RELIGIOUS LIBERTY VINDICATED.
Some time ago we noted the fact that there was before the Louisiana Legislature a bill providing that any one convicted of doing business on Sunday should forfeit his license to do business at all for a period of twelve months. A correspondent of the Southern Watchman (Nashville, Tenn.) says that the bill has been defeated. Thus Louisiana has, for the time being, at least, declared for religious liberty. Of course this proposed law, as all such measures do, emanated from men professing to be ministers of the Gospel. It was an attempt to practically carry out a program suggested by the National Reform leaders when that movement was in its infancy, namely, to banish those who persisted in ignoring the Sunday institution. This bill was in harmony with the sentiment of a prominent “evangelist,” in which he said:— I want to see the day come when the church shall be the arbiter of all legislation, state, national, and municipal; when the great churches of the country can come together harmoniously, and issue their edict, and the legislative powers will respect it, and enact it into laws.
This is the sentiment of a large and growing class of ecclesiastics and sympathizers, which is by no means strongest in Louisiana. That it has, for the time, been defeated by the better judgment of the Legislature of 1904, does not mean that it is annihilated. It is the expression of the spirit of the Dark Ages, which, altho checked by the rise of the Reformation, is fast gaining foothold as the spirit of Protestantism wanes. In giving it this temporary check, the law-making power of Louisiana has done an act of justice to her people, and done honor to the spirit of true liberty, for which the greater republic was established and nominally stands. So now the three happiest countries for the Catholic religion, the three where it has the greatest liberty, are Germany, Great Britain, and the United States, three predominately Protestant countries; while the three countries in which the Catholic Church feels itself most under unwelcome restraint are Italy, France, and Spain, three Catholic countries. Here is a chance for students of freedom of religious thought to draw a lesson.—New York Independent.