“Consider that God is not once named in our National Constitution.  There is nothing in it which requires an ‘oath of God,’ as the Bible styles it (which, after all, is the great bond both of loyalty in the citizen and of fidel in the magistrate); nothing which requires the ob of the day of rest and of worship, or which re its sanctity.  If we do not have the mails carried and the post-offices open on Sunday, it is because we have a Postmaster-General who respects the day.  If our Supreme Courts are not held, and if Congress does not sit on that day, it is custom, and not law, that makes it so.  Nothing in the Constitution gives Sunday quiet to the custom house, the navy yard, the barracks, or any of the departments of government.

“Consider that they fairly express the mind of the great body of the American people.  This is a Christian people.  These amendments agree with the faith, the feelings, and the forms of every Christian church or sect.  The Catholic and the Protestant, the Unitarian and the Trinitarian, profess and approve all that is here proposed.  Why should their wishes not become law?  Why should not the Constitution be made to suhf and to represent a constituency so overwhelmingly in the majority?...

“This great majority is becoming daily more conscious not only of their rights, but of their power.  Their number grows, and their column becomes more solid.  They have quietly, steadily opposed infidelity, until it has, at least, become politically unpopular.  They have asserted the rights of man and the rights of the government, until the nation’s faith has become measurably fixed and declared on these points.  And now that the close of the war gives us occasion to amend our Constitution, that it may clearly and fully represent the mind of the people on these points, they feel that it should also be so amended as to recognize the rights of God in man and in government.  Is it anything but due to their long patience that they be at length allowed to speak out the great facts and principles which give to all government its dignity, stability, and beneficence?”

Thus for several years a movement has been on foot, daily growing in extent, and importance, and power, to fulfill that portion of the prophecy of Rev. 13:11-17, which first calls forth the dissent of the objector, and which appears from every point of view the most improbable of all the specifications; namely, the erection of the image and the enforcing of the mark.  Beyond this, nothing remains but the sharp conflict of the people of God with this earthly power, and the eternal triumph of the overcomer.