p. 19 | Notes by S. B. H.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 7, 1911

Notes

By S. B. H.

GOVERNOR OSBORN, of Michigan, delivered some addresses on religious questions recently, on account of which, so the press reports tell us, he will lose influence among Catholic leaders. The governor stands for religious instruction in the public schools.

THE ninth annual convention of the Lord’s Day Alliance of Pennsylvania convened in Altoona, November 20, 21. The program of the convention contained the topics that are usually considered at such meetings, among which was the depreciation of the non-enforcement of Sunday laws.

THE State of Michigan seems to be quite stirred at the present time over Sunday observance, and religious instruction in the public schools of that State. A correspondent of the Evening Press of Grand Rapids, Mich., November 8, in his protest against religious teaching in the schools, makes this observation: “The writer is a firm believer in the Bible as the inspired word of God, and as the only sufficient rule of the Christian’s faith and practise. Our common schools have been established to give instruction in the principles of a practical education, to be supplemented, if desired, by a collegiate or a university course. But in no case can the cult of any religious sect or class be properly listed as an item in the curriculum of such schools. The citizenship of our free country is made up of the peoples of all nations and tongues, holding many widely dissimilar and unreconcilable views of religion.”

“You can not put religion into the public schools,” says W. P. Lovett, in the Grand Rapids (Mich.) Evening Press of November 11, “not as the churches teach religion. Since this nation was established, we have been the wonder of the world because we were able to keep all kinds of religious belief under one government, give every man perfect religious freedom, and yet keep religion and the government separate in so far as the organic church was concerned. . . . If our children are being neglected in their religious training in our homes and Sunday-schools, we can

not make up the loss by passing over our duty to the public schools. We can not build up religion by mechanical compulsion. What we ought to do is to wage a campaign for more Bible study in our own religious fields, put so much religion into our homes and churches that ‘Christian citizenship’ will be a practical thing without upsetting our present public-school system.”

ACCORDING to the Fort Worth (Tex.) Star-Telegram of November 12, the Sabbath League Committee of the Central Texas Methodist Conference adopted resolutions regarding Sunday-law enforcement. The closing words of these resolutions are quite striking: “In our centers of population, the anarchistic spirit is already showing itself in the open and perpetual violation of our Sunday laws, defying and despising the authority of our State. . . . The time for resolving only has passed, and the time for action has come. The responsibility to show forth the virtues and blessings of our holy sabbath, and to defend it from its enemies, rests upon the church, and chiefly upon her ministers. We must, we will, mobilize our forces, and with locked shields wage war against all forms of sabbath desecration until the sabbath sentiment of our land shall become so strong as to secure effectually by moral sentiment and civic enactment our Christian sabbath.”

ONE of the speakers of the Grand Rapids (Mich.) ministers’ conference on November 6, referring to Sunday desecration, deplored the fact that amusements are making great inroads upon the sacredness of the day. Among other things, he said: “Let us preach the fourth commandment fearlessly from our pulpits, even using the discipline of the church and withdrawing the sacraments from offenders. Our church-members must be converted first.” There is manifestly more logic in this thought than there is in the demand that the civil government shall assist the church in straightening out its members on the subject of Sunday observance.

THERE is an agitation in Baltimore in behalf of keeping the Catholic boys in the faith. Rev. Francis J. Sullivan, of New York, chaplain of the New York police department, made the following comments at a meeting of one of the Catholic societies in Baltimore: “Many Catholic boys attend the Protestant clubs, and it is to be deplored that there is not the spirit of old to oppose this tendency. There is the Y. M. C. A., which is doing good for the Protestants, but it is bad for the Catholics, weakening their faith and leading to mixed marriages, the curse of the church.”—Washington Post, for October 18. A vote was taken to organize the boys into societies, provided with attractions, similar to the Y. M. C. A., the Boys’ Brigade, the Boy Scouts, and other Protestant organizations.

S. B. H.