathed to us our Christian institutions of
government, still lives. Besides, it will not avert the disasters of war to
yield unresistingly to the demands of secularism. Revolutionary France has
shown us, for our warning, the legitimate effects of national rejection of
God.

        The most of these objections remind one of a remarkable scene in
the Convention that framed the Constitution. For nearly five weeks the
Convention sat without even any proposition for prayer. They  were not
progressing well with their important work. Franklin then proposed that
prayers should be offered every morning before proceeding to business.
There had been no acknowledgment of God, and now Franklin and Sherman and
others urged an amendment in the form of a devout acknowledgment by prayer
for divine guidance. But there were objections. Many members of the
Convention urged that however proper a resolution for prayers might have
been at the beginning of the Convention, it was inexpedient at that late
day. t might also "lead the public to believe that the embarrassments and
dissensions within the Convention had suggested this measure."     So

                                                8
the motion was laid on the table, and never afterward called up. (Elliot's
Debates, Vol. V, p. 254).How history repeats itself ! We seem to hear the
same voices to-day. The acknowledgment would have been right at first.
Multitudes say now that they would rejoice had it been incorporated at
first in the Constitution, but now they fear that the public will believe
our national troubles, our political corruptions, our financial
embarrassment, have suggested this measure. And why should they not? If we
do not heed the warning of these judgments, heavier .calamities will surely
come. Besides it may be said in the words of Franklin and Sherman, " The
past omission of a duty cannot justify a further omission."
        Such are the objections of many who believe that the nation is and
ought to be a Christian nation. In all sincerity, we ask, are they
sufficient to prevent you, candid reader, from joining the thousands of
every Christian denomination, and even of no denomination who see that the
cause of Christian government' demands an effort to maintain the best
features of our nation's life by their authentication  in our organic law?
Are they not all admissions, rather, that such an  authentication there
ought to be?
        Let us now consider the second class of objections.

        OBJECTIONS URGED AGAINST THE PRINCIPLE OF THE AMENDMENT
                                              MOVEMENT.

                Objection 1.    " The State has nothing to do with
Religion."

        If this current saying is true, it is a valid objection. But is, it
true ?. Has the state- nothing to do with religion but'" let it alone? ` Is
the",flippant cry, "hands off," echoed even from the judicial bench; the
utterance of sound political philosophy? Let us see. To test a principle it
is well to try its application in a number of instances. The state has
nothing to do with religion, it is said. Has it anything to do with courts
of justice ? Can it examine witnesses and qualify jurors for their solemn
duties without an oath? But is not the oath, an appeal to God as witness
and judge, a matter of religion? Accepting the principle that the state has
nothing to do with religion, the oath must be abolished. So say the logical
and consistent "Liberals" in their demands. Are you ready for that, my
Christian friend ? You must be, if this objection now being considered is
well grounded.
        But again. Has the state or nation anything to do with armies? When
it sends soldiers to fight our battles, has it any right to employ
Christian ministers as chaplains to pray with and for our soldiers, and
preach to them the truths of the Gospel? In the day when we were in the
agony of our struggle for national life, no man utter  a

                                                9
word against this connection between the state and religion. If not wrong
then, is it wrong now?  So, in those dark and disastrous days, the call to
the nation, by our lamented martyred President, to humble itself in prayer
and fasting before the God of nations, and the resolution of the Senate to
the same effect, were approved as right without a murmur of dissent. Are
such things wrong in times of peace? They must be wrong at all times if the
state has nothing to do with religion.
        Once more. Is the inscription on the two-cent and five-cent pieces,
'"n God we trust," a seemly and worthy inscription for our national coinage
? The stamping of the same devout legend on the new trade dollar and the
twenty-five cent piece, just issued from our mint, attest the popular
verdict. But if the state has nothing to do with religion, this religious
declaration is out of place. So say the " Liberals." Are they right? They
are, or the objection is worthless.
        In _a word, if this objection is to-have any weight, the Bible must
be expelled from the public school. Sabbath laws must be abrogated, and
every single Christian feature of our national and state governments must
be obliterated. Will you not pause, reader, before you accept t:.is
platform ?
        In point of fact, the government has always had and from the nature
of things, must have to do with religion. If it has no Sabbath laws, is it
simply neutral in religion?If it knows no Sabbath, and carries on its
affairs on the first day of the week just as on other days, does it not
exclude every Sabbath-keeping Christian from its service ? If it expels the
Bible and all Christian instruction from its schools, must it  not
introduce some other moral standard ? It must choose between Christian'
philosophy and anti-Christian philosophy. It must teach history according
to the standard of Christianity, as it passes judgment on the events and
men of the past, or according to some opposing standard. It must decide
between the astronomy of the Bible, and the astronomy of Herbert Spencer or
Prof. Youmans. It must tell its pupils of suns and systems which God
created and upholds, or come to them with Ludwig Buechner's philosophy of
matter and force, from which all mention of a Creator is excluded as
superstition. It must define words of moral and ethical meaning by the
moral standard of the Bible, or it must take the standard of a hostile
system. Neutrality is impossible. The state must have to do with religion,
as every state that ever existed has had to do with it. And if it is right
for the state to educate according to the received religion of the great
mass of its people, and employ the ministers of religion as chaplains for
prisons. the army and navy, state legislature and Congress why, it may well
be asked, should, it riot acknowledge that religion in its fundamental law.

