THE MINISTERS AROUSED by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Nov 24, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 45.

"THE MINISTERS AROUSED."

By Editor

THE religious papers of New York are very much agitated over the matter of Sunday observance. About three weeks ago a large meeting of leading clergymen of New York and vicinity was held to consider the propriety of taking concerted action against the opening of the liquor saloons on Sunday. The Rev. Dr. John Hall was chairman of the meeting, and at his suggestion a committee was appointed to draw up resolutions expressing the sense of the meeting. They recommended that all the pastors be urgently requested to present to their people their duty regarding the maintenance and enforcement of the laws regarding the sale of liquors on Sunday; that a public meeting be called for the purpose of calling attention to the advantages to be derived by the whole community from the preservation of Sunday as a day of periodic rest; that the position of every candidate for election to the Senate or Assembly be definitely ascertained, and that they take steps to secure the defeat of any candidate who declines to pledge himself to defend Sunday laws; and that a committee be appointed to secure the dissemination of English and German reading matter upon the subject. All the denominations were represented on the committee that was called for in the last resolution, and it was stated that an effort would be made to get either Archbishop Corrigan or Mgr. Preston to represent the Roman Catholic Church in the committee.

The above facts are abridged from a report in the New York Observer, under the heading, "The Ministers Aroused." The concluding paragraph of the article is as follows:—

"Several of the ministers present made brief remarks, Dr. Hall suggesting that there should be special preaching on the matter in all the churches on the following Sunday. The tone of the meeting was one of intense earnestness. It is evident that the action of the liquor men in endeavoring to secure a repeal of the Sabbath laws has awakened a sentiment among the Christian people of the State that will make itself felt at the coming election."

If anything more were needed to show that this Sunday movement is simply a movement in favor of an establishment of religion, we find it in an expression in the Christian Union's account of the same meeting. It says of the effort to have saloons open on Sunday:

"The clergy can halt this movement for the destruction of the most sacred and eminent symbol of their holy religion, if they will."

This is a fair sample of all the movements to make Sunday laws. They take the guise of shutting up the saloons, and then those who do not believe in enforced Sunday observance, and do not join the movement, are denounced as enemies of temperance. We say emphatically that there is not the shadow of temperance principle in the effort to close saloons on Sunday. It is simply an entering wedge by the clergy to preserve "the most sacred and eminent symbol of their holy religion." It is an effort to secure by civil law that which "their holy religion" has not vitality enough to do. Now we are staunch friends of temperance; we are foes to the saloons, and would gladly and enthusiastically unite in any movement to close them altogether, seven days in the week. But no lover of religious liberty can join a pseudo-temperance movement, whose sole object is to force a religious custom (an unwarranted one at that) upon the people, leaving the saloons as much power as before.

While we place ourselves on record as uncompromisingly opposed to saloons, we wish to emphasize the statement that these Sunday movements are in the interest of the liquor traffic rather than against it. For (1) if there is power among the clergy to close the saloons one day in the week, there is power to close them every day in the week; and the fact that, having that power, they do not use it, shows that they are not really concerned over the ravages of the liquor traffic, provided it does not encroach upon the symbol of "their [not God's] holy religion;" and (2) the formal action of the clergy in taking steps to close the saloons only on Sunday, when they have the power to close them every day, gives the saloons standing in society; it is a sort of indorsement by the highest profession of the saloon for the last six days of the week.

Let it not be forgotten that in this effort to secure the preservation of "the most sacred and eminent symbol of their holy religion," the clergy are anxious to secure the co-operation of the Roman Catholic Church. They need not fear, for the Sunday institution is the most eminent, and indeed the only real symbol of the power of the Catholic Church, and she will guard her own. How complacently she must look upon the Protestants who are making themselves her willing servants. W.