DEMOCRACY IN CHRISTIANITY.

BY B.F.L.

The Christian Colonist has taken some pains to prove that "the religion of the New Testament has proved the mightiest power that has arisen in human history;" that the unholy alliance which the historical church has been too eager to cultivate with the ruling classes, as well as the establishment of an ecclesiastical hierarchy, has much to answer for." It then goes on to prove that "atheistic Socialism is most prevalent in Russia, France and Germany where political despotism is rife." Further, it states that "a Jewish peasant" was the founder of a Christian republic, and that it has taken eighteen centuries of Christian training to give us some adequate idea of the profound philosophy which underlies its teachings. Finally, that the civilisation of the Eastern World has continued along the lines of the old anti-Christian faiths, maintaining the tyranny of the few and the serfdom of the many, whilst the civilisation of the West, following, though imperfectly, the teachings of Jesus Christ has advanced along the lines of liberty, enfranchisement, and a universal philanthropy." I am not going to enter upon a theological controversy, and would not have noticed the article at all were it not for its ultra democratic character. But there is such a thing as proving too much, and into this error the Colonist has fallen. Under the roof of the church, and under the cover of the graveyard, democracy no doubt exists; but in the active employments of life : in the social pleasures, the secular teachings and the framing and administering of codes of law, democracy in religion exerts a most pernicious influence. It is against the whole nature of things and the evidences of our own senses that all men are equal ; that one race is as good as another ; and that the unholy fusion of races by marriage or concubinage, is not by any means leading the world into a higher state of intellectual development; but, on the contrary, is just beginning to lead us back to the Darwinian " origin of species," thanks to the philanthropists, the negroes, the Chinese, and the Indian races of the East and of the West. The wicked intermixture of races, distinctly antithetical in color, physical conformation, intellect and instincts, is as likely to bring us speedily to a consummation as fatal as the deluge as not. We have not the slightest conception of the actual causes of that catastrophe ; all we know is, that it was brought about by the wickedness of man. What the specific sin was, we cannot conceive. We can only imagine that a sort of Exeter Hall existed in those days ; that they "raised," as the Yankees say, and sent forth such philanthropists as Wilberforce and Clarkson, and Grenville Sharp, and William Lloyd Garrison, to lead the world into bloody conflicts over the Christian grafting of grossly inferior races upon superior ones.
"John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave,
 But his soul is marching on."
with a vengeance, as we can witness by the elements which are so rapidly sapping and undermining the social fabric in the United States, India, and Australia—the said "elements" being the white Nigrophilists, Chinaphilists, and Indophilists, aided so manfully in their labors of "Christian Democracy" by those "men and brethren," the negroes, the Mongolians, the Indians, and the Malays. Queensland is proving, and our own Northern Territory is about to prove the rule of Christian democratic mischief, and not the exception. Already has the healthy vitality of Christianity been poisoned by this most pernicious system of Christian democracy, and we are just leaving the top rung of the ladder in our descent back to paganism. Marriages and cohabitations between several species directly antithetical in mental calibre and physical formation, is leading this country, aided by an Abolition of Oaths' Bill, to an absolute contempt for Christianity, as it has hitherto been taught, and administered ; and in the United States, by the introduction of a new Civil Rights' Clause into the original constitution to barbaric splendour in dress, corruption in politics, a sort of "A1-number-one" species of roguery in commercial circles, atrocious wickednesses in social life, and a species of "fetish" in religion. The nation that fails to put down these iniquitous evils by force of legal enactment deserves to fall, and will fall. The legislators and their supporters, who will not move hand or foot to put an immediate stop to these abominations of "Democratic Christianity," so far as Negro, Chinese, and Indian marriages are concerned, and will not preserve their own species, and prevent the absolute lowering of the standard of their own race in order to elevate another, thereby benefitting neither, those people, I repeat, who tolerate, sanction, aid, and encourage such things, deserve to be destroyed as a nation, a tribe, a race; and destroyed they assuredly will be. The nigger and the Celestial, aided by their white friends, the Nigrophilists and Chinaphilists, and the depraved tastes of certain women, who ought to be restrained by law and kept within bounds, will, all combined, take very good care to destroy the pure white race most effectually, and fill the world with a population of mongrel pagans.
 In making these remarks, I do not wish it to be understood that I am carping at religion in any shape. It is the too liberal and democratic interpretation and administration of it that I find fault with. Paganism is now becoming a power in all Christian lands. The Chinese are swarming in Australia, America, and even Europe. A conflict through them is threatened in London. They have found another field for emigration. Agents are buying Crown lands in British Columbia with a view to the settlement of a large number of families for agricultural purposes. Apprehensions are consequently felt of a large influx of Chinese, owing to the restrictive legislation of the United States. Our possessions in India indicate a weakening of Christianity. Eighteen centuries of Christianity have, after all, done comparatively little for morality, and the "new commandment," given to us by Christ, that we "love one another," founded on the injunction of the Decalogue to the same effect, is interpreted at this day to mean, "thou shall suspect thy neighbour, and beware of him, with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength." Finally, as a pendant to the evils accruing in the United States from the fusion of no less than four different races, I may even say species, we are now about to have an influx of negroes, Indians, and Malays into the Northern Territory, which will not tend to improve our moral and physical standard favorably, the more so, as their children will attend our schools, and lead to future complications ; apropos of which, I can do no better than quote a proverb discovered by Dr. Livingstone in Eastern Africa : "God made the white man ; God made the black man; God made the Indian; but the Devil made the half-caste !"

Port Augusta Dispatch and Flinders' Advertiser (SA : 1880 - 1884), Saturday 14 October 1882, page 2