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by David McAllister

Editor's Note: This article, is an edited version of chapter 6, "The Basis of the Movement in the Law of Self-Defense," from David McAllister's book, Christian Civil Government in America : The National Reform Movement, Its History and Principles (Pittsburgh: The National Reform Association, 1927; sixth edition, revised by T. H. Acheson and Wm. Parsons). The need to defend Christian civil government that is set forth here by McAllister reflects the battle of his day. The forces of secularism have made great strides since then, but their agenda remains the same: All elements of Christianity must be purged from civil government and the public square. It is hoped that McAllister's survey of the secular (or atheist) assault on civil government and his call to action will motivate Christians in our day to defend the remaining Christian elements of civil government against the hostile forces of secularism, and to fight to regain that which has been lost.

Secularism in our country is the main assailant to Christian civil government. It seeks the overthrow of existing Christian institutions. It aims at the utter de-Christianizing of the state. Wherever there is a bond of connection between Christianity and the state or nation, it would ruthlessly sunder the tie. Nor have the efforts of the advocates of secularism been in vain. They have succeeded in banishing the Bible from the schools of a number of our large cities and smaller towns, and in repealing the Sabbath laws of some of our states. They have won to their side many Christian leaders. The National Reform Association arrays the friends of Christian civil government on the defensive against these aggressions of secularism. It stands guard over what yet remains of the inheritance bequeathed us by our fathers. How great the need is for this defensive effort will appear from a partial survey of the assault of the enemy.

Secularism in Our National Life

The first clear manifestation of secularism in our national life was in the defeat of Franklin's motion for prayers in the Convention that framed the Constitution of the United States. Following consistently upon this was the completion of the work of the Convention in the framing of an instrument from which all acknowledgment of God was excluded. Justice Story's testimony as to the intention of the mass of American people in adopting the Constitution is unquestionably true:

Probably at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the amendment to it now under consideration [the first amendment], the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all religion, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation.

Yet there were many members of the Convention, and many more throughout the country, who accepted the secular theory as to our nation. Luther Martin, a member of the Convention from Maryland, in his letter to the legislature of his state, giving an account of the formation of the instrument says: "There were some members so unfashionable as to think a belief of the existence of a Deity, and of a state of future rewards and punishments, would be some security for the good conduct of our rulers, and that, in a Christian country, it would be at least decent to hold out some distinction between professors of Christianity and downright infidelity or paganism" (Elliott's Debates, vol. 1, pp. 385-386).

Next followed the two Tripolitan treaties, which, according to the Constitution, were part of the supreme law of the land, in both of which the Christian character of our government was explicitly denied. One of them reads: "The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; it has no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Mussulmans" (Article XI. of the Treaty of Tripoli, dated January 3, 1797).

This denial of all Christian character to our government, was, of course, based on the United States Constitution. In harmony with this, as thus interpreted, Thomas Jefferson, when President, repeatedly refused to appoint a day of national fasting and prayer, notwithstanding all the precedents in the administration of the government by his predecessors, on the express ground that he was prohibited from such official acknowledgment of religion by the Constitution: "I have long wished to find occasion of saying why I do not proclaim fasts and thanksgivings as my predecessors did.... I know it will give great offense to the New England clergy; but the advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from them." And, "I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions."

Frequently, however, Mr. Jefferson officially acknowledged God, and even urged the nation to join himself in the duty of prayer:

I shall need, too, the favor of the Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old, from their native land, and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessities and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with his providence, and our riper years with his wisdom and power; and to whose goodness I ask you to join with me in supplication, that he will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures, that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations (close of second Inaugural address, March 4, 1805).

One should also see Jefferson's first Inaugural address and several of his messages to Congress. In the beautiful words quoted here from the second Inaugural the President gave utterance to the sentiments of the American people, being pressed by the occasion and circumstances to what he might not otherwise have spoken.

This brings us down to the famous controversy about the United States mail on the Lord's Day. Post offices in the large towns were gradually opened at the beginning the nineteenth century, largely during Jefferson's administration, for part of the Sabbath. This was simply a matter of local arrangement. The law neither required nor prohibited it. In 1810, Congress passed an elaborate "act regulating the post office establishment," providing "that every postmaster shall keep an office, in which one or more persons shall attend on every day on which a mail, or bag, or other packet or parcel of letters shall arrive, by land or water, as well as on other days, at such hours, on every day of the week, to deliver, on demand, any letter, paper, or packet to the person entitled to or authorized to receive the same."

