174 THE UNITED STATES IN PROPHECY.
the practical administration of the same, no privilege or
advantage shall be conceded to Christianity or any other
special religion ; that our entire political system shall be
founded and administered on a purely secular basis;
and that whatever changes shall prove necessary to this
end, shall be consistently, unflinchingly, and promptly
made.”
The Inter Ocean of Nov. 16, 1880, reported the
proceedings of a convention held in Chicago the
day previous for the promotion of the “seculariza-
tion” of the State. “By that,” said the report,
“they signify the exclusion of the Bible and all re-
ligious training from the public schools, and the tax-
ation of church property. A permanent organiza-
tion was effected.”
Thus while frequent conventions are held by the
National Reform Party, counter conventions are
held by the Liberalists ; and the forces are marshall-
ing on either side.
In the Richland Star of Dec. 4, 1879, published
in Bellville, O., an infidel wrote against the National
Reform Party, which had then recently held a con-
vention in Mansfield, O., concluding his remarks as
follows: —
“The lash and the sword have always proved poor
ambassadors of Christ. If we live up to our Constitu-
tion as it now is, we shall be good citizens, and have all
the room we care to occupy as Christians.”
To this writer a Mr. W. W. Anderson replied in
the next issue of the same paper in defense of the
Association, giving expression, in his remarks, to this
sentiment: —
“Either we are a Christian nation, or we are not.
Either our Sabbath laws, so essential to good order and
the welfare of all classes, are to be maintained, or they
THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 175
are to be abrogated. In the latter case, we shall wade
through blood, as Paris did when under infidel rule.
These passages show that the contestants are
fully aware of the nature and magnitude of the
struggle upon which the Christian world is now
entering.
A very marked and rapid change is taking place
in public opinion relative to the proposed religious
amendment of the Constitution. Some who were
at first openly hostile to the movement, we learn
are now giving their influence for its advance-
ment, and clamoring loudly for a Sunday law.
And some who at first regarded it with in-
difference, are now becoming its warm partisans.
As a sample of this change of feeling, the following
paragraph from the Christian Press of January,
1872, may be presented. The Christian Press is
the organ of the Western Book and Tract Society,
Cincinnati, Ohio, and its editor, speaking of the
National Association above referred to, says:—
«When this Association was formed, while we were
prepared to bid it God speed, we did not then feel that
there was any pressing need for the object sought ; and
as our mission was specially directed to the Christianiz-
ing, enlightening, and elevating of the masses of the peo-
ple, we have said little in our columns on the subject,
being assured that if the people are right, 1b 1s easy to
set the government right. The late combined efforts,
however, of various classes of our citizens to exclude the
Bible from our schools, repeal our Sabbath laws, and
divorce our government entirely from religion, and thus
make it an atheistic government,—for every government
must be for God or against him, and must be adminis-
tered in the interests of religion and good morals, or in
the interests of irreligion and immorality,—have changed
our mind, and we are now prepared to urge the neces-
sity for an explicit acknowledgment in the national Con-