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

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 33

The New York World has this editorial item in reference to Sunday fishing:—

The Supreme Court holds that the law as it stands forbids all fishing in this State on Sunday, under penalties.

That law ought to be repealed. It is wholly out of tune with the spirit of our institutions and it shuts out from a healthful and innocent recreation that part of the population which most needs recreation out of doors.

It is not the business of a purely secular State to concern itself with holy days except to secure to all men equally their rights of conscience. The law in this country has no business to prescribe religious observances of any kind or to enforce them. All that belongs to private opinion.

When the State has by law secured to every man the right to observe what day he pleases, undisturbed by others, it has done quite all it can do consistently with our system and theory of government.

All Sunday laws that go beyond that limit are un-American and oppressive.

Nevertheless these un-American and oppressive laws exist. They will increase and multiply. It is high time that all who understand their oppressiveness and unrighteousness condemn them as emphatically as this. They ought to be repealed. Why are they not, why will they not be repealed?