California and Sunday-Law Crusaders
At the meeting of the Congregational Club of San Francisco, August 19, Mr. Crafts made a speech in which he took occasion to put California on a level with France in the matter of morals and observance of the Sunday. Rev. Dr. Barrows, of San Francisco, replied to this, positively denying that the State of California is deteriorating either civilly or religiously, and rather pointedly observed that “a person who has been on the Pacific Coast but a few days was not qualified to speak disparagingly of the moral or spiritual condition of the State.” Dr. Barrows is right. Those Eastern Sunday-law crusaders profess great sympathy for poor benighted California, while the fact is California is far ahead of their own States in almost everything. Aside from all this, however, theirs is only a crocodile sympathy anyhow. They want to get California into the line of religious legislation so they can bring it with all the others under the rule of the preachers.