Note and Comment by J. N. Q.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Nov 24, 1910

Note and Comment

By J. N. Q.

Where the Shoe Pinched

CHURCH people at times become very enthusiastic in their efforts to have Sunday laws enforced to the letter. Occasionally their zealous enforcement of the law develops into a boomerang, and they feel the pinch of the ‘blue-law shoe. A recent case of this nature is reported in the Washington Times:—

Henry Zimmerman, burgess of Tarentum, a borough adjacent to Pittsburg, tied the blue-laws of Pennsylvania in hard knots by enforcing them so strenuously that the church people who demanded the enforcement are now begging for mercy. Burgess Zimmerman is liberal. He believes in Sunday ball-playing and almost every other Sunday amusement, so long as it isn’t too boisterous. The church people demanded that all amusements be eliminated. Zimmerman went back one hundred years, and discovered a law by which he could prevent persons from driving to church, as well as stop all business. He opened his campaign by arresting a deacon of the Presbyterian Church. Then he arrested the drivers of ice-wagons. Later he was besieged by the church people to “quit.”

The man who wishes to do so has the same right to attend a baseball game played on Sunday as has the religionist to attend service in church on that day. No law should ever interfere with the right of each person to spend the day as he pleases. If his enjoyment is to be found in church, he has the right to go there; if his desires take him away from the haunts of men, and out into God’s green country, he should not be interfered with, the only limitation being that he refrains from infringing on the rights of his fellow men. Civil enactments can never reform the life; to the Holy Spirit has this work been assigned by the Creator. J. N. Q.