                                                10
                Objection 2. Tie National Constitution is not the place for
such
                                         acknowledgment.

        There are those who, while not holding that civil government has
nothing to do with religion, still maintain that the United States
Constitution, as a federal arrangement, should leave the subject of
religion entirely to the States. If the Constitution were simply a league
of independent sovereign nationalities, this view would be correct. But the
Constitution is itself the fundamental law of one sovereign nation,
composed of many states. The general government is a true government. The
whole nation, as a unit, is a nation in the true sense. This great moral
being has courts of justice, employs armies And navies, with their
chaplains; and though education is largely left to the individual States,
it has its schools, and its bureau and commissioner of education. In a
word, the nation, as such, as distinguished from the individual States,
exercises functions from which religion cannot be separated; and therefore
the fundamental law of its action should be distinctly stamped with a
religious character.
        Moreover, the molding influence of the national Constitution will
surely drive all religious acknowledgments from the State Constitutions if
the defect be not remedied. If a` great and mighty being like the whole
nation needs no acknowledgment of relationship to God and his laws, why
should the comparatively insignificant States trouble themselves on that
score? If the States need to acknowledge God, a forliori, the nation, in
its more momentous interests, requires the same divine guidance and
protection.

                Objection 3.    Why not acknowledge the Holy Ghost, etc. ?

        Many a good and honest man has said to me, " I believe all that it
is proposed to insert in the Constitution.Personally, I would like to see
it all there.   But why put it there?   Personally, I would be satisfied
with the Apostle's Creed, or the Thirty-nine Articles, or the Westminster
Confession. Why not as well put them in . the Constitution ?" It is
singular that intelligent men will talk in this way. The difference is
manifest. The amendment proposes simply an acknowledgment of the nation's
relation to God and his law. The Apostle's Creed and the other symbols
referred to are church creeds. Let churches place them in their organic
law. They find appropriate place in ecclesiastical life and standards.The
Holy Spirit is not revealed as the Ruler of nations. Jesus Christ is King
of kings, and Lord of lords. The proposed amendment takes the four well
settled princples of a nation's relations to God-principles practically

                                                11
admitted in the history and administration of our government, and aims to
lay them at the very basis of the nation's code of conduct. These
principles are as follows: i. God is the author of the nation's existence.
2. He is the source of its authority. 3. Jesus Christ, King of nations as
well as saints, gives law to nations. 4. The Bible is this law, and the
supreme standard of national conduct. These principles are the sum of
national religion. No truth, however important in itself, if irrelevant to.
a nation, as such, is to be admitted. We propose the acknowledgment by the
nation of its own relations to Almighty God, and Christ, and the Bible. Let
individuals, families, and churches acknowledge what appertains to them in
their respective spheres of action.Much has been said in regard to the
substance of the proposed amendment being good enough in itself; but it is
added, the Constitution is not the place for such ',a religious
declaration. But if, as we have seen, a nation must have to do with
religion if it governs, or acts as a nation at all, and if the Constitution
is the fundamental rule of its action, why should it not declare, in that
instrument, the religious principles of its action? Isn't it frank and
manly for a Christian man to avow the principles of his conduct? Should a
Christian nation do less?

                Objection 4-    Courts are thus made Expounders of the
Bible.

