Religious Liberty Notes by W. A. C.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 13, 1907

Religious Liberty Notes

By W. A. C.

REPORTING to the Atlantic Union Gleaner, for Maine, Sister Eliza Morton says: “The agitation of the Sunday question is so great in Lewiston that it may be thought wise to take measures to have a special mass-meeting there in the interests of liberty.”

Brother C. T. Redfield, writing from Mansfield, Ohio, says that the question of Sunday legislation is a live one there. He further states that one of the local editors is very favorable to our views, and is anxious to publish good, live articles on this question. All such opportunities should be improved by placing well-prepared articles in such editors’ hands.

The Catholic Mirror, of Baltimore, Md., quotes the following from the Pittsburg Observer, without comment: “All unnecessary work in the iron mills in this city and vicinity will soon have to stop. If the Christian(?) proprietors of them do not yield to friendly persuasion, they will be prosecuted as lawbreakers.” Pittsburg is the center of the National Reform element.

Brother William C. Young, the religious liberty secretary of British Columbia, in a letter addressed to Liberty, bearing date of May 1, says regarding the final decision of the House concerning the Lord’s Day act of Canada: “The government just before it prorogued made its decision public through the Hon. W. Fulton, the attorney-general of British Columbia, in a few words, stating ‘that he would not indorse any prosecutions under the act.’ This completely nullifies the whole thing, as all its provisions are subject to his approval.”

The Idaho Legislature has recently passed a Sunday law. This leaves only the State of California and the Territory of Arizona, within the jurisdiction of the United States, without a Sunday law. In Liberty for the first quarter of this year, a map of the United States was published, representing in black or shading the States having Sunday laws, and in white the three States and Territories not having such laws. Since then one of these three has passed over the line. Soon, no doubt, the whole map can be painted black. The whole world is to be made to worship the beast.

The question of papal independence has been receiving some consideration in certain Catholic quarters of late. In “Our Roman Letter,” published in the Catholic Mirror of May 25, 1907, it is stated that certain “good Catholics” have suggested a plan to “organize in the United States the collecting of a huge sum of money wherewith to buy so much property reaching from the Vatican to the sea—but a good, wide stretch—and present it to the holy father.” It has been feared, however, “that the Italian government, through its ambassador, consular service, and friends in the United States, would inevitably get wind of the working out of the project, and nip it in the bud.”

W. A. C.