The California Legislature
The California Legislature adjourned sine die at 11:30 o’clock P. M. on the 16th ult. In the history of this body for the past eighteen years the session just closed was unique from the fact that the question of Sunday observance was not in any way brought into its deliberations. No subject was introduced that in any way involved the question; and it can not be said that this result was because this particular Legislature was inferior to its predecessors in individual regard for the day as an institution. At the session of eighteen years ago, the old Sunday law was repealed because of a sudden outburst of radical enforcement after it had lain dormant for twenty years. And at every session since that time until the one just closed, there has been an effort to re-enact the law. At no time, however, has the effort originated with members of the Legislature. In every case the bill has been introduced at the instance of clergymen, on the pretext that the people wanted it, notwithstanding the fact that the people had voted the repeal by over seventeen thousand majority. Very heavy pressure has been brought at previous sessions, both upon the people to demand and upon the legislatures to enact a Sunday law, but so far the providence of God has overruled to ward off the infliction upon the State; for which providence there ought to be general thanksgiving that religious liberty still has a footing in the republic.