Soon after the war of 1812 petitions were presented to Congress for the correction of the evil, and a respectful report was made to the postmaster-general; but the plea of public convenience prevailed, and the evil rapidly grew worse. The act of Congress of March 3, 1825, "reducing into one the several acts establishing and regulating the post office department," reaffirmed the duty of every postmaster to deliver mail matter "at all reasonable hours on every day of the week." Following this enactment was the logical fruit of a vast increase in Sabbath desecration. A document of that period says: "In many towns, both large and small, the post office is so located as to attract crowds of idlers, who do not pretend to any plea of necessity. The young, if they have not pious parents or guardians, are led, by this public and authorized show of business, to disregard the Sabbath."

At length, in December, 1828, a large and influential committee, representing different religious denominations, was appointed in New York, and an invitation was sent forth to Christian citizens all over the country to co-operate in an effort to arrest Sabbath desecration, and petitions were poured into both branches of Congress for the enactment of a law, or for some effective measure, by which transportation of the mail and the delivery of letters on the Lord's Day should be prohibited. These petitions came in large numbers from the Southern States.

Both Houses of Congress adopted reports on these petitions, justifying and continuing the carrying and distribution of the mail, on the ground that the United States government is purely secular. The entire report, submitted in the Senate by Col. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, and adopted January 19, 1829, is an attack upon the Christian idea of the obligation of the Sabbath. The following year the same gentleman submitted a report in the House of Representatives, adopted March 5, in which the secular theory of government is again set forth as the justification of the transportation and delivery of the mail.

Such acceptance and defense of secularism by the national government was sure to tell upon the states. Only two examples of this unhappy influence will be cited here. The recent tragic death of Judge Terry, of California, recalls one of them. When he was Chief Justice of that state, a case came before the California Supreme Court during the April term, 1858, in which the main question was the enforcement of the Sabbath law of the commonwealth. The Sabbath law was pronounced unconstitutional on the same secular ground on which Congress had refused to prevent the desecration of the Lord's Day. Chief Justice Terry held that the enforcement of the Sabbath law of California was a discrimination in favor of Christians, and a violation of the religious freedom of others; and that "the legislature has no right to forbid or enjoin the lawful pursuit of a lawful occupation on one day of the week, any more than it can forbid it altogether." In the same case, Judge Burnett held that,

there can be no higher law for this court than the Constitution; and in determining this question of constitutional construction, we must forget, as far as in us lies, that we are religious or irreligious men.... The Constitution of this State will not tolerate any discrimination or preference in favor of any religion; and, so far as the common law conflicts with this provision, it must yield to the Constitution. Our constitutional theory regards all religions, as such, equally entitled to protection, and all equally unentitled to any preference (Ex parte Newman, 9 California Reports, pp. 502-512).

The second of these instances in our states is the celebrated school case in Ohio. The Superior Court of Cincinnati had sustained an injunction restraining the School Board of the city from prohibiting the reading of the Bible and use of the Lord's Prayer and Christian songs in the common schools. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court of Ohio, and the injunction dissolved. This decision was based on the gravest perversion of the meaning of the clause in the Ohio Constitution taken from the old Congressional Ordinance for the government of the territory of the northwest. The word "religion" in that Ordinance and in the Constitution of Ohio meant nothing else in the minds of the framers of those instruments than Christianity. Yet Judge Welch had the hardihood to deny this. He said: "If by the generic word 'religion' was really meant 'the Christian religion' or 'Bible religion,' why was it not plainly so written?"

Let friends of Christian government note this, and learn the necessity of a clear, express, and unequivocal acknowledgment of Christianity in our fundamental law, if they would retain our Christian institutions.

But Judge Welch proceeds:

The same word "religion," and in much the same connection, is found in the Constitution of the United States. The latter Constitution, at least, if not our own also, in a sense, speaks to mankind, and speaks of the rights of man . Neither the word "Christianity," "Christian," nor "Bible" is to be found in either. When they speak of "religion," they must mean the religion of man, and not the religion of any class of men (Board of Education vs. Minor et al., 23 Ohio State Reports, p. 246).

