IT IS CHURCH AND STATE.
By H. F. Phelps
Proved by Their Own Statements.
This city, St. Paul, Minn., seems to be rather conservative on the Sunday enforcement question; yet the virus is here to poison the body politic. A League has been formed, called the Christian Citizenship League. Whether this is the same as the Sunday-law Observance League, that was successful in the prosecution of the Sunday baseball team, or not, is not known to the writer. But the Christian Citizenship League is now organized as an auxiliary to the national League of the same name. Article 2 of the Constitution says:— “The objects of the League shall be the enforcement of the laws of the city and the state; to combat existing evils, especially such as result from violation of the liquor laws, unlawful Sunday labor, gambling, and the keeping of disreputable places; to arouse a healthy and intelligent interest on all questions concerning the welfare of our city and state, and to shape public opinion toward securing the nomination and election of competent and trustworthy men for public offices without respect to party lines.” A series of meetings called mass meetings is proposed, and one meeting has been held in the interests of the League and its work. The writer was in attendance; and it could hardly be called a mass meeting, for it is evident by their absence that the masses are not interested. If they were interested, or understood what is to be the direful results of the suppression of all “unlawful Sunday labor,” there would, no doubt, be created an enthusiasm that might result in the defeat of that part of the work of the League. But, being unaware of this, they are sleeping, while they are surely being bound and deprived of their liberties, through well-meaning but terribly mistaken organizations. At the meeting in question, one of the speakers, a prominent clergyman, said that there was in some manner a sort of a feeling that this work was church and state; he declared it was “as free from church and state as the laws against murder.” Yet in almost the same breath he made two statements that proved the denial to be without a foundation. In considering the Sunday saloon, its evils, and why it should be closed on Sunday, he said: “The great body of the American people keep Sunday.” And again, “We are simply saying, You can’t buy it [liquor] on Sunday.” An analysis of this proves conclusively that if there ever was a union of church and state, this is and will be such. Why do people keep Sunday? And why do those who keep it demand the enforcement of the laws against those who do not keep it? There is but one answer. It is because the Sunday is recognized by the church as a sacred day—an institution of the church. Were it not for this, we should never have heard of these leagues. More than this: These Sunday laws were secured through the influence and power of the church. Were this not so, we should never have heard of a Sunday law; for there is no other save the statute Sunday laws. Therefore, it stands like this: The church considers that Sunday should be observed as a day of rest. The church secured the statute Sunday laws. The church now demands their enforcement against dissenters. But they can not be enforced except by civil authority. If, therefore, the state, through civil officers, shall accede to these demands, it will be nothing less than a union of the two. And without this union, the demands of the church and this object of these Leagues would fall to the ground. In all this we impugn no one’s motives. They are no doubt sincere, but terribly mistaken. This we do know, and so we ask that the church should depend upon the power of the Gospel, and not on the power of the civil arm. H. F. PHELPS.