Religious Liberty Collection, March 12
By J. S. WASHBURN
THE question of religious liberty in this country is not a dead issue. The writer had a personal interview a few weeks ago with Rev. W. F. Crafts, the head of the International Reform Bureau. He is zealous, active, determined, and is doing a practical work. He seems actually to believe that God has called him to Christianize the American government, and that progress is being made to that end. Eight laws have been passed by Congress at the request of the Bureau; and in a way that we can not understand, Mr. Crafts is able to secure the printing of his National Reform literature at public expense, and have it sent out as Congressional documents. I have now before me “Senate Document 150,” “Moral Legislation in Congress, Passed and Pending,” presented by Senator Gallinger, of New Hampshire; Feb. 8, 1904, ordered to be printed. This is filled with genuine National Reform teaching subversive of every principle of free government. And you and I and all American citizens are taxed to thus advertise the national apostasy. Two Sunday laws were introduced into the present Congress. On one of these a public hearing was held before the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, but no one who would oppose the bill was apprised of the hearing until after it had passed. The situation is evidently more favorable for a District Sunday law than ever before. Surely “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” We trust there will be a liberal collection on March 12 throughout all our churches for the religious liberty work.