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Religious Liberty Notes

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 15, 1906

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 83, No. 46.

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Religious Liberty Notes

By William A. Colcord

By the circulation of the first number of Liberty in Pittsburg, Pa., a Sunday-enforcement crusade, started by the ministerial association of that city, was defeated a few months ago.
The question of enforced Sunday rest is being agitated in nearly all lands, as well as on many islands of the sea. Even China and Japan are reported as having taken steps of late in this direction.
During the month of September three sisters in Pennsylvania sold ten thousand copies of Liberty and an equal number of Life and Health, making on Liberty alone a profit of two hundred and fifty dollars.
Commenting on the situation in France growing out of the agitation and disturbances resulting from the recent action of the government to separate church and state, the Outlook declares that “both church and state in France would have been stronger if they had been separated” in the past.
Through correspondence between the American ambassador at Berlin and the German government it has been ascertained recently that American citizens in Germany are exempt from church taxes in that country on the ground that Germany does not exact these taxes from the citizens of any country that does not exact them from Germans.
The movement to separate church and state which is now agitating France and Spain, has also appeared in Switzerland. It is reported from Geneva that Switzerland is considering the question of cutting off the support now given the clergymen of the Lutheran Church by each canton. The plan suggested provides a gradual reduction until at the end of thirteen years the state, or municipal, contributions to the church shall cease.
In the Henrico Circuit Court, of Virginia, October 30, Judge William I. Clopton, of Manchester, Va., upholding the decision of a county magistrate who fined showmen for operating on Sunday, said: “I hold that Sabbath-breaking is a crime, both against the laws of God and man, a law first announced at Mount Sinai. The bill of rights in no way protects the violator of the peace and quiet of the Sabbath. The bill of rights in the sixteenth section declares by fair inference that this is a Christian commonwealth.” He cited several Supreme Court opinions to support his decision.
The following item, under the heading “Too Much Sunday Business,” appeared in the Washington Post of October 31: “C. M. D. Browne, 144 R St., N. E., yesterday invited the attention of the District Commissioners to the amount of business transacted on Sunday in the District, especially by real estate firms. He says that many dentists work on Sunday, and recalls the case of a tailor who claims he can not attend morning services on account of being compelled to attend to his business at that time. He has been informed that there is no law to prevent the transaction of business of this kind on Sunday.” The clamor for a District Sunday law for the compulsory observance of Sunday doubtless comes from such “zealous citizens” as the one here represented.
W. A. COLCORD.