Two Servian Regulations.
By Editor
A FEW weeks ago a Servian newspaper correspondent reported that the sale of the Bible had been prohibited in Belgrade, and it was expected the regulation would apply to all Servia. Since reading the report we have been watching to see what wicked thing this restless government would do next, as a country that prohibits the Bible in these days gives sad evidence of national degeneracy. Whether the law referred to in the following quotation has been passed since the above interdiction, does not appear, but it is in every way worthy to be immediately associated with it. The London Graphic says:— “Rigid Sabbatarians ought to go to Servia. The metropolitan Michael has succeeded in getting a law passed by which every kind of business is strictly prohibited on Sundays and on all holy days of the orthodox church. Thus trade is stopped on 180 days in the year, and a tradesman recently caught infringing the law by selling a pennyworth of rice on a church holiday was fined £1.” This means 180 days of enforced idleness for men who have no religious regard for the festivals of the orthodox church, as, of course, if such a regard existed they would not need to be thus compelled to be religious. It is said that the devil always finds some work for idle hands to do, and under these circumstances it is not difficult to understand the state of intrigue and unrest which has brought Servia into such prominence of late. The law is at least consistent in placing all of the church festivals, Sunday included, on the same basis, where they properly belong.—Present Truth, London, England.