Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by the

S. D. A. P. ASSOCIATION,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

PREFACE.

As IT has been thought best that the following articles, which, with the exception of the Replies and Rejoinders, have already been published in the Christian Statesman, the Sabbath Recorder, and the Advent Review, should have a still wider circulation, it has been at last decided to present them to the public in the form of the present volume.

The occasion of their first appearance was as follows: Within the last few years, a party has been organized in this country, whose especial aims are the amendment of the Constitution, so that the names of God and Christ may appear in it; the recognition in the same instrument of the Bible as the fountain of national law; the securing of the reading of the Bible in the common schools; and the enforcement by law of the observance of Sunday, as the Christian Sabbath. Slowly, but steadily, the friends of this movement are bringing it to the public notice and enlarging the circle of its active supporters. A single glance at the existing state of affairs reveals the fact that, at no distant date, the issues which these men are making up will be the ones over which contending parties will wage fierce contest. Already the press of the country, by the drift of events which they find themselves incapable of controlling, are compelled, almost daily, to record transactions which are not only calling the attention of the people to a conflict which is both imminent and irrepressible, but which are also continually adding fuel to a flame which even now burns with a fierceness and volume indicative of its future scope and power.

In view of these facts, the writer of the subjoined articles, while taking no particular interest in party politics, merely as such, nevertheless felt a profound conviction that the time had come, in the providence of God, when Christian

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