THE following letter has been sent to each member of the House of Representatives by the Religious Liberty Bureau through its secretary, W. A. Colcord:— “To the Honorable, the Members of the House of Representatives, “RESPECTED SIRS: There are elements at work in this country seeking to gain control of the civil power for the purpose of coercing men in matters of conscience. This is manifested chiefly in the growing demand for Sunday legislation. No less than five Sunday bills have been introduced into the present Congress. “One of the latest of these bills (H. R. 16483), entitled, ‘A Bill requiring certain places of business in the District of Columbia to be closed on Sunday,’ was introduced by Mr. Wadsworth, of New York, March 9, 1906. “The provisions of this bill make it unlawful ‘for any person in the District of Columbia to sell or to offer for sale, or to keep open any place of business for the sale or delivery of, any groceries or meats or vegetables or other provisions on Sunday, except that from the first day of June until the first day of October meats sold prior to Sunday may be delivered at any time before ten o’clock in the morning of that day,’ and subject the offender to a maximum penalty of one hundred dollars’ fine, or one year’s imprisonment, or both. “We are opposed to this bill for the following reasons:— “1. Because it is religious. As a sabbath, or day of rest, Sunday is itself religious. All laws requiring cessation from business or labor on this day must, therefore, be religious. “2. Because, being religious, it is unconstitutional. The Constitution declares that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ The making of a Sunday law is the first step toward a religious establishment. Church and state were united in the fourth and fifth centuries by this very means. All existing Sunday laws are relics of this union. “3. Because it violates natural rights,—the right to liberty in the choice of one’s religion, and of one’s own time for rest, religious devotion, and labor. As is well known, there are religions—the religion of the Jew, the Seventh-day Baptist, and the Seventh-day Adventist—which do not recognize Sunday as a day of rest; and there are individuals who, not being religious, observe no weekly day of rest. No man who observes a certain day, no set of men who observe such a day, has a right to compel another man to observe that day. “4. Because the state has no more right to compel men to rest, and to say when they shall rest, than it has to compel them to labor, and to say when they shall labor. Rest presupposes labor, and naturally follows it. A compulsory labor law ought, therefore, logically, to precede a compulsory rest law. But both the are out of place in civil government, and either means slavery and oppression. “5. Because it is class legislation. It is designed to give protection against competition and loss in trade to men engaged in certain lines of business who observe, or who wish to observe, Sunday; but it does not give, nor does it attempt to give, any such protection to those who observe, or who may desire to observe, another day than Sunday. Its passage would mean that those who observe Sunday shall have especial protection, and be a preferred class—that they shall have a law compelling all competitors in trade to rest when they rest. It requires all who sell the daily provisions most essential to life to cease doing business on Sunday, but makes no such requirements of dry-goods merchants, tobacconists, news agents, and others supplying less vital commodities. “6. Because no one in the District of Columbia needs any such ‘protection’ as this bill assumes to give. Because certain men in certain trades desire to observe Sunday as a day of rest, they have no right to compel others by law, engaged in the same trades, to rest on that day in order that they themselves shall suffer no loss in trade. Why should a man who does not desire to keep Sunday be compelled to do so? If the physical, social, and spiritual benefits derived from Sunday rest are not sufficient to compensate men for any losses they may sustain thereby, they would better abandon it. It is certainly not consistent for them to ask the state to protect them against loss in trade by compelling others to rest when they rest. If men in one trade keeping one day need such protection, then men in all trades keeping all days whatsoever need, and are entitled to, the same protection. But no one in the District of Columbia needs or is entitled to such ‘protection,’ nor is it the province of civil government to grant it. “7. Because it implies an unwarranted assumption of power of man over man in both civil and religious affairs. It is not the province of the civil power to direct men by law in religious things, nor is it proper for it to treat as a crime any act of honest trade or toil whenever performed. Religious matters should be left to each individual soul and God, and only crime should be treated as crime. Not honest trade and toil, but oppression and persecution have been the bane and the ruin of civil government in all ages. “8. Because it makes a crime of an act performed on Sunday that is considered perfectly legitimate on any other day. It is the day rather than the deed, therefore, that is in question. It makes a crime also of the delivery of provisions after ten o’clock on Sunday in summertime that it permits before that hour during this season. Why this provision?—Presumably in order that there shall be no interference with ‘church attendance’ on that day. In this is revealed the religious character and intent of the bill. Crimes are not determined by the day nor the time of day when they are done. “9. Because it would establish a dangerous precedent for further legislation of the same character. This, if passed, will be simply ‘the camel’s nose in the tent.’ Other like measures restricting the rights and liberties of the people , and still further will be demanded later. “10. Because it is contrary to the law of God. It enjoins as a day of rest a day which the divine law includes among the six working days. As men have no right to attempt to enforce the worship enjoined in the law of God, they certainly have no right to attempt to change the law of God, and to enforce worship that is not enjoined in it, and that is contrary to it. To attempt to do so is neither Christian nor constitutional. “For these reasons, we respectfully but most earnestly urge that this bill be not passed. “For Congress to enter upon a course of religious legislation, requiring certain classes of citizens in the District of Columbia to cease doing business on Sunday, would be contrary to the express terms of the Constitution, a flagrant violation of one of the most sacred principles upon which the national government was founded,—that of religious liberty, with its consequent separation of church and state,—and would presage a revival of ecclesiastical domination and religious tyranny and oppression in this country. “We therefore wish to raise a note of warning against all legislation of this kind. Let us still have liberty in this country. Let the principles of the founders of this government prevail. Let bigotry and intolerance be repressed; let them find no footing in national legislation.”