Religious Liberty Notes

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 24, 1910

Religious Liberty Notes

A SUNDAY-CLOSING crusade is on in Akron, Ohio, and our people are taking advantage of the situation to enlighten the citizens on the principles of religious liberty.

Elder A. J. Clark, the New York Conference religious liberty secretary, reports another interesting and important hearing before the New York legislature, on the 9th inst., relative to certain Sunday bills there under consideration.

The New York Independent of Feb. 3, 1910, says: “We do not quite approve of the penalty imposed by an Indianapolis magistrate of requiring offending saloon-keepers to go to church for a Sunday and get a certificate of it from the minister as a condition of renewing a suspended license. It makes a spectacle of the man, and it does not make him love the church to be sent to it as to a penitentiary. On the public it has the appearance of a joke, in a place where a joke is not befitting.” It will be remembered that recently four Indianapolis saloon-keepers were thus treated by the mayor of that city.

The religious liberty report to the recent Pacific Union Conference contained the interesting item that during the excellent institute campaign only lately closed, there were distributed in the fields of these institutes three quarters of a million of leaflets teaching proper governmental principles that should guide legislative bodies in their attitude toward any proposed religious legislation.

The Religious Liberty Department has had very good encouragement in the matter of supplying typewritten copies of extracts from the Sunday Mail Reports of the 1829 and 1830 sessions of Congress to show those of our people in different parts of the country who were willing to make an effort to secure their publication in their local papers. It would seem from the numerous orders that much might be expected from this style of effort at enlightening the American people on the harmfulness of religious legislation. We should like our readers to remember that we are glad to supply all who will try to use them. The long form costs but one cent each; short form, one-half cent. There will be months yet during which this will be prime matter for the public press; for, even should the present measure pass Congress, public interest in the matter pro and con will long continue to be very keen.