"Just what the people of the State of Missouri did will the people
of the United States finally do. They will plant in their great charter
of liberties an acknowledgment of the nation's dependence on
Almighty God, and its duty to conform to the laws of religious or
Christian morality."
Here is a plain argument that the Constitutions of Ohio and
Missouri contain and mean all that the religiously amended
Constitution of the United States will mean; that the Constitution of
Ohio "substantially includes every idea" that the National Reform
Association proposes to place in "the national charter;" that the
Constitution of Ohio embraces "all there is in this [National Reform]
thing." Very well, be it so. From this it follows that in the State of Ohio,
under that Constitution, there should be found a condition of
government and society such as is expected to be formed in the
whole nation by the Religious Amendment to the National
Constitution. That is the theory; how stands the fact?
The Constitution of Ohio declares that "religion is essential to good
government," and that "means just what this proposed [National
Reform] amendment means." Now how much more religion, or how
much better government, is there in Ohio than there is in any other
State in the Union? How much purer is politics in Ohio than it is
anywhere else? Let the late elections in the State testify.
The Constitution of Ohio means just what the Religious
Amendment means; and under this proposed amendment the
National Reform party insists that our rulers must be "Christian men;"
if not actually church members, they must be "men who believe in
Christianity" (Christian Statesman, Feb. 8, 1877). How does this work
under the Ohio Constitution? Why, in 1883 Hon. George Hoadly, an
avowed infidel, was elected governor. And under the title of "An infidel
Elected Governor," the editor of the Christian Statesman, Nov. 1,
1883, said"–
"By a decision of the popular will, Mr. Hoadly, a pronounced
unbeliever in the Christian religion, is governor-elect of the great
State of Ohio. His record on this point is unmistakable, not merely
in that he was counsel against the Bible in the schools, for a
professed Christian like Stanley Matthews stood with him in that
effort, but in that he has been for years one of the vice-presidents of
the Free Religious Association. He is well known also to favor the
programme of the Liberals as to the complete secularization of the
State by the abolition of all vestiges of Christian usages from the
administration of government. The Christian people of Ohio,
therefore, believers in the supreme authority of the Christian
religion, are to have for their chief magistrate a man who denies
that the Christian religion is revealed from God, and who looks
elsewhere for the grounds of moral obligation."
The Constitutions of Ohio and Missouri mean, on this subject, just
what the Religious Amendment means; and one of the chief, avowed
purposes of the Religious Amendment is to secure forever the
reading of the Bible in the public schools of the nation. Now, at the
very time when Dr. Mayo uttered these words in Cincinnati, there was
then pending in the courts of the State of Ohio this very question of
the Bible in the schools. The case went to the Supreme Court of the
State. And under that Constitution which they say means just what
the proposed National Amendment means, the Supreme Court
affirmed the legality of the Cincinnati School Board, prohibiting prayer
and the reading of the Scriptures in the public
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schools. In St. Louis, also, under their model Missouri Constitution,
the Bible has been excluded from the schools. We might thus go
through the whole list of subjects which they make prominent in the
work; but these are enough to expose the sophistry of the National
Reform advocates.
Therefore, if it be true that, on the subject of religion, the
Constitution of Ohio means just what the proposed Religious
Amendment to the National Constitution means; if in that there is "all
there is in this," then it is positively proven that when they shall have
secured their Religious Amendment to the United States Constitution,
a pronounced unbeliever in the Christian religion," a man who is "well
known to favor the abolition of all vestiges of Christian usages from
the administration of government,"–in short, a man who is opposed to
every principle which they advocate, may be president of the great
nation of the United States. Under their religiously amended
Constitution, the Bible may be excluded from all the schools in the
land. Then, too, politics may be just as corrupt everywhere as they
are now in Ohio. Where, then, will there be any practical difference
between the workings of government under the amended
Constitution, and those workings under the Constitution as it now is?
None at all. If then they mean what they said at Cincinnati, where lies
the efficacy of their movement? Ah! there is the point; they do not