All such official action as the above is in harmony with the avowed sentiments of the enemies of Christian institutions. The principles of the following examples of secularism are more coarsely expressed, but are the same in substance as in the official acts cited. Said a secularist orator:

Free Germans and citizens of America, let us join hand in hand with all other free citizens around us, to oppose a law [the Sabbath law of New York] which is unjust, and an infringement on our sacred liberty. The Sunday laws are only the tools used by cliques of politicians to further their own ambitious ends in opposition to the interests of mankind. They are upheld in the sacred name of religion. We all have our own views of religion, and we mean to keep them without infringement or being forced to adopt those of other men. We honor all days, and consider what is right to be done on one day is right to be done on another. Men should be left to the exercise of their own judgment in regard to the way they spend their time. If they wish social enjoyment and enlivening music, let them have it. This is freedom (Report in New York Spectator, September 13, 1859).

Again, an avowed secularist newspaper thus elegantly discourses:

As frogs in the swamp from time to time raise their heads and fill the air with their melodious croaking, and then sink back into their slimy element, so the Sunday-saints raise their heads up and down out of the swamp of their church creed and croak, "Sanctify the Sabbath! Desecrate not the Day of the Lord!" Such a frog-concert was held on Friday afternoon before the Commissioners of Police, to whom a delegation of frog-heads presented a memorandum, in which an earnest protest was made against the sale of intoxicating liquors on Sunday, and the faithful execution of the Sunday laws was demanded.

The Secular Theory of Civil Government and Its Demands

The word "secularism" means a system which belongs to this world of time and sense, without any reference to another world or a Divine Spirit. Hence, that the secular theory of government is political atheism needs only to be stated to be proved. This is openly avowed by candid secularists.

That political secularism or political atheism roots itself naturally in infidelity and irreligion needs no further proof than the following utterances of the most notorious scoffer and atheist in America:

The government of the United States is secular. It derives its power from the consent of man. It is a government with which God has nothing whatever to do--and all forms and customs inconsistent with the fundamental fact that the people are the source of authority, should be abandoned. In this country there should be no oaths--no man shall be sworn to tell the truth, and in no court should there be any appeal to any Supreme Being. A rascal by taking the oath appears to go in partnership with God, and ignorant jurors credit the form instead of the man. A witness should tell his story, and if he speaks falsely should be considered as guilty of perjury. Governors and presidents should not issue religious proclamations. They should not call upon the people to thank God. It is no part of their official duty. It is outside of and beyond the horizon of their authority. There is nothing in the Constitution of the United States to justify this religious impertinence.

For many years priests have attempted to give to our government a religious form. Zealots have succeeded in putting the legend upon our money, "In God we Trust," and we have chaplains in the army and navy, and legislative proceedings are usually opened with prayer. All this is contrary to the Constitution of the United States. We have taken the ground that the people can govern themselves, without the assistance of any supernatural power. We have taken the position that the people are the real and only rightful source of authority. We have solemnly declared that the people must determine what is politically right and what is wrong, and that their legally expressed will is the supreme law. This leaves no room for national superstition--no room for patriotic gods or supernatural beings--and does away with the necessity for political prayers....

In 1776 our fathers endeavored to retire the gods from politics.... They appealed from the providence of God to the providence of man.

Let the reader judge of the value of these flippant utterances in the light of the facts of that period of our nation's history. That very year our fathers called on God in earnest prayer both in Congress and throughout the Colonies, and at the request of Congress, confessed their sin, sought pardon "through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ," and in the Declaration of Independence expressed their "firm reliance on the protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE." The only value such reckless and frothy writings as this article in the Arena can have is to show the logic of secularism, and drive all lovers of the truth of our historical Christianity who may doubt the wisdom of all the aims of the National Reform Association to the full acceptance of its platform and heartier co-operation in its work.

