SUNDAY-LAW AGITATION IN TULARE.
The Union Herald is a little paper published in Tulare, Cal.; in giving the news of a Sunday “base-ball game between the Boston Bloomer girls and the Tulare Club,” which it says “was much better conducted than ball games usually are, and much better than was expected of this game,” the Herald declares: “The religious people of our community have determined that they will no longer tolerate sabbath desecration in town where it interferes with the peace and quiet of those who do observe it. While they did not expect to stop the game last Sunday, they felt that a fight had to be made, and that was just as good a place to begin as any. The fight will be kept up until a lady can walk down Front Street from Kern to Tulare any hour during Sunday or Sunday evening without fear of being insulted or crowded off the sidewalk.” Now why should the religious people of Tulare be so stirred? Playing baseball, or any other kind of ball, on Sunday is not Sabbath desecration, for the Sunday is not the Lord’s Sabbath; it never was, and it never can be. And it is not a “desecration” of man’s day to do man’s work upon it. Again, what right, according to the Golden Rule, have religious people to prohibit men from playing ball on any day any more than ball-players have to prohibit other people from going to church, or drawing away from the baseball assemblies by holding religious services on that day? Why should the good people “fight”? Why not let the Lord take care of the day, and help the boys by the Gospel means of persuasion and love. It is written, “He that winneth souls is wise.” Of course ladies should not be insulted any day, and there is abundant civil law in California, if it is enforced, on any day, to punish those who do it, without lugging in an abnormal Sunday law. If civility is to be secured by a Sunday law, What will be done for the protection of the ladies on the six days? Or is this Sunday prohibition of insult to ladies in Tulare a sister to a Sunday-closing saloon law which permits saloons to run full blast on six days if they will but close Sundays? Is six days’ insult permitted if only it can be abolished Sunday? O, the absurdity and inconsistency of all religio-civil regulations! Why not take the Bible?