Religious Liberty Notes
By W. A. COLCORD
OPPOSING the enforcement of Sunday observance by law, the Brooklyn Eagle says: “The attempt to serve religion through the law has invariably failed. The church must win rather than force.” Congress having provided for it at the last session, the Washington (D. C.) public library will be open on Sundays on and after July 2 of this year. “Governor Hanly is determined that all officials over whom he has any control shall enforce the [Sunday] law in their respective communities, or he will know the reason why,” says the Tipton (Ind.) Advocate. “War upon Sunday shops and theaters,” was declared by the Polk County Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, at their annual meeting held at Des Moines, Iowa, May 16. A resolution was adopted for the strict enforcement of the Sunday-closing laws. It is the intention of the union to prosecute “every shopkeeper in Des Moines who violates the sabbath.” June 5 Brother Tom C. Hege was brought before Mayor Eaton, of Winston, N. C., and fined twenty-five dollars and $2.40 costs, on a charge of keeping his place of business open on Sunday. Refusing to pay these, he was sent to jail. The next day, in an interview with him, the mayor told him that he would “send him to the roads” if he did not pay his fine. Hearing of this, some of the men of the place “swore, and said this should never be.” A friend became responsible for the fine and costs, and Brother Hege was released. Rev. Charles E. Locke, of the Hanson Place Methodist Episcopal church of Brooklyn, N. Y., describes that city as “in the choking grip of irreverence and desecration,” and says “the city of churches has become a city of sabbath desecration.” Instead of millionaires endowing colleges and libraries, he asks: “How would it do for some beneficent man to endow a bureau for the enforcement of law and the passage of better laws?” In the Washington Post of April 3, 1905, Mr. W. F. Crafts admitted that there had been a few instances where observers of the seventh day had been fined and imprisoned for violation of the Sunday laws in some of the “backward States.” According to this there must be a large number of “backward States” in the Union, for in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas, fifteen States in all, observers of the seventh day have been prosecuted under Sunday laws. This is an unwitting argument as to the actual truth that the whole modern effort to protect Sunday, and to enforce Sunday observance, by law, is a backward movement. The annual meeting of the Sabbath Association of Illinois was held in Chicago, May 18, 1905. The association adopted an “Address to the People,” in which it emphasizes the absolute necessity of sabbath rest in the interests of health, church life, and public morals. “The seven-day toil to which men are subjected,” it states, “is destructive to home life, an injury to the nervous system, a deprivation of religious privilege, and therefore a cause of physical, mental, and moral wreckage.” It therefore earnestly entreats publishers of Sunday papers and presidents and officers of railways to “step out on the law of God,” and “dare to be peculiar for the sake of humanity.” If men had the courage to “step out on the law of God” and really be “peculiar,” they would cease keeping Sunday altogether, and would observe the day enjoined in the law of God. The address further says: “The association earnestly requests the President of the United States and the two Houses of Congress to so alter the regulations of the mail service that no mail shall be handled on the Lord’s day.” This is especially urged because it is stated that “the example of the government in requiring of its servants violations of the law of God and the interests of man, will be especially harmful by reason of the position which the government occupies in the nation.” The address further calls attention to the fact that “a sabbath pay-day has been established on the Isthmus of Panama for the employees on the canal,” and calls the attention of President Roosevelt to the fact, and respectfully requests him to take proper action in the matter.