Appendix
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tions, His revealed will as the supreme law of the land;” and so placing
“all Christian laws, institutions, and usages of our government on an
undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law of the land.” One of its
propositions, announced by David Gregg, D. D., Pastor Park Street
Church, Boston, is that the state has “the right to command the con-
[689]
sciences of men.” Another, announced by the Christian Statesman, is
that government must “enforce upon all that come among us the laws
of Christian morality.” Another, announced by the Rev. E. B. Graham,
is that “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.” Another, announced by
Jonathan Edwards, D. D., is that Jews, and all Christians who keep
the seventh day, are to be classed as atheists, and “must be treated,
as for this [National Reform
] question, one party” with atheists, who
“cannot dwell together on the same continent” with the national reform
Christianity.
Anybody can see at a glance that the establishment of the national
reform theory of government would be but the establishment of a
theocracy. And this is, in fact, what they propose to establish. They
say that “a republic thus governed is of him, through the people, and is
as really and truly a theocracy as the government of Israel.” A monthly
reading of the national W. C. T. U., written by Miss Willard, on
God in government, says: “A true theocracy is yet to come, [and
] the
enthronement of Christ in law and law-makers, hence I pray devoutly,
as a Christian patriot, for the ballot in the hands of women.” And in her
annual address to the national W. C. T. U. Convention, of 1887, Miss
Willard said: “The kingdom of Christ ‘must enter the realm of law
through the gateway of politics.... There are enough temperance men
in both [
the Democratic and Republican parties
] to take possession
of the government and give us national prohibition in the party of the
near future, which is to be the party of God.... We pray heaven to give
them no rest ... until they shall ... swear an oath of allegiance to Christ
in politics, and March in one great army ‘up to the polls to worship
God.’ ... I firmly believe that the patient, steadfast work of Christian
women will so react on politics within the next generation that the
party of God will be at the front.” Now a man made theocracy is only