Religious Liberty Notes
By K. C. Russell
BROTHER E. K. CASSELL, a blacksmith in Ralton, N. M., has been sentenced to forty-three days’ imprisonment for Sunday labor. Let all remember the brother’s persecutors in prayer. The following is a list of those States in which attempts are being made in various cities and towns to enforce Sunday observance: Minnesota, New York, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin, Washington, Mississippi, Kansas, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Georgia, Kentucky. Here is a letter just received from a Washington attorney that speaks for itself: “My attention has been called to your work in keeping track of proposed ‘religious’ legislation. I am very much interested in any efforts directed to maintaining the complete separation of church and state, to which, more than to any other one thing, I believe such measure of personal liberty as the individual in this country now enjoys, is due. While I may never be in a position to be of any great assistance to your association, I would be glad, if it is convenient to you, to be informed of the scope and nature of your work, to such an extent as you may see fit.” A Louisville (Ky.) judge rendered the following opinion against a theatrical company which sued the railroad because their company was hindered in meeting a Sunday appointment for a matinee: “Few men could be found to question the wisdom of the Sunday statute. Not20only religious reasons, but common sense as well, and the welfare of the community, require the enforcement of these laws. Any nation that becomes lax in its observance of the Sabbath becomes a decadent nation. The fact that this company was delayed by the fault of the railroad company, and failed to get here in time to desecrate the Sabbath as profitably as it would otherwise have done, is not a fact that the law can take up for the plaintiff in an action of this sort. The statute is broad and tolerant, and a party’s damages can not grow out of his own violation of the law. No law will lend its aid to a man who founds his cause of action on his own illegal act.” It will be observed from the opinion of this judge that the perpetuity of our nation depends upon a regard for Sunday; and to follow the logic a little further, an opinion could be rendered against those who might be considered responsible for the disregard of Sunday observance, which is said to be destructive to nations. Elder L. S. Wheeler, of Boston, reports an overwhelming defeat of the Sunday closing bill that was recently introduced into the Massachusetts Legislature. The committee recommended the bill favorably, but notwithstanding this it was killed in the Senate. Elder Wheeler attributes the defeat of the bill to the fact that they were supplied with proper literature, and also thinks that the committee would not have recommended the bill favorably if they had been supplied with suitable reading-matter. It appears that our people did not know of the bill’s existence until it was too late to meet the committee.