The secular or anti-Christian theory of civil government reaches its full logical development in--

The Demands of Liberalism:

• We demand that churches and other ecclesiastical property shall no longer be exempt from just taxation.
• We demand that the employment of chaplains in Congress, in State Legislatures, in the navy and militia, and in prisons, asylums, and all other institutions supported by public money, shall be discontinued.
• We demand that all public appropriations for educational and charitable institutions of a sectarian character shall cease.
• We demand that all religious services now sustained by the government shall be abolished; and especially that the use of the Bible in the public schools, whether ostensibly as a text-book or avowedly as a book of religious worship, shall be prohibited.
• We demand that the appointment, by the President of the United States, or by Governors of the various States, of all religious festivals and fasts shall wholly cease.
• We demand that the judicial oath in the courts and in all other departments of the government shall be abolished, and that simple affirmation under the pains and penalty of perjury shall be established in its stead.
• We demand that all laws directly or indirectly enforcing the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath shall be repealed.
• We demand that all laws looking to the enforcement of "Christian" morality shall be abrogated, and that all laws shall be conformed to the requirements of natural morality, equal rights, and impartial liberty.
• We demand that not only in the Constitutions of the United States and of the several States, but also in 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.

Associations have been formed in many cities and towns for the furtherance of these demands, and on the 4th of July, 1876, a national congress of representatives from these societies assembled in the city of Philadelphia, and organized the "National Liberal League." We quote from its Constitution:

Whereas, The Constitution of the United States, from beginning to end, in spirit and in letter, is framed in accordance with the principle of the total separation of church and state; and the Treaty with Tripoli, signed by George Washington as a part of the supreme law of the land, declares emphatically that "the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion"; and

Whereas, Notwithstanding these facts, the administration of the national government, and the administrations and Constitutions of the several State governments, maintain numerous practical connections of the state and church, thereby violating the spirit of the United States Constitution and the glorious traditions which dedicate the country exclusively to the natural rights of man;....

Therefore, We, the members of the Centennial Congress of Liberals, convened at Philadelphia from July 1 to July 4, 1876, hereby associate ourselves together as a permanent organization, and adopt the following constitution:

Article I. The name of this Association shall be the National Liberal League.

Article II....

Article III. The specific objects of the National Liberal League shall be.... 2. To advocate the equitable taxation of church property; the total discontinuance of religious instruction and worship in the public schools; the repeal of all laws enforcing the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath; the cessation of all appropriations of public funds for religious institutions or purposes of any kind; the abolition of State-paid chaplaincies; the substitution of simple affirmation under the pains and penalties of perjury for the judicial oath; the non-appointment of religious fasts, festivals, and holidays by public authority; the practical establishment of simple morality and intelligence as the basis of purely secular government and the adequate guaranty of public order, prosperity, and righteousness; and whatever other measures or principles may be necessary to the total separation of church and state.

The resolutions adopted by this Congress protested against the proclamation of President Grant inviting the people to celebrate the 4th of July in the Centennial year by religious observances; against the closing of the International Exhibition on the Sabbath; against the avowed endeavor of the government to "Christianize the Indians," and against the motto "In God We Trust" on the national coins and recommended the bust of Thomas Paine for permanent preservation in Independence Hall.

In January 1926 there was chartered in the state of New York, The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism. The organization is the first Atheist society to enjoy the quasi authority of the state in its attempts to delete Christianity from every part of our civil organization. It has taken over the work, and the aims of the Liberal League, including its "Nine Demands" and as an additional feature of its work has organized Junior Atheists Leagues and College Atheists Leagues which it calls after the precedent of one organized in Rochester University, "Damned Souls Clubs." These are today reported as existing in several of the State Universities of the country. Fortunately, however, Christian American statesman are becoming aware of the dangerous tendency of these movements and their attacks in recent years have largely failed. They succeeded in defeating the Initiative Measure in California in 1926 which sought to make the reading of the Bible in the public schools a requirement, but have so far lost every suit instituted in the courts of the various states to exclude the Bible and all religion from the public schools.

Christian Defection to Secularism

The most deplorable aspect of this assault of the secular theory of civil government on our Christian institutions, however, is the fact that so many professing Christians have been led to join the ranks of the assailants. It seems almost incredible that men who accept the moral laws of the Christian religion, and who desire to honor Christ as King, can so far ignore our history as a nation founded on Christian truth, and be so blind to the teachings of sound political science, and the inevitable logic of secularism, as to strike hands with the aggressive movement that cannot rest until it accomplishes the utter de-Christianization of our institutions.

