Editorial Notes • November 5, 1896 • American Sentinel, Vol. 11, No. 44
As you see receiving the American Sentinel, without having ordered it may know that it is sent to him by some friend. Therefore, those who have not ordered the Sentinel, need have no fears that they will be asked to pay for it.
The coming year seems destined to be one of unparalleled activity on the part of the religious legislationists.
NEVER in the history of our country has the demand for more rigid Sunday "laws," and for the strict enforcement of those now upon the statute books been so loud and determined as just now.
EVERY man who opposes Sunday "laws," so-called, is now denounced as a "traitor" and "anarchist," while those who override real law and justice in the interests of statute-introached religion are lauded as "Christian citizens."
We begin this week the publication of a series of interesting articles on "Christian Citizenship" from the pen of Mr. Geo. E. Fifield, of South Lancaster, Mass. We are sure that no one who reads one of these articles will willingly fail to read the entire series.
"Programation of the Lord's day, called Sabbath-breaking, is," says Blackstone, "a ninth offense against God and religion, punished by the municipal law of England." But notwithstanding this fact we are told that Sunday laws are purely "civil," "mere police regulation."
One object of so-called Christian citizenship is to practically, if not legally, establish a religious test not only for office but for citizenship, and thus nullify that article of the Constitution which declares that no religious test shall ever be applied for any office or public trust.
The so-called Christian citizenship which imagines that God is glorified by a perversion of civil government from its legitimate purpose, so that instead of being the sentinel to guard civil rights it shall become the censor and despot to define and enforce moral duties is a most serious menace to the liberties of the American people.
We can conceive of a Father punishing his child to discipline and correct him, in order to prevent him from doing something that would cause him greater pain or loss or destruction, but the instant that man punishes his child when none of these desirable results can hope to be gained thereby the punishment becomes revenge and the man ceases to be a father and becomes a fiend. Even in our jurisprudence we are coming to see that all punishment that is not corrective of the punished, or protective of others, is utterly wrong, inhuman and evil. And yet men still teach this and profess to believe in the Bible and that God punishes through all eternity for the sins of time, and that He punishes after all just reason for punishment other than revenge is entirely past. - From the Sermon Eternal Punishment
