Thus for several years a movement has been on foot, daily growing in extent, and importance, and power, to fulfill that portion of the prophecy of Rev. 13:11-17, which first calls forth the dissent of the objector, and which appears from every point of view the most improbable of all the specifications; namely, the erection of the image and the enforcing of the mark. Beyond this, nothing remains but the sharp conflict of the people of God with this earthly power, and the eternal triumph of the overcomer.
An Association, even now national in its character, as already noticed, and endeavoring, as is appropriate for those who have such objects in view, to secure their purposes under the sanction of the highest authority of the land, the National Constitution, already has this matter in hand. In the interest of this Association there is published, in Philadelphia, a semi-monthly paper called the Christian Statesman, in advocacy of this movement. Every issue of that paper goes forth filled with arguments and appeals from some of the ablest pens in our land, in favor of the desired Constitutional amendment. These are the very methods, by which, in a country like ours, great revolutions are brought about; and no movement has ever arisen so suddenly as this to so high a position in public esteem with certain classes, and taken so strong a hold upon their hearts.
Says Mr. G.A. Townsend (New World and Old, p. 212):—
"Church and State has several times crept into American politics, as in the contentions over the Bible in the public schools, the Anti-Catholic party of 1844, &c. Our people have been wise enough heretofore to respect the clergy in all religious questions, and to entertain a wholesome jealousy of them in politics. The latest politico-theological movement [italics ours] is to insert the name of the Deity in the Constitution."
The present movements of this National Association and the progress it has made luay be gathered somewhat from the report of the proceedings of the Convention held in Cincinnati, Jan. 31, 1872.
From the Report of the Executive Committee it appeared that ten thousand copies of the proceedings of the Philadelphia Convention have been gratuitously distributed; that a General Secretary (Rev. D. McAllister) has been appointed, with a salary of $2,500; and that a long and elaborate paper by Prof. Taylor Lewis, of Union College, in advocacy of the ideas and objects of the Association, will soon be published; that the number of the Executive Committee is recommended to be increased to twenty-five, besides including all presidents of auxiliary associations; that $2,177 have been raised the past year by the Association, and that a balance of over $90 remains in the treasury. Nearly $1,800 were raised at this Convention.
The Business Committee recommended that the delegates to this Convention hold meetings in their respective localities to ratify the resolutions adopted at Cincinnati; that twenty thousand copies of the proceedings of this Convention be published in tract form; and that the friends of the Association be urged to form auxiliary associations. All these recommendations were adopted.
The resolutions passed were as follows:—
"Resolved, That it is the right and duty of the United States, as a nation settled by Christians, a nation with Christian laws and usages, and with Christianity as its greatest social force, to acknowledge itself in its written Constitution, to be a Christian nation.
"Resolved, That, as the disregard of sound theory always leads to mischievous practical results, so in this case the failure of our nation to acknowledge, in its organic laws, its relation to God and his moral laws, as a Christian nation, has fostered the theory that government has nothing to do with religion but to let it alone, and that consequently State laws in favor of the Sabbath, Christian marriage, and the use of the Bible in the schools, are unconstitutional.
"Resolved, That we recognize the necessity of complete harmony between our written constitution and the actual facts of our national life; and we maintain that tho true way to eflect this undoubted harmony is not to expel the Bible and all idea of God and religion from our schools, abrogate laws enforcing Christian morality, and abolish all devout observances in connection with government, but to insert an explicit acknowledgment of God and the Bible in our fundamental law.
"Resolved, That the proposed religious amendment, so far from tending to a union of Church and State, is directly opposed to such union, inasmuch as it recognizes the nation's own relations to God, and insists that the nation should acknowledge these relations for itself, and not through the medium of any church establishment."
Mr. F.E. Abbott, editor of the Index, Toledo, O., who was present at the foregoing Convention, and presented a protest against its aims and efforts, says of those who stand at the head of the movement:—