We might be less surprised if only such men as Horace Greeley, who claimed to be a liberal Christian espoused the gospel of secularism. Yet it was sad to hear so earnest a patriot as he was say:

We deny that this is a Christian nation. France, Spain, Russia, Austria, Mexico, Portugal, Brazil etc., are Christian nations, no matter how many of their people may be non-Christians; this country is not Christian, though a majority of its inhabitants probably are. "Almighty God" is not the "source of all authority and power" in our government; the people of the United States are such source.... The Federal Constitution is based on the idea that religious faith is a purely personal matter, with which civil governments have properly nothing to do, and with which they cannot meddle without doing far more harm than good (New York Daily Tribune, March 7, 1865).

But thoroughly evangelical and orthodox Christians have been carried away by the shallow sophistries of secularism. For example, Dr. S. T. Speer, in his book on Religion and the State, says: "So far as the national government is concerned, 'the people of the United States,' considered as a body politic, have no religion to teach, no God to promulgate, and no form of worship to sustain or enforce. Their Constitution is purely secular in its objects, and its authority entirely human, without any pretense of divine right."

Speaking of the Tripolitan Treaty, this writer says: "The language of this article in the treaty was used for a purpose, and that purpose was in exact correspondence with the fact contained in the Constitution itself. Christianity, though the prevalent religion of the people when the Constitution was adopted, is unknown to it. The Constitution says that it shall be unknown as having any place in the organic law of the United States or in the legislative powers of Congress."

The civil authority, he affirms, "proposes a secular education, and that only--an education that would be needful and useful in this life, if there were no God and no future for the human soul."

One of the most injurious concessions to this spirit of secularism was that of the eminent Christian educator, Dr. Theodore D. Woolsey, ex-president of Yale College, at the Conference of the Evangelical Alliance in New York in 1873. In a paper on the "Relations of the Constitution and Government in the United States to Religion," he said: "The Constitution of the United States has properly nothing to do with religion. If the people were Mohammedans under the same Constitution, similar departures in minor points from the principle of absolutely ignoring a particular religious faith would be possible." And, further, he stated: "If the people should all turn Mohammedans or Mormons, what material change would be needed in the laws, except in those relating to the marriage union and to the division of estates?... The law has as little to do with Christianity, and Christianity with the law, as possible."

Many of the great friends of our national Christianity have been greatly disappointed in the influence of the Evangelical Alliance on the momentous social problems of our land and day. Its platform and the volumes of its proceedings have been open to the repeated assaults of secularism on our Christian institutions, while the principles set forth by the National Reform Association have been granted a most inadequate hearing. At the Conference in Boston, in the fall of 1889, Dr. Greer, of New York, said:

No system of education is complete unless it teach morality; if it teach morality, it must teach religion; if it teach religion it must teach the Christian religion. But just here is the difficulty. The state in this country cannot give religious nurture; it has no right to give it; it does not belong within its scope to give it. And although it is of first importance that it should be given, it is also of the first importance that the state should not give it.

And but two men in the conference met this secularism with the true idea of the nature and functions of the state as a moral being, with moral aims and objects, and moral authority to define and punish crime, and to train its rising youth for the moral duties of American citizenship. Let Dr. Greer and other secularists of the Evangelical Alliance ponder these questions: Has the state the right to administer an oath? What is the oath but an appeal to God? How shall multitudes of American youth know the nature and obligation of an oath if the state does not teach them? What right has the state to administer an oath to witnesses and jurors or civil officers, or to punish the crime of perjury, if it has no right to teach the moral and religious ideas bound up in the divine ordinance of the oath? Before the Evangelical Alliance can be a great power for good in the moral conflicts that are now upon us in our social and political life, it must have an infusion of the sound Christian political science such as is tau ght by the National Reform Association. The most hopeful sign for the future of the Alliance is the recent testimony of its Secretary, Dr. Strong, to the necessity of moral and religious education by the state.

It is most gratifying to be able to state that two Americans who stood up in the Conference to vindicate our country before assembled Christendom were the Hon. Felix R. Brunot and the Rev. T. P. Stevenson, the President and Corresponding Secretary of the National Reform Association. Mr. Brunot said that he counted it the chief honor of his life to be the President of a society organized to maintain the many Christian features of our national life, and to correct the lamentable defect in the written Constitution which leads so many to misunderstand and misrepresent American institutions.

