Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · February 25, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 8

The suggestion of the World that “the enlightened men of New Jersey and of every other State in which intolerant and un-American Sunday laws survive should unite to secure their repeal,” is a good one; but this is more easily suggested than accomplished. There is a large and aggressive minority opposed to the repeal of Sunday laws and other religious statutes, and because of the indifference of the majority they are able to defeat all attempts to wipe out the Blue-Law inheritance which all the older States received from Colonial times. “The American State is secular,” as the World says. “It has nothing to do with religion except to protect every man in his religious liberty. It has no business to make Sunday laws,” but all this goes for naught; and not only are Sunday laws sustained, but herculean efforts are being made to secure in both State and Nation still more stringent religious laws, and a more rigid enforcement of existing laws. It is high time that the secular press ceases to pooh-pooh these efforts to enforce religious observance by civil statute. A generation has grown up who know not the meaning of liberty of conscience, nor the truth of the adage that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” The people must be educated along these lines, and this is the work which THE SENTINEL is endeavoring to do.