574
The Great Controversy 1888
announcement that the nomination would be defeated.... It was recently
stated in the United States Senate (February 16, 1888), in a debate on
the bill for ‘national aid in the establishment and temporary support of
common schools,’ ... That a senator had showed to the speaker, who
had read it with his own eyes, the original letter of a Jesuit priest. In
this letter he begged a member of Congress to oppose the bill and kill it,
saying that they had organized all over the country for its destruction,
that they had succeeded in the Committee of the House, and that they
would destroy the bill inevitably; and it is a fact that the bill, having
three times passed the Senate in three different congresses, each time
with a larger vote in its favor, has been repeatedly smothered in the
Committee of the House, by those who knew that there was a majority
in the House in favor of the bill; and for six years the legislation of
Congress has been [thus
] arrested.”
The Roman church largely controls the secular press of the coun-
try; and the leading “Protestant” religious papers, such as the New
York Evangelist, the Christian at Work, the Christian Union, and the
Independent, all pay flattering tribute to the papacy. The Evangelist,
of March 29, 1888, acknowledges Cardinal Gibbons as its “only car-
dinal;” the Independent wishes pope Leo XIII. “a long reign and
godspeed in his liberalizing policy;” Christian at Work salutes him as
“holy father,” and in the name of “the whole Christian world” glorifies
him as “this venerable man whose loyalty to God and zeal for the wel-
fare of humanity are as conspicuous as his freedom from many errors
and bigotries of his predecessors is remarkable;” and the Christian
Union, January 26, 1888, acknowledges him as “a temporal prince”
and “supreme pontiff.”
Note 11. Page 573—These movements are apparent under diverse
forms and in different ways, but the organization which embodies
almost every form, and works in every way to gain its end, is the Na-
tional Reform Association. It originated in a conference representing
“eleven different denominations of Christians from seven of the states
of the Union.” It now has the support of prominent men from “all
branches of the church,” of the National Woman’s Christian Temper-
ance Union, and the Prohibition Party. It proposes to have our national
constitution amended, “in order to constitute a Christian government,”
“acknowledging almighty God as the source of all authority and power
in civil government, the Lord Jesus Christ as the ruler among the na-