At an ecclesiastical extreme from Dr. Woolsey is Dr. W. R. Huntington, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, an opponent of Puritanism. This writer, unlike Bishop F. D. Huntington, with whom he must not be confounded, and whose Divine Aspects of Human Society he would do well to study, thinks that civil government is a "secular machine"; and that the true solution of "the American Problem" is for the state to secularize human life as thoroughly as possible so that the church may more earnestly labor to spiritualize and ennoble it. "Under such circumstances," he adds, "we need not feel obliged to call the state atheistic any more than we call a Jacquard loom atheistic. The state is simply non-Christian, that is all."

In the case of this author, as in that of Dr. Woolsey, the secularism of the written Constitution has so be-clouded the mental vision as to shut out from view the historical and philosophical basis and elements of the nation's life. Dr. Huntington is right in saying: "Our government rests in theory...upon a purely secular basis... Christ and his religion are alike unknown to that instrument which alone gives the government its authority--the Constitution of the United States." And when we reflect upon the mighty educating power of our written fundamental law, and its constant operation in molding the national life into its own likeness, we cannot read his further words without alarm:

These vestiges of Christianity, as we may call them [our Christian institutions of government], are printed on the sand. The tide has only to crawl up a few inches farther to wash them clean away. There is nothing in the theory of the Republic that makes such usages an essential part of national life. They rest for the most part upon the precarious tradition of colonial days; or if on statute law, what is statute law but the creature of temporary majorities?... They are not the natural fruit of our system; they are but reminders of an old order of things that has passed away--fossils imbedded in the rock on which the existing structure stands. One by one they will probably be chipped out and set aside as curiosities.

As late as the Meeting of the International Good-Will Congress that was held in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1926 one of the prominent speakers declared that the view of the state which regarded it as a moral personality accountable to God was responsible for many of the wars that have afflicted mankind. Though it is less the fashion to inveigh against the views political of Paul and the other Bible writers in religious assemblies, than it was twenty-five years ago, there are still numerous churchmen who cling tenaciously to the dying heresy that Christianity is a purely personal matter; that the church has no message or function toward the state, and that political sovereignty knows no God.

These citations, which might be indefinitely multiplied from Christian editors and ministers of the gospel of Christ, the anointed King, demonstrate our danger. Multitudes of Christian citizens are hostile to our Christian institutions of government. Many more, though not hostile, are ashamed or afraid to avow or manifest their friendship. Secularism, the creed of modern rationalistic Judaism, infidelity, and atheism, disguised under the name of "liberalism," and powerfully supported, as Dr. Martensen says, "by the declension which has appeared in Christendom itself, and by all the folly and baseness so plentifully found among Christians," threatens to destroy our national Christian inheritance.

Conclusion

How different a view of national life is secularism than that which is set forth by the biblical teaching concerning the state, the principles of Christian political science, and our nation's early history!1

Dr. Woolsey's statements are but too true as to the written Constitution of the United States; but what student of history can be so blind as to think for a moment that in our unwritten and vital constitution, our body of laws and judicial decisions and authoritative customs and usages, we could be what we are from any other than a Christian origin or for any other than a Christian people? Our laws are adapted to protect all men in their rights, just because we are Christian and Protestant. It would be a world-wide change that would adapt our Schools, State Constitutions, and criminal law, and the whole texture of our life as determined by the one fact of the Christian Sabbath, to say nothing of the oath and other features of the common law, to a Mohammedan people.

Christian patriots cannot act too promptly nor too earnestly to the threat of secularism. With this conviction, the National Reform Association calls upon all who would stem the tide of secularism and save our Christian civil inheritance, to active co-operation in its patriotic work.

David McAllister (1835-1907) was one of the founding editors of The Christian Statesman in 1867 and was the editor of this journal for many years. He also served at one time as general secretary of the National Reform Association. He was vice president of Geneva College and held there the Chair of Political Science. He was also the pastor of Pittsburgh Reformed Presbyterian Church from 1887 until his death in 1907.

Endnotes

1. See David McAllister, A Defense of the State's Duty to Confess Its Allegiance to Christ, The Christian Statesman, vol. 142, no. 3 (May-June 1999), pp. 11-19; David McAllister, The Christian Character of the Colonial Governments, The Christian Statesman, vol. 142, no. 4 (July-August 1999), pp. 18-30; David McAllister, Principles of a Christian Political Science, part 1, The Christian Statesman, vol. 145, no. 6 (November-December 2002), pp. 20-32; and part 2, The Christian Statesman, vol. 146, no. 1 (January-February 2003), pp. 25-32.

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