Religious Liberty Notes
By K. C. Russell
THE Ottawa Evening Journal of Jan. 30, 1906, in commenting upon the resolution of the Protestant churches to have religious instruction incorporated into the public schools, plainly indicates where it thinks the children should be taught religion. It says: “A committee representing Toronto Protestant churches has passed a resolution calling for fixed periods of religious instruction in the public schools, which looks like progress backward. If there is anything in Protestantism, it is individual responsibility to conscience, which we imagine includes the doing of one’s duty to one’s children at home.” January 30. Mr. Stump, of Allegany, Md., introduced a bill into the Maryland Legislature at Annapolis, Md., exempting from the provision of the Sunday law of that State druggists, hotelkeepers, and newsboys. The Ottawa Journal of February 5 says that the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches, and also the labor bodies, will unite in presenting a Sunday bill in Parliament. Why should not Rome accept of the Protestant’s hand which reached across the gulf in forming such an alliance as this? We are in receipt of a copy of The Progress, of Minneapolis, Minn., bearing date of February 3, which contains an interesting first-page article on Church Federation, by Elder H. F. Phelps. The article occupies over one column in space, with large headlines. Why should not our people everywhere make use of the public press in presenting the truths for this time while the columns of the press are wide open to receive them? There is a case to be tried before the United States Supreme Court sometime between March 12 and 20 next, to test the constitutionality of the Georgia Sunday law. It came about in this way: Something over a year ago Superintendent of Trains J. N. Seale, of the Southern Railway Company, was convicted on the charge of running freight-trains on Sunday, and was fined one thousand dollars. He was refused a new trial, and the State court was sustained by the Georgia Supreme Court. As indicated above, the case has been appealed to the United States Supreme Court on the ground that the Georgia law prohibiting the running of freight-trains on Sunday is unconstitutional, because it interferes with interstate commerce, and no legislative body has a right to regulate State commerce, except the Congress of the United States. Dr. Nicholson, of the Trinity M. E. Church, of this city, addressed the Preachers’ Association at the Y. M. C. A. the 6th inst. Among other things, he said that Sunday laws had been declared constitutional by the Supreme Courts of twenty-five States in which the principle had been tested, and that the first amendment to the Constitution was against the establishment of state religion, that the fathers of this country were familiar with the impediments of state religion, and that the Constitution prohibits such an alliance of church and state, “but it does not follow that the state is indifferent to religion and its institutions.” It is remarkable how the enemy has succeeded in blinding the minds of men concerning the principles upon which this government was founded. The facts are that our forefathers understood very keenly the meaning of a union of church and state when that first amendment was framed, because they had plainly before them the examples of intolerance of colonial times. K. C. RUSSELL.