152 THE UNITED STATES IN PROPHECY.
such recognition, pleasing God by judicially voting our-
selves pious, and doing nothing more.
“We shall leave all religions in equality before the
law, and make Christianity the adopted religion of the
nation.
“ Christianity, being justice, requires us to put down
infidelity by taking advantage of our numbers to secure
rights which we do not allow to others.
“Justice to Christians is one thing, and to infidels
another.
“ We being a Christian people, the Jewish and unbe-
lieving portion of our people are not, of right, part of the
people.
“ Anl so, having no rights which we, as Christians,
are bound to respect, we must adopt this amendment in
our interest.
“ Passing this act will not make any to be Christians
who are not Christians, but it is needed to make this a
more Christian nation.
“The people are not to be made more Christian by it;
but, since the nation cannot be Christian unless the peo-
ple are, it is meant to make the nation Christian without
affecting the people.
“That is, the object of this amendment is to make
the nation Christian without making the people Chris-
tians. }
“By putting God in the Constitution he will be recog-
nized by nobody else than those who already recognize
him; and therefore we need the amendment for a fuller
recognition of him.
“If we say we believe in God and Christ in the Con-
stitution, it is true of those believing in him and a lie as
to the rest; and as the first class already recognize him,
we want this amendment as a recognition by the latter
class, so that our whole people shall recognize him.
“ Whether we have an acknowledgment of God in the
Constitution or not, we are a Christian nation ; and,
therefore, it is this recognition of God that is to make us
a Christian nation.”
THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 153
As to the probability of the success of this move-
ment, there is at present some difference of opinion.
While a very few pass it by with a slur as a mere
temporary sensation of little or no consequence, it 1s
generally regarded, both by its advocates and its op-
posers, as a work of growing strength and impor-
tance. Petitions and remonstrances are both being
circulated with activity, and shrewd observers, who
have watched the movement with a jealous eye, and
heretofore hoped it would amount to nothing, now
confess that it “ means business.” No movement of
equal magnitude of purpose has ever sprung up and
become strong, and secured favor so rapidly as this.
Indeed, none of equal magnitude has ever been
sprung upon the American mind, as this aims to re-
model the whole framework of our government, and
give to it a strong religious caste,—a thing which the
framers of our Constitution were careful to exclude
from it. They not only ask that the Bible, and
God, and Christ, shall be recognized in the Consti-
tution, but that it shall indicate this as “a Christian
nation, and place all Christian laws, institutions, and
usages, in our government on an undeniable legal
basis in the fundamental law of the nation.”
Of course, appropriate legislation will be required
to carry such amendments into effect, and somebody
will have to decide what are ‘Christian laws and
institutions.” From what we learn of such move-
ments in the past in other countries, and of the tem-
E per of the churches of this country, and of human
nature when it has power suddenly conferred upon
it, we look for no good from this movement. From
a lengthy article in the Lansing (Michigan) State
Republican in reference to the Cincinnati Conven-
tion, we take the following extract: —
« Now there are hundreds and thousands of moral and
professedly Christian people in this nation to-day who do