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THE KI NG' S BUSINESS
July, 1936
GOD AND THE CONSTITUTION [Continued from page 255] shelter under the Constitution. Of course, there are moral anarchists in revolt against God; and if one takes the time to probe into the writings of many of our leading foes of the Constitution, he will be sur prised to find how many of them have been for years sworn enemies of the church, the Bible, and even Christ Himself. One of the noted men today who believes in radical revision of the Constitution is Harry Elmer Barnes, formerly professor at Smith College. It will be recalled that about ten years ago Dr. Barnes became nortorious through his advocacy of a radi cal revision of the Ten Commandments. It is significant to note that the quarrel which so many radicals have with the Con stitution centers around its provisions enforcing the commandment, “Thou shalt riot steal.” Constantly the critics of the Constitution rail against the “due process” clause, the provision stating that no person “shall be deprived of life, liberty, or prop erty without due process of law.” The due process clause, as interpreted by the Su preme Court, means that property shall not be confiscated, nor shall life or liberty be destroyed except in the punishment of crime and, then, only after a fair trial. A confiscatory law, then, does not constitute “due process” of law. Congress may not make anything law which it wishes. In the words of Justice Curtis, “It is not every act, legislative in form, that is law. Law is something more than mere will exerted as an act of power . . He went on to say that arbitrary acts of Congress are not, and, under the Constitution, cannot be law. In other words, for a legislative act to be law it must be fair and just to all citi zens. Congress may not steal. The “Court has said that to take property from one class and to give it to another is “nonthe- less robbery because it is done under the forms of law and is called taxation.” ; In all ages, the greatest inhumanities have been committed by the mob against the man, the crowd against the individual, the majority against the minority, the stronger and larger group against the weaker and smaller group. In a democra cy, the government is the instrument, if riot the personification, of the whole people. The citizen is helpless against the organ ized power of the State, unless this power is Constitutionally tied to high moral pur pose and principles of equal justice. The greatest crimes have been legal' acts of vengeance and plunder committed by governments against certain classes of their own citizens. Governments have a habit of holding themselves above all moral law—of taking the position that they can do no wrong. There are governments in the world today which look upon them selves as god, which observe not even the first principles of common decency in their dealings with their citizens, which arbi trarily take life and property in sheer brutal lust. In a real sense, our Constitution imposes moral law upon the government, requiring that it observe the Golden Rule in its deal ings with its citizens. If we violate a law of the land, the government prosecutes us. But if the government violates one of our Constitutional rights, we may have the government itself restrained. The Consti tution lays down the Golden Rule as the basis on which the government must deal with its citizens. The strongest organiza tion of men on earth, the State, must be prepared to go into the courts on an equal basis with any citizen, and it must be pre-
F A C T S C r e a t e F A I T H i H M M lf l — « S S :i.e read, meditated upon, prayed over, wept over, rejoiced over, in Bethlehem or jua a and from Jerusalem to the uttermost parts of the earth. STREAMS IN THE DESERT so clearly Interprets the WORD of GOD, without hlas or sectarianism, that the book is acceptable even to some Jews and Catholics, as well u to^ Protestant Christians of all denominations A Jewess said me hive a “ p y o f STREAMS IN THE DESERT—I see God in that W k - i t saved me from insanity." _ . .. STREAMS IN THE DESERT is a great missionary, going continually ny tne hundreds to Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India, Ceylon, Burma, China, Japan, England and Scotland; throughout the United States and Canada and lands, bearing its messages of inspiration and salvation to perplexed, distressed, sor rowful and captive souls, . THE ORIENTAL MISSIONARY SOCIETY, Publisher;, announcesi that the 15th and lfith editions of this book will soon be exhausted—the paper stock for the 17th edition has been purchased, and this issue to be made, if God Permit, th*8 yes*r> number published to over 200,000 copies. The Lord Jesus Christ be praised. priee—$ 1.50 postpaid anywhere.
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pared to make amends if it is found to be in the wrong. In that lopsided realrn of hu man relationships, in which the individual citizen must deal with the organized power of the people as a whole, the Constitution of the United States finally and uniquely introduced a system of fairness and reciprocity based upon the teachings of Christ. I t I s W e W h o H ave F ailed It should not be necessary to say, but in these times it is most imperative to empha size, that the Constitution does not and cannot insure that good and wise men will administer it, or that honest and conscien tious people will live under it. If the American people engulf themselves in the consequences of individual and national sins, they cannot reasonably blame the Constitution for their plight. The Consti tution is a framework within which men are free to build happiness and prosperity. But just as mankind may make a chaos of this bountiful earth on which their Creator placed them, so they may make a chaos within the framework of a Constitution erectèd according to divine moral law. The Constitution can guarantee rights to the individual, but it cannot make him live up to the responsibilities and the duties which these rights carry with them. The Constitution can keep the government from seizing upon the things that are God’s, but it cannot make the government handle wisely and with vision the things that are admittedly Caesar’s. . . . It is true that we frequently hear it said that the Constitution has failed. But, more often than not, the men who now tell us this are the same ones who through the years have grown weary of assuring us that Christianity has failed. And the answer to the charge that the Constitution has failed is, of course, the reply which we have grown weary of trying to impress upon the bigoted deriders of Christianity : “The fact is, we have failed to live up to it. It has not failed us, we have failed it.” Christ has not failed us. We have failed Him. The Christian founders of America have not failed us. We have failed them.
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