Religious Liberty Notes
By K. C. Russell
The ministers of Traverse City, Mich., “have adopted stringent resolutions against Sunday funerals.” “Large funerals held on Sunday are desecrations of the day,” the resolutions say. Those who are engaged in circulating the petition in Washington against the introduction of religious teaching in the public schools are having some interesting experiences. A goodly number of prominent people do not hesitate to sign it, and some express the wish that they might sign such a petition many times. On the other hand, there are those who are bitterly opposed. One person threw the tract that we are using with the petition into the waste-basket, and another tore it to pieces in the presence of the solicitor. Some school-teachers who have been interviewed on the question are opposed to religious teaching in the schools, and do not see how it could be done, were they required to do so. Elder H. W. Reed, secretary of the Religious Liberty Department of the Wisconsin Conference, announces the following appointment of a religious liberty meeting: “The eighteenth of next month we are going to have a religious liberty meeting in Milwaukee. We have the program planned, but not printed. We are going to have a big meeting. A number of our ministers will take part. I am going there on the eleventh and carry cards and literature.”20 The following is an extract from a letter written by a Roman Catholic member of the Wisconsin Legislature. “While I do not agree with you that the Sunday is a relic of paganism, nor that it is the mark, or means, in any or all ages, of a union of church and state, I shall vote against the bill. As a Catholic I would have to recognize the right of conscience to others as well as myself.” A brother in Indiana who circulated the petition against the Sunday bills that were before Congress, says: “The filling of blanks of petition against Sunday legislation was a grand success in Patricksburg. With few exceptions, they were readily signed. It was certainly encouraging to see how the neighbors and friends stand in relation to religious liberty. Canvassing with the petition was a great help to all. Others would have readily added their names had space permitted.” Here are appended the words from a worker in New Mexico: “The work in Albuquerque looks encouraging. I visited some of the business men of the city while out with the petitions, and had several good talks with them. I found that quite a number of them were in favor of a Sunday law, and did not understand the principles of religious liberty. I expect to visit them again, and give them some reading-matter on this subject.” A press dispatch from Albany, N. Y., under date of March 22, reads: “Assemblyman Cox (Rep., Buffalo) proposed that the New York Sunday law shall be stricter. By a bill that he introduced to-day the hard-won clause permitting the sale and delivery of food stuffs before ten o’clock on Sunday mornings is repealed.” While there is some tendency to modify Sunday laws, there is also a tendency to restore them to something of the old-time strictness.