Religious Liberty Notes
By K. C. Russell
ELDER S. B. HORTON has a letter one column in length in the New Orleans Times Democrat of March 3. The subject is, “Why We Should Oppose Sunday Laws.” Four Sunday bills have been introduced into the Massachusetts Legislature this present session. In a report of a hearing of three of the Sunday bills now before the Massachusetts Legislature, The Defender, the organ of the New England Sabbath Protective League, says: “The Seventh-day people and certain Jews opposed it, but their opposition was expected, and did not weaken its force. If the bill becomes a law, as we hope it will, it will remedy present conditions, we feel sure, very much, and we await the outcome with interest.” The following is from the Minneapolis Daily News of March 6: “The issuance of the new code has opened the grocers’ war in Minneapolis again. The new laws provide that those who observe some day other than the generally accepted Sunday for rest and religious worship need not observe Sunday itself. Monday night the grocers’ association appointed a committee to go over the laws and report on their exact bearing on the Sunday operation of grocery stores.” This proposed “new code” is also religious on the ground that only those can be exempted who observe some other day as a day of religious worship. People need to be taught the limits of civil authority. The following is an extract from an editorial in the Washington Post of March 14, 1905: “The only reformers we need concern ourselves about are those who come to Congress or to other official position, or who locate here with their bureaus and propagandas and pestiferous activities. They are in a position to make mischief. They get into our system, like the typhoid bacillus, the bookworm, or the malaria. Moreover, they make life a great deal of a burden as they go along. If anybody wants to organize for the purpose of knocking them on the head, we are ready to help.” The Gazette and Free Press, of Elmira, N. Y., of March 1, prints the following petition which is being circulated by the women’s auxiliary of the Y. M. C. A.: “We the undersigned, residents of Elmira, feel that the holding of Sunday entertainments at Rorick’s Glen is detrimental of the welfare of Elmira, and is a breach of the civil and religious law, and has a deteriorating effect upon the religious sense of the community, as well as disturbing the quiet of the Sabbath day. We, therefore, respectfully petition you to discontinue Sunday entertainment at that place.” This movement will afford an excellent opportunity to enlighten the people of Elmira on the subject of religious liberty. K. C. RUSSELL.