o that Satan has almost complete control of them. Jurists are
perverted, bribed, deluded. Drunkenness and revelry, passion, envy,
dishonesty of every sort, are represented among those who administer the
laws. "Justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and
equity cannot enter."(1024)

The iniquity and spiritual darkness that prevailed under the supremacy of
Rome were the inevitable result of her suppression of the Scriptures; but
where is to be found the cause of the wide-spread infidelity, the
rejection of the law of God, and the consequent corruption, under the full
blaze of gospel light in an age of religious freedom? Now that Satan can
no longer keep the world under his control by withholding the Scriptures,
he resorts to other means to accomplish the same object. To destroy faith
in the Bible serves his purpose as well as to destroy the Bible itself. By
introducing the belief that God's law is not binding, he as effectually
leads men to transgress as if they were wholly ignorant of its precepts.
And now, as in former ages, he has worked through the church to further
his designs. The religious organizations of the day have refused to listen
to unpopular truths plainly brought to view in the Scriptures, and in
combating them they have adopted interpretations and taken positions which
have sown broadcast the seeds of skepticism. Clinging to the papal error
of natural immortality and man's consciousness in death, they have
rejected the only defense against the delusions of Spiritualism. The
doctrine of eternal torment has led many to disbelieve the Bible. And as
the claims of the fourth commandment are urged upon the people, it is
found that the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath is enjoined; and as
the only way to free themselves from a duty which they are unwilling to
perform, many popular teachers declare that the law of God is no longer
binding. Thus they cast away the law and the Sabbath together. As the work
of Sabbath reform extends, this rejection of the divine law to avoid the
claims of the fourth commandment will become well-nigh universal. The
teachings of religious leaders have opened the door to infidelity, to
Spiritualism, and to contempt for God's holy law; and upon these leaders
rests a fearful responsibility for the iniquity that exists in the
Christian world.

Yet this very class put forth the claim that the fast-spreading corruption
is largely attributable to the desecration of