Religious Liberty Notes
By K. C. Russell
ELDER G. M. BROWN, of Mexico, writes: “Already there is agitation for Sunday rest, closing stores, etc., and the Roman church is constantly increasing her hold on affairs.” It is reported from New Jersey that “the Melville churches will wage a united warfare against the Sunday sellers of confectionery.” A “Sunday closing bill” was recently pending in the legislature of Idaho. Just what it proposes to close on Sunday the reports have not made clear. The chief of police of Battle Creek, Mich., recently “issued an order to his men to see that all the saloons obey the law to the letter,” and that “particular attention be paid to the Sunday-closing law.” One saloonman was arrested immediately on the charge of Sunday selling. A brother in West Virginia has succeeded in securing the publication of some of our late religious liberty leaflets by sections in a daily paper of his city. Why should others not profit from this brother’s experience, by selecting choice matter from our abundant fund of literature, and having it printed in the public press? What can be done in one place may be done in another. Prof. I. C. Colcord, reporting from Honolulu, says: “Legislature has convened. A bill to repeal the Sunday law has been introduced by Senator Achi. A committee from the church has been appointed to distribute the religious liberty leaflets among the legislators. The ministerial union has given its approval and signed indorsement in favor of Sunday enforcement. Public sentiment has not yet arbitrated on the Sunday question.” The following just rebuke was administered recently by a magistrate in New York City to detectives who caused the arrest of several small grocery dealers: “I shall have to fine these men, as they have violated the law, but I do not approve of this kind of thing. Instead of you men hunting out poor grocery keepers, it would be more manly, and much more like a detective, to round up some of the crooks which are about the neighborhood. Your captain shows poor judgment.” The following news item in a Washington paper, announcing that “Catholics and Y. M. C. A. will co-operate in work among the laborers on the Isthmus,” is significant: “Archbishop Ireland had a conference with Secretary Taft yesterday on the subject of the religious welfare of the men employed in the construction of the Panama Canal, especially in connection with the plan for the establishment of branches of the Young Men’s Christian Association in the Canal zone. It was made clear that there was no antagonism between the Catholic Church and the Young Men’s Christian Association, and it is said that an effort will be made to have the two bodies co-operate in the work of extending the Christian spirit among the workmen.” The Boston Traveler of March 8 reported: “The Rev. M. D. Kneeland, secretary of the New England Sabbath Protective League, addressed the members of the Boston Central Labor Union against the passage of the bill in the legislature which allows picking of cranberries on Sunday, and in favor of the passage of the bills for the stopping of Sunday shows in the theaters, which are run under the guise of concerts for the benefit of charitable institutions.” The Toronto (Ontario) News of February 24, reported that “Rev. S. W. Gamble, D. D., of Kansas City, has been in Ontario for several weeks, lecturing under the auspices of the Lord’s Day Alliance.” The News ended its item with the statement that “Mr. Gamble is the author of ‘Sunday, the true Sabbath.’” This is a work in which Mr. Gamble claims to have proved that the day of the week for the observance of which the Lord’s Day Alliance and other organizations are employing the civil law to-day, is the identical day of the week that the Israelites observed as the Sabbath in the days of Moses.