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Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · March 10, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 10

A DIFFERENCE of opinion seems to have arisen in Minneapolis, Minnesota, between the city council and the Sabbath Union and the Law and Order League. The life of the Sunday-closing ordinance there has been short. The committee to whom the matter was referred in the council made this report:—

“Your standing Committee on Ordinances, to whom was referred an ordinance to close Sunday theaters, respectfully report that they have given the matter careful consideration and find that some people work seven days in the week, some six days and rest one. Some work one day and rest six. Your committee regard it as a self-evident proposition that those who merit the greatest consideration from the State are those who work the most, other things being equal.

“Your committee further finds that ‘one man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.’ And again, ‘He that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord doth not regard it.’

“Your committee respectfully recommends that said ordinance be laid on the table.”

Alderman Bradish supplemented this report with a speech after the same fashion. It seemed to him that the preachers and Sunday-closing agitators were a little out of their latitude; they were trying to improve on the word as God made it. He said further:—

“This council has always been harassed by people representing the two extremes in the community—the Puritans and the im-Puritans. The first

class has the idea that the sole purpose of the council is to prepare men for heaven, while the other class want unlimited license for men to make a hell on earth. The Puritans would have a new code of Blue Laws to regulate the institution of the Sabbath, and prohibiting everything but Sunday preaching. The im-Puritans want all the world wide open. Some people will hear of no distinction between the saloon and the theater. The same people would be unable to distinguish between a blizzard and a mocking-bird.”