Religious Liberty Notes by K. C. R.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · May 23, 1907

Religious Liberty Notes

By K. C. R.

Elder S. E. Wright, president of the North Michigan Conference, writes as follows concerning the present attitude of the members of his conference toward the religious liberty work: “Our people are ‘waking up’ to the situation, and many churches and companies are placing some one at the head of this work to carry it forward.” Our prayer is that there may be a general awakening in this work all along the line.

The Boston Post, of Boston, Mass., bearing date of April 14, contains a most forcible presentation of the days when the Puritan Sunday was in vogue. The reader should not fail to note how the clergy used the civil government to carry into effect their ideas of religion, nor to note the parallel between the clergy of those days and the clergy of to-day: “When listening to the defenders of our unjust Sunday laws, mostly clergymen, it is hard to believe that this is the twentieth century. The saddest chapter in the history of Massachusetts is that which tells of the rule of the clergy. These Sunday laws are a survival of the complete union of church and state, which existed at the founding of the colony. At that time no one could vote who was not a member of the Congregational Church. When in doubt on any question, the magistrates consulted the clergy. The usual evils, which throughout history accompany such a union, resulted. Some of our present Sunday laws date back to 1692, only thirty odd years after the Quakers were hanged on Boston Common while the Rev. John Wilson railed at them from the foot of the gallows. The restriction of the suffrage to church-members gave such excessive weight to the clergy that John Fiske wrote: ‘One might almost say it was not the people of Massachusetts after all that shed the blood of the Quakers; it was Endicott and the clergy.’ Like any class in control, the clergy used the power of the government to perpetuate their rule. Neglecting to frequent public worship was punished by fine or whipping. In 1644 the clergy informed the magistrates that the gathering of sticks on Sunday might be punished with death. No person on foot or horseback, and no cart, was allowed to pass out of Boston after sunset on Saturday. Funerals were prohibited on Sunday. Loitering in the streets on Sunday brought a fine. Absence from religious service for more than three months was a criminal offense until 1836.”

Gov. R. B. Glenn, of North Carolina, delivered an address at Richmond, Va., April 21, 1907, in which he said, as quoted by the Washington Post: “If certain evils now in vogue in this country are not checked, the country will eventually suffer as did Rome and other republics.” He referred especially to the fact that there are in this country to-day “two men who have amassed more wealth than is owned by the commonwealth of Virginia and every man, woman, and child in the State, estimating the worldly possession of each inhabitant at five hundred dollars.” He pleaded for the general observance of the Sabbath as the keystone and foundation of the success of the republic.

Rev. Watson, pastor of the Second Presbyterian church of Cincinnati, Ohio, in a recent Sunday sermon, dealt a scathing rebuke to Congressman Longworth and his wife, the President’s daughter, because of a breakfast that the Congressman’s mother gave in honor of her son and his wife on Sunday morning. The following is a sample of the pastor’s words concerning the incident: “I want to tell this waiting congregation this morning, that a man who breaks God’s holy law is, in the first place, not a fit man to represent the great commonwealth in the Congress of the United States, and, in the second place, that the man who does that kind of thing is a traitor to God and to his country.”

Elder S. G. Huntington, president of the Utah Conference, in a letter written from Salt Lake City, bearing date of May 1, says: “J. H. Rosengren, one of our brethren, who operates a picture gallery and photographers’ supply store at Provo, Utah, has recently been arrested and fined five dollars and costs for doing business on Sunday. At the time of this prosecution, before, and since, in the same city and on the same street, drug-stores, bakery shops, soda-fountains, livery barns, and similar places of business all keep open and do business on Sunday, the same as on other days of the week, with no fear of the enforcement of the law in their cases. All these people, or most of them, are Mormons, as likewise the whole city, yet they do business seven days in the week without interference from the authorities, while our brother, who conscientiously observes the Sabbath of the Lord, and works only six days in the week, including Sunday of course, is prosecuted and fined for the offense of ‘doing business on Sunday.’ Indeed! what is the offense, Sunday desecration or Sabbath-keeping, which? Evidently the spirit behind all such prosecutions is the spirit of intolerance and persecution, the spirit of the Dark Ages and the fruit of religious legislation. Provo is also the city of Senator Smoot. The case has been appealed.”

K. C. R.