Religious Liberty Notes
By K. C. RUSSELL
The following extract from a letter from a gentleman in Iowa will be an encouragement to those who are distributing the religious liberty and other tracts: “While in your city, a stranger handed me a leaflet entitled ‘The Civil Sabbath, Nature of Sabbath Legislation.’ I am deeply interested in this work, for in my judgment the time is near when religious persecution will be enacted into a law, by the powers of darkness.” Elder E. W. Webster truly said in an article he wrote for The State, of Columbia, S. C., under date of Nov. 22, 1905: “The Sabbath is purely a religious, not a civil, institution, and why is it any more nearly right to enforce its observance by civil law than to enforce baptism by the same law? Or the Lord’s Supper? The government of the United States, and of South Carolina, or of Columbia, were not formed for the purpose of enforcing religious usages or customs upon the people; the Constitution forbids it, and wisely so. Religion has to do with the thoughts and with the heart.” Sunday afternoon, December 3, Elder W. A. Colcord met with the Free Discussion Society, of Baltimore, to discuss the question of “Religious Liberty and the Rights of Conscience.” Much interest was aroused in the subject, the meeting continuing for three hours. Many speeches were made pro and con, but mostly in favor of religious freedom. The question of Sunday legislation and a religious amendment to the Constitution were especially considered. Elder Colcord had the opening and closing speeches, and was given a hearty vote of thanks for his presentation of the subject. Among the resolutions recently passed by the Texas Methodist Episcopal Conference on the question of Sunday observance are the following: “That we call out all candidates for the State legislature as to their attitude toward these forms of Sabbath desecration, and demand of those who receive our votes that they pledge themselves to give us relief from these evils.” “That we as a church representing 225,000 members in Texas, request our State legislature in its next session to pass such laws as will effectually prohibit these desecrations, and that this request be laid before the legislature by the committee mentioned.”21 Kittanning, Pa., is having a taste of what will be experienced when the teaching of religion in the public schools is required by the state, as will be seen from the following from the Pittsburg Gazette: “December 7 (Special).—Prof. C. V. Smith, principal of the Kittanning academy, is in a quandary over a request from the Rev. Father L. A. Carroll, rector of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic church, that he be permitted to celebrate mass at the school. The academy is a county institution. The eight Protestant clergymen of the borough conduct the devotional exercises at the school in rotation.” At the Methodist Episcopal Conference held in Sulphur Springs, Tex., Nov. 27, 1905, the Sabbath (Sunday) observance committee, in submitting their report, gave in their preamble the following argument that this is a Christian nation, and that it hinges on Sunday observance: “Ours is a Christian nation. Christian men met in council to found our nation. Christian men led our Revolutionary troops to victory, and Christian men laid down their lives on the battle-field for their country’s freedom. Our Constitution was built on the Christian Bible. From our legislative halls, from our chief executive, and from our supreme courts have come uniform declarations expressed, or implied, that ours is a Christian nation. This is settled. It is too late now to question it. But a Christian nation hinges on a Christian sabbath. Emerson says: ‘Sunday is the core of our civilization.’ Without it we could not have Christian worship, civilization, and institutions. Therefore nothing more vitally concerns our nation or the church of God than the perpetuation of the Sabbath of the Bible. Not only religion, but freedom for our common people, is at stake. The celebrated De Tocqueville once said: ‘France can never have America’s liberty until she has her sabbath.’” In an article entitled “The Beginning of the End,” in the New York Indicator of December 6, by Elder J. W. Raymond, appeared the following, which is to the point: “Several years ago, Dr. Scudder, of Jersey City Tabernacle, gave vent to this utterance: ‘The church is going into politics, and it is going there to stay. Furthermore, the church is to become a powerful political factor, and will act as a unit on all great moral questions. I do not take it that the churches are to form a separate political party; on the contrary, they will stand outside all parties, but they will co-operate, and as one prodigious organization, make their demands upon existing parties, and have their wishes fulfilled. And that would be Rome (the papacy) right over again, an image to the beast alive and in operation. And who can fail to see in the late federation convention in New York City, with its five hundred delegates and a representation of twenty-one denominations, with a membership of eighteen million,—who can fail to see in this that which will be practically the very condition of things set forth by Dr. Scudder? And with this broad and towering federation front now before us, who can fail to see in the religio-political barometer of the times the sure incoming of the stormy time of Rev. 13:11-17 as its sequel?’”