Religious Liberty Notes
By W. A. Colcord
THE National Reformers are still calling for “the Christian Amendment to the Constitution.” After a riot, in which one man was shot dead and another shot through the hand, resulting from a Sunday observance crusade last fall, in Allegheny, Pa., the Baptist Ministers’ Association of the city passed a resolution recommending that the association “divorce itself from any further affiliation with the Allegheny County Sabbath Association in its Sunday observance crusade.” A National Reform conference is to be held at Winona Lake, Friday, August 18, at which the following topics, among others, are to be discussed: “The Moral Accountability of Nations,” “Our Sabbath Desecration,” “The National Saviour-King,” “National Christianity in Our Public Schools,” and “National Christianity in Fundamental Law.” A number of men prominent in National Reform work are to be present. For the first time in the history of the Protestant churches of North America, a great Inter-church Conference, officially representing practically all the denomination on the continent, with an aggregate membership of nearly twenty million, is to be held in New York City, November 15-20, under the direction of the National Federation of Churches. It is claimed that this will be the most important religious gathering ever held in America. As stated in the letter to religious bodies asking for the appointment of delegates, “Sabbath desecration” is one of the questions which “concerns Christians of every name, and demands their united and concerted action, if the church is to lead effectively in the conquest of the world for Christ.” There is every indication that “in the last conflict the Sabbath will be the special point of controversy throughout all Christendom.” Mr. H. H. George, field secretary of20the National Reform Association, recently made a trip through the West. Reporting this to the Christian Statesman, for May, he says. “We distributed literature freely among the pastors, giving to each a package of about a dozen of our best tracts, taking from them the assurance that they would read them carefully. We placed similar packages with a number of the prominent business men, and had encouraging interviews with them. I handed a banker a package, and was beginning to explain it to him, when he said, ‘I tell you before you begin, that I am heartily in favor of it all through.’ Another said, ‘Most assuredly we need some movement of this kind.’” Thus the seeds of National Reformism are being scattered far and wide, and, as is evidenced by the concluding remarks in the preceding quotation, unless the people are enlightened upon the subject, and have a knowledge of the principles of religious liberty, they will be readily deceived, and will give their influence and support to the delusive sophistries of error and false reforms. What they need is literature that will enlighten them upon the principles of religious liberty. Who has a burden to circulate religious liberty literature among pastors and people? A New York labor law provided that no employee should be “required or permitted” to work in bakeries or confectionaries more than ten hours a day, or sixty hours a week. The Supreme Court of the United States has lately decided this provision of the law to be unconstitutional, upon the ground that it constituted an attempt to deprive an individual of his liberty without due process of the law. This decision ought to have some bearing on the measures which the Sunday-law people are seeking to have passed in different States, as in Wisconsin last winter, making it unlawful for any employer to keep any employee at work over sixty-five hours in a week, and requiring that “at least fifty-two full rest-days of twenty-four hours each” shall be given all employees every year, seven of which, at least, shall be on “the first day of the week.” But in view of an utterance of Justice Harlan, one of the judges of the United States Supreme Court, in a speech delivered at the Presbyterian General Assembly, at Winona Lake, Ind., May 20, it is doubtful if the Supreme Court would render a like decision as to the constitutionality of Sunday laws. The following report of the speech is taken from the Philadelphia North American of May 22: “A meeting in the interest of Sabbath observance was held Saturday night. John H. Converse presided, and Justice Harlan made the chief address. Justice Harlan made it very clear that it was the duty of State legislatures to sustain Christian sentiment, and preserve the Christian sabbath. He intimated very plainly that the Supreme Court would stand for such legislation. . . . He said that the duty of Christians to observe Sunday as a day of worship and religious service was not to be confused with the right of those who worked to have a rest one day in seven.” From this it appears that the constitutionality of Sunday laws is already prejudged by the Supreme Court of the United States.