        Have not our courts always been expounders of the morality of the
Bible ? Is it not their business to determine what is right or wrong
according to the Christian standard ? So far as they have failed in this,
they have brought harm upon the nation. If our legislators and judges and
magistrates would -search the Scriptures," to know what-ought to be done in
every emergency, we would he blessed with better laws than we have, and
they would be more faithfully executed. The morality of the Bible, the text
book of Christianity, is no ambiguous thing. This moral standard is simpler
as well as higher than any other. We would not have standard legal and
judicial authorities studied less, but the rules of national conduct given
in the Bible made the supreme standard, and studied more. To the writers of
the Scriptures our statesmen must go for instruction and guidance. We
cannot afford to do without the lessons of wisdom recorded by those ancient
sages,  
                                "As men divinely taught, and better
teaching
                                The solid rules of civil government,
                                In their majestic, unaffected style,
                                Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome.
                                In them is plainest taught and easiest
learned,
                                What makes a nation happy and keeps it so;
                                What ruins kingdom, and lays cities flat."-
                                (Paradise Regained, B. IV, 354.)

                                                12
        This would not make our civil rulers church officers. It would make
them students of the Word of God, as they ought to. be. Just as our church
rulers who study their Bibles well are best prepared, other things being
equal, to bear rule in the church, and in so doing are not led to interfere
with the civil ruler's functions, so the civil ruler, studying and
following the Divine Word, would best discharge his political obligations,
and in this would not intermeddle with the affairs of the church. Our
courts have to decide moral questions. The precedents to which they appeal,
scattered through multitudes of law books, so far as they are sound, rest
ultimately on the Bible. Is it out of place for our judges to go to the
fountain of law for themselves ?

                Objection .5.   It is an Attempt to make Men Religious by
Law.

        "You can never teach men to acknowledge God by the power of
legislation. It is folly to attempt it." The changes are perpetually rung
on this objection. But what do the objectors say concerning the thirty
State Constitutions which contain, in the preamble, an acknowledgment of
God? Are these thirty instruments, to say nothing of others which
acknowledge God and Christianity in other places than the preamble, so many
attempts at the folly of making men religious by law? The principle of the
objection, consistently carried out, would denude our State Constitutions
of all their religious features. Instead of inserting devout
acknowledgments of God, as is now done in nearly every revision of a State
Constitution, all such existing acknowledgments would have to be
obliterated.
        Besides, if the objection has any force, it applies with special
emphasis, to Sabbath laws, laws against profanity and blasphemy, and all
similar enactments. Are not these more direct attempts to make men
religious by law than a religious acknowledgment in the preamble of a
Constitution? So far as a State or nation has to do with religion, its
enactments must be for or against religion, and their influence must tell
upon the religious character of the citizens. The State has no right to
enact laws compelling any one to be a church member or to partake of the
sacraments. But it has a right to say that their conduct as. citizens shall
be conformed to the moral standard of the Christian religion. All good laws
concerning matters of public morals are designed to make men religious in
this sense.
        The State cannot force the actions of the soul, in any case, by its
legislation. It looks to the outward conduct. But from this- religion
cannot be dissevered. Our Sabbath laws and laws against cursing and
blasphemy enforce a certain kind of moral or religious conduct. The

                                                13
proposed amendment is not legislation. It forces nothing. It is designed
as' a legal basis for such Christian laws as already exist. It is a firm
anchorage for the nation, now in danger of drifting with the tide of
irreligion and infidelity from the moorings of her Christian  institutions.
It does not propose to force any man to perform any act of devotion or
worship. It is simply an avowal of the nation's right to its Christian laws
and customs, and a denial of the right of certain individuals, who may
choose to be irreligious, to force the nation to be as irreligious as
themselves.
                        Objection 6.    It is a Premium on Hypocrisy.

        If conformity of conduct to righteous law is "hypocrisy," the
nation will not suffer by having the number of "hypocrites" indefinitely
multiplied. The man who may have a strong inclination to work at his
ordinary calling on the Sabbath, but is restrained by a wholesome fear of
the law, is a kind of "hypocrite" that society needs. Such hypocrisy is
encouraged by all our criminal laws. When the Mormons who are among us
become hypocritical enough to curb their more than patriarchal ambition for
a plurality of wives, and submit to the law of monogamy, we shall credit
them with at least one virtue more than they now possess. And the sooner
our nation puts a premium on such Mormon "hypocrisy,". as the States have
by their laws against bigamy, the better. Besides, if there is no hypocrisy
in the acknowledgment, by a Christian man, of his relations to God and his
law, can there be any in a Christian nation's acknowledgment of its
dependence on God and its subjection to his authority.