New-York tribune., 1873-02-27

TITHERS or MINT AND ANISE AND
CUMMIN.
The periodic Convention to secure the verbal
reformation of tho Constitution was called
to order in the great hall of the Cooper lnsti-
tute at o'clock yesterday afternoon. Zophar,
Eliphaz, and Bildad are come once more to
Judgment. They can explain wherein that
afflicted Job, the people, has incurred the
anger of the Most High. They are ready with
their infallble prescription to reconcile a sim
full sufferer with an outraged Justice. We do
not intend TO speak disrespectfully of the sim
cere and eminent gentlemen who believe that
they thus advance Christianity. But we think
their position untenable.
They maintain that the absence of the name
of God from the fundamental law leaves the
people destitute of all Constitutional warrant
TO recognize Supreme Source of authority
and of all Constitutional obligation of
obedience thereto, while Government, legis-
lators, and citizens, in cOnsenting to such q
compact, are guiltily irIeligious. To very
large laity, the demand of this Convention
sounds much as if the Board of Health were
to insist ON a Constitutional warrant for
breathing the air, or Constitutional obliga-
ton to observe the laws of the body. The
race has lived on the sweet air since Adams
first sigh, because it was the condition of its
existence. For the same reason it has wOr-
SHIPPED Supreme Source of authority, since
that eldest day before Conventions of Clergy
men, before the Constitution of 'S7, before
the Reformation, before the Incarnation, be-
fore prophecy, before history. even. More
1aA INN 1fah 10
truth of the brotherhood of man bears witness
to the fatherhood of God in every civil act
proceeding from that conception.
AS for the national irreligiousness, it is not
proven by the text of our national pact. If
religion be to do justly, to love mercy, and to
walk humby before God, we have a right,
like Job, to insist on whatever integrity we
possess. And it is not vain boasting,-save in
the ears of Eliphaz the Temanite, and the
rest,-to declare that people which freed its
slaves and gave its first-bOrn to die for JUS
tice, which struggles ever toward juster laws
for the Freedmen for women, for working
men, children, inebriates, prisoners, madmen,
prostitutes, is not unspiritual. Social Science
conventions, efforts to improve and ditfuse
education, the success of Holly Tree Inns and
Boffns Bowers, and especially the freedom of
every soul and every synod in the land to
worship God as seemeth it good, prove, we.
think, that the religious eclipse is not total.
In reality, it is a sectarian Interpretation of
the Christian idea of God which the Consti-
tuition is believed to need. And against such
au Interpolation thoughtful persons should
protest. Ii all men were evangelical believers,
such change would still be superauous. But
what right have ninety-nine Christian citizens
to offend Hebrew citizen Or by what
claim of higher loyalty to the laws of the
land, may score of Calyinists atfront .
Unitarian, POsitivist, deist. an infdel or
paganf The simple fact is that the COnstitu
ton is civil contract, designed to compass
certain civil ends. 1t was deliberate care,
not ungodly haste, that kept all theological
allusiOn out of it. The compact was meant to
bind together in common patriotism hosts of
men of utter and uncomprOmising differences
in all matters of speculative opinion. And, as
if to emphasize this wise toleration, the first
amendment, passed in 1891, absolutely forbade
the establishment of State religion.
1t is not only because the proposed amend
ment cOntravenes the spirit of the Constitu-
ton, however, that we oppose it. The
emphasis laid upon it suggests an evil feature
of the time. There exists, just now IN the
minds of prOfessedly Christian men, a danger
GUS tendency to divorce religion and morality.
The technical Christianity of the period is
more nearly cOnsonant with the ethics of Moses
than with the ethics of Jesus That is, it in
sists on the efficacy of those observances which
Jesus expressly repudiated. The acknowledge
ment of God in the Constitution, the recOgni-
ton Of the Jewish Sabbath, even church
membership. apparently, commit men TO
nothing difficult. But to follow the historic
Christ would commit them sometimes to hard
ship often to poverty, always to re-
proach. Therefore they substitute the
ceremonial law for the Christian. CO.
temporary history sustains this charge.
Most of the gentlemen whose word was dis
honOred at Washington the other day were
church members. One of them was received
with gratutous enthusiasm by Young Mems
Christian Associations, after proved falsehood
and probable perjury had attainted him. To
them, his profession of faith Outweighed his
transgression. Yet that scripture which both
parties believe to be inspired, remaDds to
exile from Gods mercy whoever loveth
or maketh lie. 1t is plain that the
saeerdotal and not the spiritual law is, in
these cases. imputed to Christ This Conven-
ton of Constitutional Reformers encourages
the same view. rs IL seems TO us. and we Oh